By Any Other Name(54)

The next time these doors open, we’ll be on Roosevelt Island. After that we’ll be all the way in Queens. I look at Noah. A silent verdict passes between us. We bolt off the train just before the doors slam shut, and land in the station at Sixty-Third and Lex, where we double over, laughing.

“I cannot believe I did that!” I say, trying to catch my breath. “It’s your fault for distracting me with your terrible impression.”

“I think it’s a sign,” Noah says. “I think you were meant to take a sunset stroll with me through Central Park tonight.”

I meet his eyes, not laughing anymore. His smile quickens my pulse.

“But you said you didn’t want to get a drink with Bernadette. I thought . . . Don’t you have plans?”

“I didn’t want to get a drink with Bernadette,” he says, still looking at me. “But I’d love to take a walk with you.”

We stare at each other for a supercharged few seconds, and that’s when I feel it. It’s not just attraction I have for Noah. There’s something between us. He feels it, too.

I should not go for a walk with him right now. I should go home and . . . is cold showering really a thing that people do?

But what if this walk becomes the moment that inspiration strikes? What if I pass on the chance to be there, because I was worried I was starting to think about Noah in subway-fantasy-material ways?

“Can I show you my favorite place in New York?” I say, pretending la-di-da, that no part of me wants to jump his bones.

“Is it the Austrian Cultural Forum?” he asks, then ducks before I can smack him.

I lead him to the Gapstow Bridge. It’s cold but not windy, a rare evening where I’m wearing the exact right amount of layers. It’s dusk. The light is glowy pink and enchanting. I’ve walked this path hundreds of times, but it’s never looked as pretty to me as it does tonight. We pause at the center of the bridge and gaze across the pond.

“This is your spot?” he says.

“I started coming here when I was twenty-two, before I got the job at Peony. I’d stop here and look out at the city, and entertain my wildest dreams.”

“And when you stand here now,” he says, “what do you dream of?”

“You getting a book idea,” I say, half joking.

“Is that—” Noah says, leaning forward, his hand shielding his eyes from the last of the sun. I follow his gaze, and I see them. The couple walking toward the pond. They’re bundled up. They’re holding hands. They have their picnic basket and travel table in tow.

“Edward and Elizabeth,” I whisper.

He turns to me, wide-eyed. “You know them?”

“After a fashion,” I say, and then—

“They do this every week.” We say the words at the same time. We stare at each other, astonishment in our eyes.

“I’ve been watching them for years!” I say.

“Me, too.” Noah sounds bewildered. “They’ve probably had two thousand picnics in Central Park.”

We turn our attention to the couple. They’ve set up their picnic, put the lantern on the table. They’re holding hands, just talking, as they always do before they eat.

“This is the book,” Noah whispers.

I’m so hung up on the coincidence that it takes me a moment to register his words.

“The book,” I finally say. “Wait. This is the book? They are the book?”

He looks at me. He nods. I clap my hand over my mouth.

“This is the book!” I shout out gleefully, my head flung back and arms spread wide.

“When I look at them,” he says, eagerly, pacing the bridge as he thinks, “I see nineteen-year-olds on their first date.”

“Keep going,” I say.

He speaks quickly, excited. “I see the proposal a year later, and then a breakup, and then a second proposal. A wedding one parent can’t attend. Children underfoot. I see the kids grown up and moved away. I see betrayals, hailstorms, poems scrawled in birthday cards. Pets. Cold chicken. Trips to the in-laws’, lean years, and Saturday matinees.”

“In other words,” I say, “the full rhapsodic spectacle of life.”

He looks at me, his eyes a potent green. “Exactly.”

A shiver passes through me.

“How do they meet?”

Noah tilts his head. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Our eyes lock again and I smile because I love this idea, because he can write it, because it will be beautiful. And worth the wait.

We did it. Against all odds, we found an idea. We should be celebrating—and yet . . . I feel an unexpected pang in my heart. Noah’s words at my apartment come back to me—his final condition that, once we agreed on a concept, I’d leave him alone to write it.

Which means it’s the end of our Fifty Ways adventures. The end of our newly enjoyable in-person hangs. Noah has eight weeks to write a book . . . and I have eight weeks to wait for it.

This is fine. This is good. This is what I wanted. Then why does it feel bittersweet?

“Isn’t it funny?” I say. “We’ve both been watching them all these years. . . . Do you think we ever passed each other in the park? Maybe on this very bridge, without knowing it?”

“Well,” he says, glancing over his shoulder toward the towering high-rise on Fifth Avenue.