Hope and Other Punch Lines(49)

“There,” he says.

He doesn’t touch his camera. He looks at me. I force myself to look up at him, force my eyes to meet his eyes. Because if I don’t, then this won’t happen. I might not know much, but I know that. If I don’t look at him, if I am not brave, we may well spend the rest of my very short life debating whether we like Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay better than the original, and that’s not really how I want to peace out.

I look up and he keeps looking at me, and then he steps even closer. When I breathe out, my chest brushes against his.

I’m not staring at his eyes, I’m looking at his mouth. He moves in closer, and then he kisses me, once, lightly, on the lips. Sweet and gentle and so perfect my knees buckle.

“What do you think?” he asks, and for once, I’m speechless. I nod, which is the closest I can get to what I really want to say, which, is, in Oliver-like fashion, Please, sir, I want some more. Noah reaches his right hand into my hair, behind my ear, and brings me toward him, and he kisses me again, surer this time. I’m kissing him too, and my back is up against the pink wall, and when I hear a car honk as it drives past, I barely notice.

Real kissing. My thoughts aren’t thoughts anymore. I’m all sensation. Chills and butterflies and warmth in an addictive swirl. A tiny moan escapes, and I’m not sure if it’s Noah or me or maybe both of us in tandem.

I realize I do not want to die in a blaze of glory. I don’t care much about my legacy. I was wrong too to think I’d just chug along until I stopped. I want to kiss Noah for as long as I’m allowed. Honestly, if I have any say in the matter, this seems a spectacular way to spend the rest of my one wild and precious life.





Abbi melts the moment she sees Jamal Eggers. I get it. He looks like an action-movie hero—white T-shirt, cut arms, shaved head. I showed Jack pictures of Jamal last night—not the Baby Hope one, but ones on his IMDB page—and after then going down a YouTube rabbit hole of watching him sing on Broadway and star in a Hallmark Christmas movie, Jack said, Oh my God, I want to have his babies.

I’m not really worried about Abbi and Jamal. We just kissed. No, we made out is a better way to put it—kissing suggests timidity—and if she enjoyed it even half as much as I did, I’m safe.

“Never thought I’d get to meet you properly. But here you are. You look happy. That’s great,” Jamal says, and takes Abbi’s hand and gently kisses the back of it. Like with Sheila and even Chuck, this could be awkward or creepy or both, but somehow it turns out to be none of the above. He comes off sweet and gentlemanly. I want to take lessons. “I don’t know if anyone else said this too, but I feel sort of protective of you. Like you belong to us survivors, you know?”

“Thanks, I guess. The whole thing is still weird,” Abbi says, and her cheeks flush an adorable pink.

“I didn’t mean it like you’re a mascot or anything. It does this old man’s heart good to know you’re okay, that’s all. You matter to me.” We are in Jamal’s loft apartment in Hoboken, and though I don’t usually notice things like furniture, this place looks like it could be in a magazine. A futuristic sculpture stands by the front door. Delicate blue vases of various heights sit on a metal table. The floor-to-ceiling bookcases are filled with hardback books organized by color.

“Thanks. I’m good. I mean, there’s…Yeah, no, I’m good. Come on, you’re not really old,” Abbi says, and I think, Don’t be fooled by his muscles—yes, he is.

“Turned forty a few months ago. Suddenly you discover you’re not going to live forever. You would have thought I’d have figured that out a long time ago, but nope.” Jamal sits back and lets his long arms drape along the back of his couch. Is he trying to show off his biceps? Because he is.

“Are you okay? I mean, are you healthy?” Abbi asks.

“You heard about Connie?” he asks.

“I did,” she says.

“Nothing like that. At least, not yet, if that’s what you’re asking. I have asthma, and I caught pneumonia last year, but nothing major. My husband thinks it was my midlife crisis manifesting itself. Between you and me, I’d rather have gotten a Porsche.”

We laugh this time, and a word I’ve never before used in my life, a word my mother loves, pops into my head: charisma. I kind of want to have his babies.

“It’s strange. Realizing you’re almost halfway there, halfway done with life. And to know how goddamn lucky I’ve been. Noah, you said you had questions. Ask me anything. I’m an open book.”

“Can you tell us what you remember about that day, especially from the moment in the photo and onward?” I ask.

“I ran for my life and didn’t stop running until I was over the Brooklyn Bridge. Luckily, at the time, I was training for the marathon. That came in handy,” he says.

“Did you talk to any of the other people in the photo?” I ask.

“That day? No way. We were all running for our lives. You only think of us as a unit because we were captured together in that one single moment. We didn’t know each other before. We were all strangers.”

“What about afterward?” I ask.

“At the first anniversary, I met a few of them and thought we should try to form a support group or something. Thought we’d understand each other. For a while afterward—for a long time, if I’m honest—I had nightmares. Still do sometimes. You were too little or I would have invited you to join,” he says, looking at Abbi.