“Sure, if you ever make it back,” Ames said—but this time, to Noam’s surprise, it was Taye who elbowed her in the ribs and said: “Yep. Have a good time, Álvaro.”
Noam took the stairs down and cut across the atrium to head through the west wing to Lehrer’s apartment. He still wondered sometimes why Lehrer hadn’t taken up the chancellor’s residence outside downtown—although he supposed, on second thought, living in a mansion would probably harsh Lehrer’s whole ex-revolutionary style.
Noam expected Lehrer to be waiting for him when he opened the door, presiding from his favorite armchair with a neat scotch in hand. But although Wolf scampered up to nudge Noam’s thigh for a scratch behind the ears, the living room was empty. Noam wandered deeper, into the kitchen—and that was where he found Lehrer with a match in hand, bent over a pair of candles at the table to light the flames.
“What’s this?” Noam said.
Lehrer straightened, waving the match in the air to quench it. He gestured down at the table—white-tableclothed now, bearing the candles but also twin plates piled high with brisket and mashed potatoes and asparagus, a bottle of red wine and a kiddush cup, a loaf of challah resting beneath a drape of fabric. “Gut Shabbos,” he said, one brow lifting. “Forgive me; I was feeling nostalgic.”
Noam stared at him.Nostalgic.Despite knowing Lehrer was Jewish, both from history and from Lehrer’s having told him, he’d very much gotten the impression that nominal Judaism was as far as that went. Lehrer had mezuzot on his doorframes, another gesture, but this was ...
“Since when do you observe Shabbat?”
The slight smile that had curved Lehrer’s lips flattened somewhat. “I thought you might ... appreciate it. Was I wrong?”
Noam had no idea how to feel about this, actually. Lehrer preparing Shabbat dinner was the kind of surprise he would have found enchanting back when he and Lehrer first got involved. But now it felt manufactured somehow, like Noam could see the gears turning behind the construction of this whole scene, the intention behind bringing out what Noam assumed was Lehrer’s family’s own candlesticks—as if to say,You’re my family now. As if to say,Remember what I lost.
“No,” Noam said, a few seconds too late. “No, it’s ... thank you. It’s nice.”
He sat down in his usual chair, Lehrer taking the one adjacent. They ate in silence for a few minutes, the clink of cutlery and an awkward curtain hanging between them—one Noam wasn’t sure he wanted to draw aside. Only when he stole a glance up at Lehrer’s face, Lehrer’s brows were still knit together; a pang of something grotesquely like sympathy shot through Noam’s blood.
“It’s delicious,” Noam said, a peace offering. “I still can’t figure out how you had time to learn to cook on top of everything else you have to do.”
“I’ve had quite a few years to hone my skills.”
“Still. Any other hidden talents I ought to know about? Are you a secret concert pianist? Marathoner? An expert at whittling?”
Lehrer laughed at last, his gaze meeting Noam’s over the candle flames. “I did devote twenty years or so to mastering the violin, actually. It was quite the passion for a while.”
“Do you still play?”
“Not as much as I should. I didn’t have nearly as much free time after I—” Lehrer broke off. It was the first time Noam had ever seen him look so caught off guard, like he’d forgotten what he was saying and who he was saying itto. But after a beat he continued, voice tighter than before: “Raising a young child was effortful.”
That flicker of sympathy sputtered and died.
Noam picked up his knife and cut into his brisket again, but it was too late now; he’d lost his appetite. His mind kept circling over all the things Lehrer used to say about Dara. How Dara was difficult. Dara wastroubled.
“Maybe you should have hired a nanny,” Noam said at last.
Lehrer snorted. “I hired seven.”
The tension slid into the background once more, muffled by Lehrer’s charm and a quick change in conversation, Lehrer guiding them out of dangerous waters and onto safer ground. After, Lehrer stood at the sink doing the dishes, and Noam reached for the half-empty wine bottle, spinning it in semicircles atop the table.
“Can I have the rest of the cab?” he asked.
Lehrer frowned at him over his shoulder. “Of course. You know you don’t have to ask with me.”
“Right. Sorry.” And that was true—Lehrer’d never blinked at offering Noam anything from wine to his most expensive scotch, even when Noam was still sixteen. It used to make Noam feel soadult, enough that when he went to Leo’s bar and Leo wouldn’t serve him, Noam had actually been taken aback.
Noam refilled Lehrer’s own glass and took a sip of the wine. He barely tasted it.
“Do you have the phone?” Lehrer asked, and it took Noam a moment to realize what he meant.
The phone was in Noam’s pocket. He hadn’t kept it any farther away than that ever since he killed the Texan. He’d even slept with it under his pillow last night.
He drew the phone out now and set it on the kitchen table. Twenty-four hours, and he still hadn’t tried to read it. The most he’d done was write a script to elbow his way past the antiwitching tech protecting the phone from his technopathy. It had taken the better part of the day, Noam typing away at code in class and as he sat on the bus on the way back from Dara’s apartment. Now, the wards were down. He could tangle threads of his technopathy up in the phone’s cell drive, but all that data was still a buzz of electricity and binary code, uninterpreted. Because Noam hadn’t decided—
He hadn’t decided how much to tell Lehrer. Lehrer had the antiwitching tech schematics already, of course—doctored very slightly from the version he’d given the Black Magnolia—but the Texan’s phone connected to Texan servers. That was a whole new wealth of information; probably not as much as they’d like, but Noam had at least been able to access his messages and emails. He’d know everything the Texan knew.
