“I hope it isn’t only a flash,” Edward said. “I’d want to taste the caviar.” He leaned toward her. “And your lips.”
How could fifty years of kissing the same man still evoke that stir within her? The answer was that it hadn’t always, not every single time. There were kisses given for the children’s benefit—see how steady Mommy and Daddy are? There were kisses on ballroom stages, after one of them gave a speech accepting an award. There were kisses one whole summer when she might as well have spat in Edward’s face. But that was decades ago by now. And today, at seventy-seven, the most surprising thing of all: He could still kiss her in Central Park and make her want to take him straight to bed.
“Which of our picnics would you most like to experience at the end? With all your senses.”
“You want me to list my favorite of our picnics? We’ll be here all night.”
She sipped her wine and smiled at him. “I’ll cancel my other plans.”
He took another bite of blini and gazed across the Pond, where a lovely young woman jogged across the Gapstow Bridge. “All right, you want my favorites? We could start with last week’s picnic.”
“Is that because your memory is going?” Elizabeth teased.
He took her hand across the table. “It’s because of the red dress you wore.”
When I come to the end of the first scene, I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. I love how Noah chose to open the novel with this prologue set in the present before we zip back in time to how they met.
I’m also relieved by his characterizations. I’d been nervous he might turn my Edward and Elizabeth into a couple I didn’t recognize. But from this opening scene, the lovers I’ve long admired feel true. They read like the people I’d hoped they would be, as vibrant on the page as they’ve always seemed to me when I’ve marveled at them from the Gapstow Bridge.
And, hold up . . . did he give me a cameo on page one?
I smile, reading on, expecting the next scene to deal with a much younger Edward and Elizabeth.
Instead, Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine takes place only a week before the previous chapter. It’s brief and told from Edward’s point of view, and he really does like that red dress. I read ahead quickly, curious about the structure. Soon I realize what Noah is doing.
He’s writing their story backward.
As a reader, this thrills me. As an editor, it scares me. It will be one hell of an ambitious undertaking to get the story to hang together right. It’s like diving backward off a cliff into the ocean. It requires faith—and deep enough water.
I read on, drawn into the story. Out my window, the light fades to evening as I experience Edward and Elizabeth’s love in reverse. Grown children become pregnancies, then glimmers in the lovers’ eyes. Notable careers give way to apprenticeships and amateur mistakes. There’s a summer Edward and Elizabeth spend every picnic fighting. Reading this era from finish to start, I find such beauty in how they lean on love to forgive each other, even before I know the nature of the betrayal. Noah has included some of Edward’s poetry, and I’m touched to find inspiration taken from my own grandfather’s rhymes. There’s a racy scene in the back of a taxi. Another—even hotter—in a beachfront hut in Mexico. I know I’m alone in my office, but I blush reading them, my mind unable to resist casting Noah in Edward’s role.
Before I know it, my teapot is empty, my headphone batteries dead, and I have arrived at the last chapter. I’m almost sad to be here, but I can’t wait to see how it ends—or rather, how it begins.
I turn the page.
CHAPTER ONE
The rest is blank.
Is this a typo? Did he send the wrong file? Or has Noah not written how Edward and Elizabeth met?
* * *
I trek to three fancy grocery stores in the pouring rain that night before I find the red-and-white-checked picnic basket I had in mind. Now, at Zabar’s, I pay dearly to fill the basket with fried chicken, dill pickles, cheddar biscuits, and a nice bottle of California zin à la Edward and Elizabeth’s favorite meal in Noa’s book. I throw in a bag of organic baby carrots for Javier Bardem.
A quick recap of my day: Since breakfast, I have violated my NDA a second time by confiding in Meg about Noah; I have edited the novel that may save my career, and fretted over the issue that may end it—Noah potentially putting his name on this book. I emailed Sue to let her know the manuscript is fabulous, and that I submitted it for ARCs. I got an immediate reply: Congratulations, Editorial Director. Now, instead of going home to pack for my transatlantic voyage tomorrow, I am packing a surprise picnic for Noah as a gesture of my love and gratitude for this book. The weather will ensure it’s a living room picnic, but I’ve heard it’s the thought that counts.
Huddled with my picnic offerings under my crappy umbrella, I ring his bell at the outer gate of Pomander Walk.
“Hello?” He sounds tinny through the speaker.
“It’s Lanie!”
There’s a pause. It feels long. Too long. Is he waiting for me to explain my presence? That would be understandable. But how do I explain my presence? Why didn’t I call before I came?
Then, suddenly, the gate buzzes and unlocks. I dash inside and up the stairs. He meets me at ye olde streetlight in the middle of the garden. His feet are bare, his T-shirt getting wet. My mind goes back to our hug in the train station the last time we’d been together. I wouldn’t say no to an encore . . .
“You’re soaked,” he says, and waves me to his stoop.
Once we’re inside, and Noah closes the door on the storm, it’s suddenly so quiet that I get the chills. All the nice things I was going to say about his book flee my mind.
“You’re here about the last chapter,” he says.
“I’m here because I adore the book!”
“You do?” He looks surprised.
“Here’s a celebration.” I hold out the basket. He trades me for a towel. As I dry off, I watch him open and examine the picnic. He smiles, but it’s one of his cautious smiles, from our early days.
“Aren’t you leaving for Italy tomorrow?”
He sounds so serious.
“I do have a packing party scheduled with some friends in about an hour,” I say. “I was just . . . dropping this off—”
“I won’t keep you.” He’s looking at his phone, typing something, which seems a little rude.
“Oh,” I say. He wants me to leave. How obvious is it that I want to stay? I should go. Right now. But—“I was also wondering about the last chapter . . .”