And, hold up . . . did he give me a cameo on page one?

I smile, reading on, expecting the next scene to deal with a much younger Edward and Elizabeth.

Instead, Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine takes place only a week before the previous chapter. It’s brief and told from Edward’s point of view, and he really does like that red dress. I read ahead quickly, curious about the structure. Soon I realize what Noah is doing.

He’s writing their story backward.

As a reader, this thrills me. As an editor, it scares me. It will be one hell of an ambitious undertaking to get the story to hang together right. It’s like diving backward off a cliff into the ocean. It requires faith—and deep enough water.

I read on, drawn into the story. Out my window, the light fades to evening as I experience Edward and Elizabeth’s love in reverse. Grown children become pregnancies, then glimmers in the lovers’ eyes. Notable careers give way to apprenticeships and amateur mistakes. There’s a summer Edward and Elizabeth spend every picnic fighting. Reading this era from finish to start, I find such beauty in how they lean on love to forgive each other, even before I know the nature of the betrayal. Noah has included some of Edward’s poetry, and I’m touched to find inspiration taken from my own grandfather’s rhymes. There’s a racy scene in the back of a taxi. Another—even hotter—in a beachfront hut in Mexico. I know I’m alone in my office, but I blush reading them, my mind unable to resist casting Noah in Edward’s role.

Before I know it, my teapot is empty, my headphone batteries dead, and I have arrived at the last chapter. I’m almost sad to be here, but I can’t wait to see how it ends—or rather, how it begins.

I turn the page.

CHAPTER ONE

The rest is blank.

Is this a typo? Did he send the wrong file? Or has Noah not written how Edward and Elizabeth met?

I trek to three fancy grocery stores in the pouring rain that night before I find the red-and-white-checked picnic basket I had in mind. Now, at Zabar’s, I pay dearly to fill the basket with fried chicken, dill pickles, cheddar biscuits, and a nice bottle of California zin à la Edward and Elizabeth’s favorite meal in Noa’s book. I throw in a bag of organic baby carrots for Javier Bardem.