I called BD and read some of them aloud to her, relaying to Noa all the places where my grandmother had laughed. I climbed out on my fire escape and voice-recorded myself shouting lines of interior monologue into the Second Avenue traffic. I scrawled in Sharpie one extravagantly beautiful description of a woman’s hair on the sole of my Converse, then I walked all over Brooklyn that weekend, taking a picture for Noa of how the line had gotten its day.

You’re making this more fun than it has any right to be, she’d emailed me back at midnight.

Even after the book went to print, even years and several books later, sometimes I’ll still get an email about something Noa hates having to cut: the tiny pink flowers in her basil pot, half an inch of hair, a man in line for a taxi, her mother’s dinner after a fall broke her arm.

The day Fifty Ways to Break Up Mom and Dad was published, a dozen white tulips were delivered to my office in a mason jar, with a note saying These also had to be cut.

We’ve worked together on seven books since then, and our process has been the same: Alix gets the ranting and resistance; I find ways to make Noa’s revision process less painful. I’m like the fun uncle to Alix’s single mom.

Only now . . . Alix is gone, and where does that leave Noa and me?

Yesterday, Terry called to set up a face-to-face meeting with Noa. I was so shocked, I’d agreed to the suggested time immediately, without thinking about my own calendar. Then I had to cancel last minute on Ryan’s senator’s birthday in D.C. He isn’t thrilled, but I’ll figure out a way to make it up to him next week.

I know this meeting goes against Sue’s wishes, but in what world could I say no to meeting Noa Callaway? I figure what Sue doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Besides, the meeting wasn’t my idea. I’m just the one over here thrilled about it.

I pull up Terry’s email on my phone for the four-hundredth time. I’m supposed to meet Noa at four o’clock in front of the chess house in Central Park. She’ll be looking for me.

This information set my mind whirling, because even though my face is a Google search away, I can’t imagine Noa Callaway stalking me online. Still, I wasn’t going to question Terry on how Noa would identify me. I’m wearing BD’s vintage Fendi skirt suit—dressed down with Converse, knit tights, and a scarf Aude gave me for my birthday. To be on the safe side, I brought a copy of Two Hundred and Sixty-Six Vows, which I’m carrying face out.