By Any Other Name(27)

“Could you not hover over me while I do this?” he asks.

I back off and move to the window to give him space. Even though I wasn’t hovering, merely trying to help.

Truthfully, it’s nicer at the window, getting away from the gravitational pull of Noah’s negativity. I gaze outside at the bright afternoon, watching one of the red CitySights buses lumber down my block. This line of hop-on-hop-off bus tours passes my apartment an average of five times a day. A speaker blasts the same recorded spiel each time. Like everyone else on East Forty-Ninth Street, I have it memorized. I could recite it in my sleep.

“Katharine Hepburn lived for more than sixty years in this Turtle Bay brownstone . . .” I say along with the recorded speech.

“Did you just do the tour bus monologue?” Noah snickers from the couch.

“No,” I say. “Okay, yes. I didn’t realize I said it out loud. When you’ve lived someplace for seven years, you sort of become one with its soundtrack.” I glance at him, wondering if he knows what the hell I’m talking about. It’s probably quiet as a tomb in his penthouse thirty-four stories above Central Park.

“Do the M50 bus,” he says.

Without thinking, I deliver a serviceable impression of rusty brakes, rumbling hydraulics, and the drone of the accessibility ramp being lowered. Then I remember Noah Ross is staring at me, and I get embarrassed and go silent.

I’ve clearly embarrassed him, too, because he doesn’t even acknowledge my attempt at being a bus. He only stares at me, then changes the subject: “So Katharine Hepburn lived here?”

“She lived across the street, which is why it costs about ten grand more a month to live over there. I went to look at her brownstone once, when it was listed. A friend got me into a pocket open house. It was really nice. You could picture her there, having toast and tea and giving Spencer Tracy the business.”

“You like Katharine Hepburn?” he says.

“She’s Katharine Hepburn.” What more is there to say?

“What’s your favorite of her movies?”

“Adam’s Rib,” I say, hoping that film’s battle-of-the-sexes theme isn’t lost on him. “Bringing Up Baby is great, too. What’s your favorite?”

He’s looking at me funny, just refusing to hold up his end of the conversation.

“Wait.” My heart lifts. “Are you getting a book idea?”

He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “No, Lanie, you did not just solve everything by reciting a tour bus speech.”

“You say that like it would be a bad thing. . . .”

“This may come as a surprise to you,” he says, “but I would like to write another book. I’m here, aren’t I? I am even entertaining this absurd proposal of yours.” He shakes my list at me.

“Oh, you are entertaining it? Because I thought you were just crossing shit out.”

“I’ve narrowed it down to five . . . experiences I am open to having with you.”

“Five out of fifty?” I say. “My houseplants have better odds of survival, and my houseplants live a dismal life.”

“Five items have made the cut,” Noah says, “if you can agree to my conditions.”

I feel my brows knit together. “Conditions?”

“Why don’t you sit back down and I’ll explain?”

“Thanks for the invitation,” I say, sitting back down in my own pink tweed recliner. He is so irritating. “Talk.”

“I can agree to the following,” Noah says, consulting the page. “The medieval gardens at the Cloisters; the Minetta Brook in the West Village; Seven Thousand Oaks in Chelsea; Breezy Point in Queens; and Poe Cottage in the Bronx.”

These are fine selections. I signal my approval with a slight nod. “And your conditions?”

“We’re going to alternate,” he says. “We visit one site from your list. And then one site of my choosing.”

No, no, no. My list was carefully selected. Intentional. Productive. I feel confident that if I agree to this condition, Noah Ross is going to make a joke of the endeavor. And I’ll end up wasting my time at some depressing outer-borough diner.

“I’ll take it seriously,” he says. “I promise.”

I swallow. I don’t really have a choice. “Then I agree.”

“Good. Condition number two,” he says, “we don’t meet here again.”

I glance around. “Here, meaning my apartment? What is your problem with my apartment?”

“It’s distracting. Can we just agree to meet at the sites from now on?”

“Fine,” I say. “Anything else, Highness?”

“One more,” he says. “Once we agree on an idea . . . assuming we can agree on an idea, you leave me alone to write it. No babysitting. No Fifty Ways to get Noah to Chapter Two lists, et cetera.”

I think about my trial promotion, how so many things will have to go right in order for it to become permanent. How hard it will be to trust this man to make them go right. Part of me would love a good long respite from interacting with him. The other part of me is scared he’ll fuck it up.

I take a breath and meet his eyes. “We will agree on an idea, because we have to. And once we do, if you can assure me I’ll have a draft in my hands by May fifteenth, you won’t hear so much as a peep out of me.”