New York, New York #13
Noah advanced on her. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m still scared shitless,” he growled. “And you would be too, if you took this at all seriously.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” said AJ, trying not to show her fright.
Noah gave her a cruel look. “It means I’m getting retargeted ads for vasectomy clinics,” he said. “We’re on the same internet. Why are you looking at that shit?”
Her cheeks burned. “Sorry, I didn’t realize this was a totalitarian state,” she said. “I should have though, that’s totally my bad. How did Eudora put it? Noah doesn’t trust anyone but himself.”
Noah glared at her. AJ took that to mean she had an advantage and pressed on. “She thought we should be together,” she said. “That’s why she put me in the will. You must see that.”
Noah gave her a pitying look. “Eudora put you in the will because when I go you’ll be the only one left who gives a rat’s ass about her work.
Even from that urn, she’s still using you.
” He shook his head and looked down at his hands again, his face shuttering.
“I’m not going to do that,” he said more to himself than to her. “You’re not going to be my caregiver.”
“Why not?” The words exploded out of AJ in a dry sob. She was asking him, but she was also asking herself. “Truly, what is so bad about having to care for someone you love?”
The question rang around the room, ricocheting off the ceiling tiles, and in that moment, AJ knew her answer. Nothing. As long as his heart beat, she would love him, whatever form he took.
Noah’s face was drawn. “It won’t be someone you love,” he said, a tear escaping down his cheek. He wiped it with his sleeve. “It will be someone you pity. It might be someone you despise. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”
It was the first time he had alluded to what it had been like to care for his mother. AJ heard a note of finality in his voice and charged ahead anyway. “We are not all built the same,” she said beseechingly. “You weren’t born loving someone worse off than you. I was.”
Noah shook his head. “You’re not listening. We are not going to live like that.”
“You don’t know what it will be like,” AJ insisted, hot tears welling in her eyes. “You still have good years left—maybe more than you think. Your life doesn’t have to end when you get symptoms. You’re not in this alone.” She took a step toward him. “We can do this together.”
Noah peered down at her without expression. “Tell me—in all of your searching, did you ever watch a video of what this disease actually looks like?”
AJ glared at him. “I met your mom, remember?” she said defiantly.
Noah smirked. “Yes. And as I recall, your response was ‘I couldn’t do it.’ ”
The air left AJ’s lungs. “That was years ago.”
“No. That was the truth,” he said. “And by the way, that day? That was nothing.” He let that sink in. “I won’t do it.”
AJ was panicking now. This was thirteen years ago all over again. He was going to deal with this by leaving her, and there was not a thing she could do to stop it. She had burned through most of her ammo to get them to this point in May. The walls were closing in.
“You’re a fucking coward, you know that?
” she said. Noah opened his mouth to respond but she plowed on.
“You said you’d try your best, but you won’t actually try anything different or new.
Even if it would mean keeping this thing we have alive, or forget that—getting yourself some substantive emotional support.
You would literally rather die than give up control. ”
Noah’s face turned in disgust. “Talking isn’t a fucking panacea, Age,” he said.
“It’s what healthy people tell sick people to do so that they don’t have to feel guilty for being healthy.
Just talk about it. I have an incurable, progressive, degenerative disease.
I know those are just words to you, and that’s how they’re going to stay.
But fuck if I’m going to stick around for it. ”
AJ felt a surge of nauseous warmth. “If our positions were reversed, I would stick around,” she said unevenly. “I would stick around for you.”
“If our positions were reversed, I would never ask you to,” said Noah quietly.
“You cannot kill yourself,” said AJ.
“Yes, I can,” he said. “And I’m going to.”
AJ shook her head. “Fucking coward.”
Noah glared at her. Too long passed before he spoke. “Fine,” he said dispassionately. “I’m a coward.”
AJ gasped. “Noah, I—”
“This isn’t what I thought it would be,” he said. “You need to leave, do you understand? You’re not wanted. Please go pack. I will drop you at your parents’ or at the train if you prefer.”
He stared at her unfeelingly. AJ listed, sluggish with shock and humiliation.
She tried to summon her anger—what was left of it propelled her from the office.
But by the time she reached the second-floor landing she could hardly breathe.
The pink light from Eudora’s room looked safe, like the inner ear of a shell.
AJ shut herself inside, flung her body onto the bed, and wailed.
