After it was over, I sat there for a long time and felt as if everything that separates us had disappeared and we were together again. Only then, only when she was dying, did I feel alive and know that you know that I love you, and that I am proving it-that Penny died for our love and so will the next woman. This I do for you.
Friday Fourteen days remaining
Twenty-One
I had gone to talk to Nina at my ten forty-five break only to find out she was attending a funeral. So it wasn’t until that afternoon that I caught her in her office, pouring herself a cup of hot, steaming ginger-and-honey tea, a concoction she made at home every day and brought with her in a big thermos. She offered me some, which I took, and then I sat down on her camel-colored leather couch and asked her who’d died.
“Didn’t I tell you yesterday?”
I shook my head.
“I must have been in denial. Nobody does denial better than a shrink.”
We laughed. It was true, even if it was a cliché.
Josh Cohen, a professor at Columbia Law School, who had been sick with Alzheimer’s for years, had passed away. For his friends and family, it had been like losing him twice: first when his mind faded away and he didn’t know them anymore, again when his body had given out. Nina was very close friends with Josh’s wife, Claire, who was also a therapist. She commented on the size of the crowd.
“All the important legal minds in the city, along with all the shrinks. There’s a joke in there somewhere but I can’t think of it now. Strange bedfellows, that’s it. Stacey O’Connell and I were sitting right behind a couple she’s been counseling for two years. I saw three lawyers I’ve worked with. Two of them saw me but went out of their way to avoid me. Kira Rushkoff wound up sitting behind Stella Dobson, and Stacey and I were worried Stella was going to notice.”
“Why?”
“Kira Rushkoff was the lawyer who won the privacy invasion lawsuit against Stella.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I forgot that. Do you know about Stella’s new book?”
“No, I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. How do you know about it?”
“Small city. Small world. She’s approached Blythe. She wants to interview her.”
Nina gave me a very confused look. “She wants to interview a sex therapist? Surely she would have called me. We’ve known each other for years.”
“No, she doesn’t want to interview her as a sex therapist. I don’t think she has any idea that Blythe works here. She wants to interview her about her Web-cam work. She probably doesn’t even know Blythe’s name. Online she’s called Psyche, after the Greek goddess.”
“I hope her past doesn’t wind up being a problem for her with patients one day,” Nina mused.
“It shouldn’t,” I said, thinking of the mask, certain I was right.
Saturday Thirteen days remaining
Twenty-Two
The ride in from the airport led me to expect far more hurricane devastation than I found in the French Quarter. “It’s enchanting,” I said as the taxi drove down the tree-lined street, past the row of ornate town houses with their iron balustrades and architecture that belonged to another era. My window was down, and the warm air blowing in felt exotic after the freezing temperatures in New York. “It’s not like any other city, is it?”
Noah smiled. “No, it isn’t. It’s crazy and lazy and has a rhythm, taste and texture all its own. But I don’t want to tell you what it’s like. That’s why you’re here. To find out for yourself.” He squeezed my hand.
Noah had picked me up that morning after calling the night before and telling me to be ready at seven-thirty and to pack for two days in mid-seventy-degree weather. It wasn’t until we got to the airport that I found out we were going to New Orleans. He was due in court there on Monday and thought we’d spend the weekend together; I’d go back Sunday evening, and he’d stay on.
We got out of the taxi on a small side street, which looked as if nothing had changed there for more than a hundred years, and walked into the Saint Dennis hotel.
We’d stepped into what, to my untrained eye, looked like a perfectly restored mansion from the late 1800s. The lobby had tall potted palms, velvet settees and high windows with organza curtains that pooled onto the polished parquet floors. The scent of lush flowers perfumed the air. I stood still and breathed in for a few seconds.
“It’s magnolia,” Noah told me. I smiled because he knew what I was doing.
The concierge rang for a bellman, who took us in a mirrored elevator up to the third floor. Our room was decorated as authentically as the lobby, and while Noah tipped the bellman, I took a quick inventory. The king-size bed was covered with a heavy lavender damask spread, an antique writing desk stood in the corner and lovely prints of belle epoque New Orleans street scenes hung on the walls. A huge bouquet of freesia, roses and iris rested on the fireplace, gracing the room with its perfume. But it was the small balcony-with its wrought-iron railing, wicker chairs, ivy-covered trellis, pots of geraniums and enchanting view-that charmed me.
Three floors below us was a small courtyard, overgrown with lush, leafy trees, the flower beds studded with dark purple, lavender and blue blossoms. Occasional bursts of yellow. There was a stone fountain of an angel, with water spilling out of the shell she held.
I stood there with the water splashing in the stone basin and a lilting jazz tune coming from somewhere, enjoying the scent of humid green air and a breeze that was as warm and gentle as Noah’s touch when he came up from behind and wrapped his arms around me. We stood like that for a moment, and then he dropped his arms.
“Let’s take a walk. I can’t wait to show you New Orleans.”
On the plane, sitting beside him while he slept, I’d imagined that we’d fall onto the bed as soon as we’d closed the door behind us. I’d imagined the room-how wide the bed, how soft the pillows, how fresh-smelling the sheets. We would close the shutters but leave the windows open so that the light wouldn’t be too harsh, and so the fresh air could tumble over us. In my mind, while the plane sailed over the clouds, Noah and I undressed quickly, and in the cool, shaded room pressed up against each other, fitting our bodies together, not losing a beat, our breath quickening, wiping out everything else.
As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t wish fantasy into fact, and as much as I wanted him to stay with me on the balcony, I didn’t say anything. I was actually shy. And then I was angry with myself for feeling that way, and for allowing the fantasy to take root in my head and disappoint me when it didn’t come true. This wasn’t like me. At least, wasn’t like me before I’d met Noah.
It didn’t matter. The moment had passed. Noah was waiting for me, ready to show me his hometown.
He searched my face in the elevator.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for some clue as to how you’re feeling.”
“You’re trying to gauge my mood from the way I’m looking at you, from how I’m holding my hands, from the slant of my eyes. You’re using the tools I use on my patients, judging their words against their actions and mental equilibrium. That’s not fair.”
“Why not? You do it all the time.”
I laughed. He was right. “Okay then, so tell me, how am I?”
“You’re going to be fine, darlin’. I promise.”