“It isn’t that,” he says. “I wish you hadn’t gone so long not knowing the real me. It would have saved us a few bumps.”

“It’s okay,” I say. Because it is—now. But Noah’s right, it was choppy there for a minute. “Though I have wondered . . . why are you so sealed off, even from people at Peony?”

“When Alix bought Ninety-Nine Things,” he says, “she wanted to keep my gender in the background. We pulled it off because, back then, no one had heard of me. By the time I signed my second contract, there was so much money involved, Sue insisted on the NDAs.”

I had always thought the anonymity was Noa Callaway’s personal preference. But of course, it makes sense that it was Sue.

He looks at me. “I wanted to come clean to you at the first chance. Sue didn’t like the idea, but—”

“You went over her head?”

He nods.

“Noah?” I say tentatively, feeling out my question like the first step into the ocean. “Is there a part of you that wants to come clean to your readers?”

“It’s too late.” He shakes his head. “I don’t want to disappoint them. I also don’t want to stop writing.”

“No one wants you to stop writing—”

“I have a feeling some people would enjoy a public comeuppance,” he says in a way that lets me know he’s given this some thought.

“What if we got out ahead of them,” I say. Meg has pulled off mightier miracles. “We could plan a campaign around revealing who you are. We could coordinate it with this book’s release. . . .”

I trail off because my mind is whirling. This dilemma has a moral aspect, and it has a business aspect. In the grand scheme of things, a man publishing novels under a woman’s name registers low on the evil scale. But these books have been so successful that maintaining the secret feels manipulative, like we’re trading on a lie. I also have a fiduciary responsibility to my female-owned-and-operated publishing company. And I need a job to live. But what if I could bring the moral and the business aspects together? What if honesty proved to be profitable?

I realize then that Noah hasn’t said anything, and his posture has grown rigid. I ease off, telling myself it is enough, for now, that Noah has a book idea. That he’s writing rich, compelling characters. That he plans to finish a draft in a month.

We can take on his pseudonym and gender identity in the next breath.

But still, as the train speeds on toward Washington, I feel good to have planted this seed. And reassured to know that Noah doesn’t relish the fortress of his pseudonym.

“Can I ask you something unrelated?” I say.

“Please,” he says.

“How’s your mom?”