By Any Other Name(66)

The receptionist moves around the suite, adjusting shades, turning off lamps, lighting candles, and ensuring that the prosecco, in its bucket of ice by the bed, is properly chilled.

Though she’s probably accustomed to tips the size of my monthly salary, I give her ten euros and a smile. When the door clicks closed behind her, I let out my breath and pop the prosecco. I carry a glass into the world’s best rain shower, then change into the silky peach hotel robe.

It’s sunset, and the view out the windows is astonishing—a horizon of full blue ocean and pink-hued, endless sky. I wander out to the terrace. A warm breeze rustles by, carrying the scent of wisteria blossoming in a great urn on the terrace next door.

Two flights below, a woman in a black bikini swims leisurely laps in the hotel’s infinity pool. Farther down, on the pebble beach, oversize umbrellas make multicolored rows. Bodies glisten on the sand. Sailboats dot the sea.

It’s the kind of overwhelming beauty that makes me feel a little lonely. I turn on my phone to let BD and Meg and Rufus know that I’ve arrived.

I laugh at the selfies I’d taken earlier in the airport lot. There’s one I thought was good, my face in the side mirror of the Ducati. But I see now how terrified I was. Half a day in Italy has already done wonders for my complexion, and my mental state. I’m about to snap a better photo of myself on the balcony now when an email appears on my screen.


To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Date: May 17, 7:06 p.m.

Subject: Three Things You’ve Been Waiting For


Dear Lanie,


I hope this finds you on a balcony at sunset, glass of prosecco in hand.

Please find herewith three things you’ve been waiting for. The first is an apology.

(Come on, you know you’ve been waiting for it.)

I’m sorry I was _______ the other night.

(I see you on that balcony, rolling your eyes. I spent twenty minutes searching for the most precise descriptor. Was I weird? Distant? Cold? Brusque? (Brusque was my top contender, and one you’d line-edit into oblivion.) Or perhaps, simply, blank? I defer to you.)

The truth is, when you came by my apartment, I was scared . . . about the other two things you’ve been waiting for from me. They are attached. Once you read them, I think you’ll understand.

Yours,

Noah

P.S. Regardless of how things turn out, I hope someday I’ll get to hear about your ride down the Amalfi Coast.



Regardless of how things turn out?

Then I read the names of the attachments. The first is titled “Chapter One.” The second—“NYT Op-Ed, run date 5/18.”

I click on the second attachment.





BY ANY OTHER NAME


BY NOAH ROSS

You don’t know me, but you or someone you love may have read one of my books. For the past ten years, I have been publishing love stories under the pseudonym Noa Callaway.

A pseudonymous writer never meets their readers. I’ve never had a book signing, nor bantered with a fan on social media. My publisher has managed all publicity on my books’ behalf. Every six months they send me a sack of letters from Noa Callaway fans. I never read them. They’re not for me. They were written to Noa Callaway, and I am only Noa Callaway when I’m writing, never anytime else.

This distance from the readers of my books has bought me an ignorance, one that I was wrong never to challenge. I thought my stories ended with their final pages; I thought it didn’t matter who I was.

That changed this year when I met someone who saw through me. Who forced me to see through myself. And when I looked close at what I was doing, I couldn’t sleep at night.

I am a cis white straight affluent male. My email address is [email protected]. If you are reading this and you are outraged, I don’t blame you. Feel free to let me know.

This op-ed and its aftermath may be the end of my career, but I can’t hide behind a name any longer. I want to be honest with my readers, with whom I am finding I have more in common than I ever knew.

The other day, I sat down and read some of Noa Callaway’s fan mail. I’m sorry for the slow responses, but it’s only now that I know what to say:

To June: Like you, I also enjoy reading in the tub on rainy days. Thanks for your book recommendations; I’ll check them out. The best thing I’ve read recently is a tie between Julie Otsuka’s Buddha in the Attic and Heather Christle’s The Crying Book.

To Jennifer: It’s hard to pin down what inspired Ninety-Nine Things. I wrote my first novel out of hope, back before I ever expected to publish, or ever dreamed I’d use a pseudonym. I had never experienced the love I wrote for that character, but I wanted it to be true. I suppose I’ve been trying to write it into existence ever since.

To MacKenzie: Fifteen publishers rejected my first novel before I found my home at Peony Press. Keep writing. Finish your stories. It only takes one person to say yes.

To Sharon: I’m so sorry about your husband. My mother suffers from the same disease. It’s heartbreak in slow motion. You’ll be in my thoughts.

And to Lanie: Your letter to me is a decade old. I’m sorry this took me so long. Wherever you are when you read this, I want you to know that I agree: I think we could become great friends, too.



With my heart in my throat, I close the email, scroll through my contacts, and press call.