“The ladies are in the opening credits. But the actual house is somewhere else.”
I hear the theme song. I find it charming and out of character that he knows this. I expected a nonresponse.
“They call them Postcard Row or the Seven Sisters,” he said. “I’m not over here too much. But when I am I like to give ’em a look.”
“How come?” I asked. It seemed out of character for him. But then again, everything about Noah seemed out of character. A Texan in the city by the bay with a penchant for studying the sky.
Noah laughed. It was the first time I’d heard him laugh. It was wholly original. The kind you want to record for a ringtone. Later I would look back on that and think it was the moment. The moment I decided to go on whatever ride he was selling tickets for.
“I like to see what a place is known for. Helps me see what a place is about.”
Growing up in LA I always thought the tourists who groped for their cameras down Rodeo Drive or took eager bus tours to the best view of the Hollywood sign were, in a word, desperate. I was embarrassed by their visors and fanny packs and clear out-of-water attitude. Who would be that earnest on purpose? Who would let it show? It was grotesque. But now that I was new somewhere—in some ways for the very first time—I saw it. All the wonder that comes from seeing something that is so known, so recognized. For witnessing a place’s celebrity.
The things that will outlive us.
“And if you look up, on a night like tonight you can even see the dipper.” Noah cupped the back of my head with his palm. I felt it. I leaned back and looked up. The sky was splayed out like a screen, like an open road.
“You study stars,” I said, my head still back.
He moved behind me. I felt his body, his other hand found my hip.
“I study the atmosphere,” he said. “I study why we can see the stars.”
I picked my head back up. He dropped his hand from my hip. All at once I realized how far I was from home. How unknown this life was. How I was just making introductions.
“Let’s get a little liquid,” he said.
We went to a local pub for beers and bags of potato chips, and when Noah finally walked me back to the Hilton—tipsy and swollen from salt—I felt something rise up in me. A want. A hunger for something different. Whatever he was, whatever he had to offer, I wanted more of it that night.
“You have plans this weekend?” he asked, standing on the welcome mat. The automated doors opened and closed, waiting for me to make a decision. In or out.
“You’re the only person I know in San Francisco,” I told him.
“Well, if that isn’t a call to action, I don’t know what is.”
When I got inside there was a receptionist waving me over. She handed me an envelope. “This came for you,” she said.
Five weeks.
I felt my skin prick up with goose bumps. I felt alive. It was the only thing I wanted to feel. Breathing. Vibrant. Present.
Five weeks. I’d take it.
Chapter Fourteen
Honey, listen, I need you to bring me over a dozen doughnuts from that place on Third that makes them gluten-free. Amy is coming, and if I don’t have a gluten-free substitute for everything on my table I won’t hear the end of it.”
“Why a dozen?” I’m balancing in a towel, water running down my back and onto the tile floor.
She clears her throat through the phone. “Suppose they’re good?”
“Call in the order, and I’ll grab them on my way over.”
“OK, mummashanna. Wear something nice. You never know.”
“Mom, it’s brunch at your house.”
“People have friends! And drive carefully. No rushing.”