Sometime later, she revived. She sat up and attempted to take calming breaths amid a dead woman’s throw pillows. In a bleak way, she supposed it was appropriate, given that Noah viewed himself as a dead man, and that was who she slept with every night.
A fresh pang of anguish welled up at this thought, instantly quelled by disbelief.
He was scared. He was scared, and lost, and she had walked in on him, but fuck if this didn’t hurt. Two hours ago they had been planning dinner. They could get back to that.
AJ could fix this. She had to.
She stood slowly, blood siphoning back into her limbs as she made her way to the window. All was quiet in the yard; Noah was inside somewhere below.
She had to think. He’d been wrong about Bud, and he was wrong about this—there must be a way to make him see that. But how? He wouldn’t talk to her and with each passing second, that dome was becoming more real, more permanent.
AJ needed to slow this down before it calcified. She needed to suggest a new premise.
She needed more time.
She walked over to the bureau and looked at her reflection. Her face and neck were splotchy, her eyes sunken. Just as Eudora’s had been that awful day in her pink silk bathrobe.
It’s not too late.
Despite Noah’s vitriol, AJ felt convinced that Eudora had put her name in the will for a reason. Eudora did everything for a reason. Slowly, AJ began to turn Eudora’s words over in her mind.
AJ can reach him in this bond they’ve forged where I cannot.
A dawning awareness crept over her. Eudora hadn’t been able to get through to Noah, but she believed AJ could. She believed that AJ could convince him that his life was worth saving.
Last night, I had them finish our play as it was intended.
AJ wiped her cheeks and turned toward Eudora and Ezell’s papers. She heaved open file box after file box, systematically riffling through their contents.
There was one place Noah could not shut her out. One place he could never have a plan.
She came upon it after an hour, a smushed white box, now jaundiced with age. She knew the document by its typewritten font even before she read its title.
Eudora had left her one last bright move.
AJ found Noah waiting for her in the drawing room. He stood when he saw her.
“You haven’t packed,” he said irritably. His emotions were still roiling.
“No, I haven’t packed,” AJ forced out.
His eyes shone in anger. “I wasn’t kidding,” he said. “You have to leave.”
AJ nodded. “I agree,” she said. “But not yet.”
For the first time, Noah glanced down at the box under her arm. He rolled his eyes and stalked back toward Errol’s office. AJ gathered her courage and followed.
By the time she entered, he was seated behind the desk, a six-foot oak barrier separating them. All remnants of the model plane had been cleared away.
“AJ, I’m not fucking around,” said Noah, busying himself with a pile of papers.
AJ advanced into the room. “Do you know what this is?” she asked, holding out the box.
He stacked one script atop another. “The book for Fire & Water,” he said without looking up.
AJ lowered her hands to keep them from shaking. “Eudora left it to us together,” she said. “We owe it to her to stage it, at least once.”
Noah stared at her. “You’re offering to perform it with me.”
AJ swallowed. “Yes.”
The muscle in his jaw was working. “This is incredibly manipulative,” he said reproachfully.
“I know,” said AJ. Then, “Is it working?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. He was studying her with an unreadable expression. “What do you propose to do about the ending?” he asked stiffly.
AJ’s heart jumped. He hadn’t completely shut her down.
“We’d improvise,” she said. “From what Eudora wrote, it seems like that’s how it was originally intended to be performed. I just think she was so heartbroken when she lost Ezell she told everyone it was unfinished rather than watch other people butcher it.”
Noah was thinking. “So that night…she was, what, initiating us?”
“Her notes imply as much,” said AJ. She pushed on. “We could do it this fall. You could direct. A limited run. Ten or twelve performances.”
Noah leaned back in the desk chair. “One play, twelve different endings.” He was intrigued in spite of himself.
“I think we’d be able to attract a decent audience,” she said. “Arho fandom, and all.”
“I’m not worried about that,” said Noah. He ran a hand over his face. “I need to think.”
AJ waited as he stared out the window at something she couldn’t see.
“I am serious. You and I need to make a clean break,” he said finally. “But if we do as you suggest, it would make more sense to close the play, then go our separate ways.”
AJ swallowed. “I agree.”
“Permanently,” said Noah. “We can’t keep doing this.”
“I agree,” AJ repeated, her heart buckling.
For a moment, he looked extremely fatigued, and AJ wondered if she shouldn’t just give up. Then he glanced at her searchingly. He nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?” said AJ.