Page 27

My goal is to make my apartment a completely neutral site, where the water stains on my windowsill and the lopsided lampshade in the entry hall won’t distract us from focusing on Noa Callaway’s next book.

The trouble is, I’m realizing how much in my apartment speaks volumes about me. Volumes that I don’t want Noah Ross to hear. My vintage bar cart, for example, boasting BD’s blown glass cocktail shaker, martini set, and the collection of bespoke vermouths left over from the New Year’s Eve party when Rufus and I went a little too nuts on Negronis. I stare at it now for ten minutes, wondering if its prominent place in my living room saysyour editor knows how to have funoryour editor knows how to black out on a Monday night. I wheel it all the rattling way into my bedroom before I realize that if, on the off chance, Noah Ross were to open my bedroom door, thinking it was the bathroom, it would be way worse for him to see my bedside speakeasy.

Then there’s my bookshelf. My carefully curated pride and joy, whose space is so limited I feel it keeps me honest. But now I’m wondering: Is it serious enough? Is it light enough? Is it diverse enough? Is it classic enough? Are Noa Callaway’s books prominent enough? Are theytooprominent?

Noah is going to be looking at this shelf and forming opinions about it, about me. We’re book people. It’s what we do. Should I try to make room for the copy ofWar and PeaceI use as a doorstop in my closet?

“I know it looks like I’m losing my mind,” I say to Alice, who is glaring at the robot vacuum from the safety of her dog bed. “But sometimes, this is what being a boss looks like.”

Noah is supposed to arrive at three o’clock, when the south-facing windows of my living room let in their softest light. By two-fifty, I’ve changed out of sweats and into a white peasant blouse and what Meg calls my “adult jeans,” because they need to be ironed. Though I’m tempted to put on the Fendi suit again, just to fuck with him.

I’ve got my French press packed with freshly ground espresso, a clean fridge chilling whole milk,andalmond milk, and damn it, I bought something called oat milk, too—okay, Terry? I’ve got Pellegrino and a box of pastries from the only bakery in midtown Aude finds edible. All that and a stomach full of nerves.

I don’t know whether my Fifty Ways plan is actually going to work, but that’s not even on today’s menu of worries. Today is about getting him to agree to try it out.

At two fifty-eight, I position myself at my bedroomwindow, overlooking the entrance to my building. I may or may not be hiding behind my ficus plant when a black town car slows to a stop on the street below.

“Typical,” I mutter, thinking what ahassleit must have been for Noah to be chauffeured down here in his town car’s heated seats.

But then, the driver comes around to open the back door, and out slides a blond woman in a floor-length rabbit fur coat. She’s toting four sweater-vested shih tzus and an extra-long selfie-stick. I’m waiting for Noah to get out after her, for this to be his type. Instead the driver closes the door, waves goodbye to the woman, and the next thing I notice is a commotion on the street corner.

It’s Noah Ross, arriving on foot from an unknown direction, staring into his phone—and getting fully entangled in four shih tzu leashes. He hops to get free of one leash then ensnares himself in two more. The woman with the dogs is getting really pissed. The dogs are yapping as she brandishes her selfie-stick at Noah and yanks her leashes so violently he almost bites it on the pavement.

Here I’d been so nervous to host a man currently getting tag-teamed by four specks of fur in argyle. I smile to myself and enjoy the show.

Until my buzzer rings.

Then I scramble to the phone in the hallway, pick it up, and jam my finger on the pound sign to unlock the downstairs door. After that comes the hardest part: the wait for him to walk up five flights of stairs.

I use the time to take a final look around my apartment. At the last moment, my gaze falls on the framed photograph of Ryan and me at the Nationals game on the night we got engaged. We’re grinning, cheek to cheek, and he’s holding up my hand to show the ring, which was too small to get over my knuckle so it sits jammed midway down my finger. I hate how I look in the picture: deer-in-the-headlights with mascara all the way down to my chin from crying. But Ryan had the photo enlarged, matted, and framed, so it hangs on the wall near the window. The look on my face is so intimate that suddenly I know I can’t bear for Noah Ross to see it. I snatch it off the wall just as my doorbell rings.

“Be right there!” I shout, frantically looking for a place to stash the frame. The lower shelf of my coffee table is an understated mausoleum of old magazines. I wedge the frame between some oldCosmos andNew Yorkers then steel myself to let Noah in.

You can do this. BD believes in you.

“Hello!” I say, forcing brightness into my voice as I swing open my door.

And there he is. His hair is damp from a shower, and he’s dressed up in a linen collared shirt, dark blue slacks, and stylish brown leather brogues. His pea coat is draped over his arm—no one can do a five-floor walk-up wearing that much wool.

I just saw him downstairs through my window, but it’s startling to face him at close range. I still have trouble believing thatheis Noa Callaway. I’m still, to be honest, pretty madabout it. He looks flushed, a little off, and I remind myself he’s just climbed seventy-eight stairs and been accosted by shih tzus, so I give him a moment’s grace.

“What can I get you to drink?” I say.

He steps through my doorway as if into an active volcano. “This is... your apartment?”

“Home sweet home,” I say.

We both survey the scene of my one-bedroom pre-war walk-up. Lovingly furnished with estate-sale finds and BD’s hand-me-downs and lived in for six years by yours truly.

“I didn’t realize the address Terry gave me was your home,” Noah says, determined to harp on this.

“Where did you assume I had invited you?”

“Idon’t make assumptions,” he says.

“How benevolent,” I say and let him stew in whatever he’s trying to insinuate about my apartment. I refuse to apologize for the state of my living quarters, even as I can’t help wishing I’d made room forWar and Peaceon the bookshelf.

I become aware of an acute discomfort in Noah. He’s stuck in the doorway and doesn’t seem to know what to do.