Glenn Cooper - Library of the Dead

He stared at her. "I don't know, do I?"

"I think you'll survive."

"Not every day you get called a wrecking ball-especially by your daughter," he said ruefully.

"It's a novel. It's not you. It's inspired by you."

Will raised his glass. "Here's to inspirational men."

They clinked glasses again.

"Did you read it, Greg?" Will asked.

"I did. It's superb."

"So you know more about me than I know about you." Will was getting looser and louder. "Maybe her next book'll be about you."

The comment made Laura say acidly, "You know, you really ought to read it. I've turned it into a screenplay-how's that for hopeful? I'll leave a copy. It's a quicker read. You'll get the idea."

Laura and Greg left soon after dinner to catch a train back to Washington. Nancy stayed behind to help clean up. The evening was too pleasant to cut short, and Will had shaken off his irritability and seemed relaxed and mellow, an altogether different man from the coiled spring she encountered every day on the job.

Outside, the light was bleaching out and the traffic noises were fading, except for the occasional wail of a Bellevue ambulance. They worked side by side in the little kitchenette, washing and drying, both swaying with the afterglow of the champagne. Will was already on the scotch. Both of them were happily out of their routine, and the domestic simplicity of doing dishes was soothing.

It wasn't planned-Will would reflect on it later-but instead of reaching for the next plate, he reached for her ass and started rubbing it gently in little circles. In retrospect, he should have seen it coming.

She had cheekbones now and an hour-glass shape and, damn it, he would say if asked, looks mattered to him. But even more, her personality had molded under his tutelage. She was calmer, less gung-ho and caffeinated, and to his amusement, some of his cynicism had rubbed off. There was the occasional pleasant whiff of sarcasm emanating from her mouth. The insufferable Girl Scout was gone and in her place was a woman who no longer jangled his nerve endings. Quite the opposite.

Her hands were in soapy water. She kept them there, closed her eyes for a moment and didn't say or do anything.

He turned her toward him and she had to figure out what to do with her hands. She finally placed them wet on his shoulders and said, "Do you think this is a good idea?"

"No, do you?"

"Nope."

He kissed her and liked the way her lips felt and the way her jaw softened. He cupped her bottom with both palms and felt the smooth denim. His boozy head got hazy with desire and he pressed against her.

"The housekeeper came today. I've got clean sheets," he whispered.

"You know how to romance a girl." She wanted this to happen, he could tell.

He led her by a slippery hand to the bedroom, flopped on the bedspread and pulled her on top.

He was kissing her blood-warm neck, feeling under her blouse, when she said, "We're going to regret this. It's against all-"

He covered her lips with his mouth then pulled back to say, "Look, if you really don't want to, we can roll the clock back a few minutes and finish the dishes."

She kissed him, the first one that was hers to give. She said, "I hate doing dishes."

When they left the bedroom, it was dark and the living room was eerily quiet, just the hum of the air conditioner and the low whoosh of distant traffic on the FDR Drive. He had given her a clean white dress shirt to put on, something he'd done before with new women. They seemed to like the feeling of starch against bare skin and all the iconic imagery of the ritual. She was no different. The shirt swallowed her up and covered her prudishly. She sat on the sofa and drew her knees up to her chest. The skin that showed was cool and mottled like alabaster.

"Want a drink?" he asked.

"I think I've had quite enough tonight."

"You sorry?"

"Should be, but I'm not." Her face was still tinged pink. He thought she looked prettier than he had ever seen her, but also older, more womanly. "I kind of thought this might happen," she said.

"For how long?"

"The beginning."

"Really! Why?"

"A combination of your reputation and mine."

"I didn't know you had one too."

"It's a different sort of reputation." She sighed. "Good girl, safe choices, never rocking the boat. I think I've secretly wanted the boat to capsize, to see what it felt like."

He smiled. "From wrecking ball to shipwreck. Spot the common theme?"

"You're a bad boy, Will Piper. Good girls secretly like bad boys, didn't you know?"

His head was clearer, almost flat sober. "We're going to have to hide this, you know."

"I know."

"I mean, your career and my retirement."

"I know, Will! I should go."

"You don't have to."

"Thank you but I don't think you really want a sleepover." Before he could respond, she touched the cover of Laura's script on the coffee table. "You going to read it?" she asked.

"I don't know. Maybe." Then, "Probably."

"I think she wants you to."

When he was alone, he poured a scotch, sat on the sofa and turned on the table lamp. The brightness of the bulb stung his eyes. He stared at his daughter's screenplay, the image of the lightbulb scorching the cover. As the image receded it looked for all the world like a sinister smiley face staring back at him. It dared him to pick up the script. He took the dare and muttered, "Fucking wrecking ball."

He'd never read a screenplay before. Its shiny brass brads reminded him of the last time he'd laid eyes on one, a month earlier at Mark Shackleton's house. He turned the cover page and waded in-the format confused him with all the interior/exterior jazz.

After a few pages he had to start over, but then he got into the swing of it. Apparently, the character he inspired was named Jack, a man whose sparse description seemed to fit him to a tee: a brawny man in his forties, a sandy-haired product of the South with an easy manner and a hard edge.

Unsurprisingly, Jack was a high-functioning alcoholic and womanizer. He was in a new relationship with Marie, a sculptress who knew better than to let a man like him into her life but was powerless to resist him. Jack, it seemed, had left a trail of women in his wake, and-painfully to Will-one of them was a daughter, a young woman named Vicki. Jack was haunted by flashbacks of Amelia, an emotionally frail woman whom he had beaten to a metaphysical pulp before she set herself free with vodka and carbon monoxide. Amelia-a thinly veiled homage to Melanie, Will's first wife and Laura's mother-was a woman who found the waters of life too difficult and complicated to navigate. Throughout the script, she appeared to him, cherry red from the poison, rebuking him about his cruelty to Marie.

Midway through the script, Will found himself too sober to continue, so he poured a fresh three fingers. He waited for the drink to anesthetize him then carried on till the bitter end, to Marie's suicide, witnessed by the sobbing presence of Amelia, and to Vicki's redemptive decision to leave her own abusive relationship and choose a kinder, though less passionate man. And Jack? He moved on to Sarah, Marie's cousin, who he met at her funeral, the wrecking ball still swinging away.

When he put the script down, he wondered why he wasn't crying.

So this was how his daughter saw him. Was he that grotesque?

He thought about his ex-wives, multiple girlfriends, the conga line of one-nighters, and now Nancy. Most of them pretty nice gals. He thought about his daughter, a good egg tainted by the sulfurous bad-egg smell of her father. He thought about-

Suddenly, his introspection braked to a screeching halt. He grabbed at the script and opened it to a random page.

"Son of a bitch!"

The screenplay font.