“I don’t like this game anymore,” I said as I placed the book back on its shelf.
Noah reached over to the floor next to his bed, near the acoustic guitar that was propped up against a sticker-covered case. He jangled the keys. “Well, we can go now. You can come back and grill me on the library’s contents later,” he said, his grin still in place. “You hungry?”
I was, actually, and nodded. Noah walked to a well-disguised intercom and pressed his finger on the call button.
“If you order some servant to bring food, I’m leaving.”
“I was going to make sure Albert hadn’t moved the car.”
“Oh, right. Albert the butler.”
“He’s a valet, actually.”
“You are not helping yourself.”
Noah ignored me and glanced at the clock by his bed. “We really ought to have been there by now; I want you to have time to get the full experience. But we can stop at Mireya’s on the way.”
“Another friend?”
“A restaurant. Cuban. The best.”
When we reached the car, Albert smiled as Noah opened my door for me. After the mansion was out of sight, I screwed up the courage to attack Noah with the questions that plagued me since learning of his assets. The financial sort.
“So who are you people?” I asked.
“You people?” He slipped on his sunglasses.
“Cute. Your family. Supposedly, the only people who live here are basketball players and has-been pop singers.”
“My father owns a company.”
“Okaaay,” I said. “What kind of company?”
“Biotechnology.”
“So where was Daddy Warbucks this morning?”
Noah’s face was curiously blank. “Don’t know, don’t care,” he said easily. He stared straight ahead. “We’re not … close,” Noah added.
“Clearly.” I waited for him to elaborate, but he lifted his sunglasses and hid his eyes instead. Time to change the subject. “So why doesn’t your mother have a British accent?”
“She doesn’t have an English accent because she’s American.”
“Oh my God, really?” I mocked. I saw Noah’s smile in profile. He paused before continuing.
“She’s from Massachusetts. And she is not actually my biological mother.” He looked at me sideways, gauging my reaction. I kept my face even. I didn’t know much about Noah, aside from his rumored extracurricular activities. But I realized then that I wanted to. I had no idea what to expect this morning when he picked me up, and to an extent, I still didn’t. But I no longer thought it would be some nefarious plot, and that made me curious.
“My mother died when I was five and Katie was almost four.”
The revelation knocked me out of my thoughts. And made me feel like a jackass, after picking not one but two unpleasant topics of conversation. “I’m sorry,” I said lamely.
“Thanks,” he said, staring at the bright road ahead of us. “It was a long time ago, I don’t really remember her,” he said, but his posture had stiffened. He didn’t speak for a minute, and I wondered if I was supposed to say something. But then I remembered everyone telling me how sorry they were when Rachel died, and how little I wanted to hear it. There was just nothing to say.
Noah surprised me by continuing. “Before my mother died, she and my dad and Ruth,” he tipped his head back toward the house, “were all really close. Ruth spent high school in England, so that’s how they met, and they stayed friends while at Cambridge, wreaking havoc and organizing protests.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Ruth told me my mother was the most … enthusiastic. Chaining herself to trees and breaking into university science departments and freeing lab animals and such,” Noah said, as he placed a cigarette between his lips. “The three of them ran around doing it together—incomprehensible, if you know my father—and somehow, he convinced my mother to marry him.” The cigarette dangled from his lips as he spoke, drawing my eyes like a magnet. “While they were still in college. Some ultimate act of rebellion or something.” He lit the cigarette, opened his window, and inhaled. His face was carefully impassive beneath the dark lenses as he spoke.
“My grandparents were unenthused. They’re old money, were not fans of my mother’s to start, and thought my father was ruining his prospects. Et cetera, et cetera. But they married anyway. My stepmother moved back to the U.S. for vet school, and my parents lived la vie bohème for a while. When they had kids, my grandparents were happy. Katie and I were so close together that I think they were hoping my mother would go on maternity leave from civil disobedience.” Noah fed the ash of his cigarette to the expanse of highway behind us. “But my mother didn’t slow down at all. She just took us with her wherever she went. Until she died. She was stabbed.”
Oh my God.
“At a protest.”