By Any Other Name(49)

“Sure,” I say, accidentally deciding not to call it off. I step inside Noah’s apartment and close the door. “What is happening?” I whisper as I attempt to acclimate to my surroundings.

It must be said: It’s a beautiful studio apartment. Polished wood floors, a working fireplace, low ceilings but lots of natural light. The furniture is elegant mid-century, the kitchen tiny but well appointed.

It’s very nice, but it’s not so much nicer than my own apartment. I have more square footage, and an actual wall between my bed and the front door—so where does he get off demanding that we never meet at my place again?

But then, I think about our day today—how nice it’s been, our rapport so different than it was at my apartment. There is a chance that I misread something about Noah’s attitude that day.

I tour his apartment cautiously. There are certainly more plants than I expected—succulents and baby palms, orchids and bamboo, all of them thriving and green. There’s framed art on nearly every inch of wall space—including a masterful Kehinde Wiley that I recognize from his Ferguson series. There’s a surfboard in the corner, a metal trashcan with pictures of all the presidents up to Reagan, which tells me Noah’s probably had this since he was a little boy. There’s a beer-making kit on the windowsill that looks like he took it out of the box but never actually brewed anything. There’s a stack of old Playbills under a lamp—the one on top is from Oh, Hello, the Broadway show Rufus and I laughed our asses off at a few years ago on his birthday. There’s no bookshelf that I can see, only a short stack of poetry books on the coffee table. Lucille Clifton, Paul Celan, Heather Christle. I approve.

I open the Christle and sink onto a leather couch just as Noah comes in with the sushi. Javier Bardem hops in from out of nowhere and Noah scoops him up.

“I thought I’d find you by the books,” he says, turning to me. “Is this okay? Are you comfortable?” His expression suggests that I am very uncomfortable.

“Sure,” I say, holding up the Christle book. “She’s really good.”

“I have her other collections at my office,” he says, moving into the kitchen where I hear the rustle of unpacking sushi. “Most of my books are there.”

“It’s funny,” I say, “I just found out my grandfather wrote poetry.”

He looks at me through the galley window of the kitchen, eyebrows raised. And so I find myself telling Noah Ross about Drenthe, and the war, and how BD had FedExed me a giant Ziploc bag of poetry this week. I tell him how, reading it, I’d felt a new kinship with my grandfather; I wasn’t the only weirdo in my family of doctors to ever care about words on a page. Saying all this aloud feels meaningful, and I’m glad to have Noah here to listen.

“If you hadn’t sent me those tulips,” I say, “I wouldn’t have understood that my mother planted tulips for her father. I wouldn’t have looked this closely to find the reason I’ve always loved the simple way they bloom. Because of her. Because of him.”

“I think what you’re talking about is the second draft effect,” Noah calls from the kitchen.

I rise from the couch and go to the kitchen, where I find him plating sushi like a chef. “Explain.”

“You know how the second draft is the point where things start to make sense?” he says, taking out real chopsticks from a drawer, tossing aside the disposable ones. “It’s why I blaze through my first drafts so quickly—to get there.”

I know what Noah means. Back in the garden with my mother, that was the first draft. Exploring the cool, damp soil between my toes. The curving yellow stripes of a caterpillar wriggling across a leaf. The weight of my mother’s hands over mine as she showed me how to pack the bulbs into the earth. The sunny sound of her voice when we sang Lucinda Williams songs together, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.” The pleasure of being with her overwhelmed my power to know what it all meant.

Time and space and losing her, emails with Noah, talks with BD, and the Ziploc bag of poems have given things a new perspective. I can shine a light on the meaning that was always there. It feels like getting a little more of my mother and my grandfather than I’d had before.

“Can I help?” I ask.

It’s too late to help, and this is not accidental. Meg would have called me out—Classic Lanie! But Noah has done a far better job setting up this feast than I could have. There are little dishes for soy sauce and ponzu and ginger, ceramic chopstick holders. He’s even transferred the miso soup to actual bowls. It looks elegant and delicious.

“I think we’re ready,” he says, carrying the sushi to a marble table by the fireplace. I find myself watching the way he walks, blushing when he looks back and catches me.

There’s a carrot roll for Javier Bardem to enjoy at his own small table. For several moments, I fall into the cute vortex of watching a bunny eat sushi.

“I need to expand Alice’s palate,” I say, thinking of the iceberg lettuce she had for breakfast.

“Chessboard’s by the window if you want to set it up,” Noah says, heading back into the kitchen. “I can make green tea,” he calls, “or open a bottle of sake?”

“Sake,” I say, finding the board and moving it to the table. “We’re celebrating.”

“What are we celebrating?” he asks from the kitchen. I hear the smile in his voice.