Page 107 of After Anna

Noah faced front, masking his surprise. He hadn’t seen Jordan since the NAAAI conference in Miami last May. It never occurred to him that she’d come to his trial, and she looked terrific. She had a gorgeous face with big green eyes, a cute nose, and a dazzling smile. Great hair, longish. Of course a killer body. She worked for AstraZeneca, and he remembered when they met at the NAAAI conference in Dallas. His buddies had told him to stop by Jordan’s booth, since he was a widower.

Meanwhile, Linda was asking, “Dr. Kapoor, did you produce a report in connection with Anna’s autopsy?”

“Yes.”

Noah tuned her out again. He’d found himself strolling along the trade floor, a massive grid of blue-draped booths staffed by reps hawking meds, instruments, coding software, and billing systems, dispensed with logo T-shirts, crappy pens, totebags, and stress balls in company colors, plus jellybeans, Hershey’s Kisses, and in season, candy corn.

The autopsy report came on the screen, and Linda faced the witness stand. “Dr. Kapoor, what is your conclusion about how Anna died?”

“By manual strangulation.”

“What is that process, in layman’s terms?”

“The air supply through the trachea, or windpipe, is cut off by the hands of another person, leading to hypoxia, or lack of oxygen, and death. The obstruction of the windpipe produces a sound calledstridor, which is a wheezing, grating noise unique to death by strangulation.”

Linda paused while the jury reacted, aghast, and Noah stopped listening, preoccupied by Jordan. She’d approached him on the floor of the tradeshow, flashing her fitness-instructor smile, extending a hand.

I’m Jordan Nowicki.Pleased to meet you.

Noah, he had said, as if he didn’t have a last name. She would tease him about it later, in bed. (I swear, you were tongue-tied. It was like you never talked to a woman before.)

What’s your specialty, Dr. Noah?

Noah is my first name. My last name is Alderman.

I know. I can read your name tag. You’re so serious. I think I’ll call you No-ha. So what’s your specialty, No-ha?

I’m a pediatric allergist. Noah fumbled the answer, even though it was the first question that every rep asked, probably from the handbook. (Get them talking about themselves, establish a rapport, then pitch your crap.)

Oh, that must be so much fun, working with children. I love kids.

Yes, it is fun, Noah had said, finding his bearings. It was the second thing every rep said to him, especially the single women. (He always heard the subtext,I would be a good mother to your son. Ask me out.) It never worked because he couldn’t bear to think of another woman taking Karen’s place. But Jordan had been so distinctly unqualified for that, being so young, that Noah had felt it was okay to be with her.

Jordan had touched his arm.I have a little brother who has asthma, and I love his allergist.

Actually, the majority of my practice is asthma patients.

That’s so awesome! You guys save lives!

No, not really,Noah had said. It was obvious flattery, but if she had a brother with asthma, she was kind of right.

My little brother wasn’t diagnosed until he was nine. He almost collapsed at a track meet. He has stress asthma. My mom thanks God every day for his allergist.

That’s nice, Noah had said, realizing how young she must have been, just from the way she saidmy mom. He would find out later that she was twenty-three to his forty, and petite, five-one to his six-one, so she was looking up at him like an Allergy God. Karen would’ve laughed her ass off, and normally, so would Noah, but he didn’t feel like laughing, looking down at Jordan. He did feel like smiling, however.

No-ha, where are you from?

Philadelphia.

Jordan’s lovely face had lit up.I knew I liked you! It’s because we both have a Philadelphia accent!

I beg your pardon,Noah had shot back in a mock English accent, and Jordan had burst into laughter like he was the funniest man on the planet. He’d known she was selling him, but after Karen’s illness and death, the chemo protocols, the radiation burns, the counting of millimeters and cells, Jordan had felt like the first day of spring after a long winter, a new flower in bloom. He remembered even now that she smelled great.

Noah hadn’t felt ready to ask Jordan out, even after she’d plied him with T-shirts and keychains, but he’d thought about her through the panel he was moderating, Childhood Asthma: It’s All About That Bacteria. And that same night, he’d run into her at the elevator, and she had asked him to have a drink at the rooftop bar. He’d said yes, and, two scotches later, he’d taken her to bed. And the next morning, he had missed the Chronic Rhinosinusitis panel, but he didn’t mind at all.

Noah remembered every detail of her, in bed. They had spent so much time there, her with the rowdy enthusiasm of a healthy young girl, and him trying to remember pleasure, laughter, and light, trying to find a way back into life itself. Somehow her youth had been all of that for him, and Jordan hadn’t been looking for marriage or kids. At least that was what she’d said in the beginning.

Noah remembered she’d wanted to meet Caleb, but he’d kept putting it off. His partners had found out about her when she’d dropped by the office in her Miata, with its WE ARE PENN STATE bumpersticker. She’d brought him his phone, which he’d left at her apartment, and when he’d introduced her around the office, he’d been kidded later. (She might not be wife material, but she sure as hell is babysitter material.)