Flying Solo(55)

This time, he didn’t say that. He considered her, though, for so long that she walked over toward him, less like she knew what she would do when she got there and more like she was stepping into a circle he’d drawn on the floor. When she was close, he finally said, “Just so you know, that guy could be married, or in a club—hell, that guy could be in the middle of Mardi Gras, and he would still be alone. And you could float on a piece of ice at the South Pole, and you wouldn’t be.”

She thought about being in that closet with him, listening for his breathing, feeling his hand on her elbow in the dark. She thought about the first time they’d ever kissed for real, not over somebody else’s sink but in the upstairs library at Ginger’s during Nick’s mother’s birthday party. It had been the middle of the afternoon, with light coming in the windows from every direction. They’d sneaked up there with pieces of cake on paper plates, because everybody downstairs was impossibly old—though in many cases younger than they were now, of course. And sitting in the library, on the love seat in front of one of the tall shelves, they had kissed, still holding their plates in their laps, jumping apart when Nick’s dad’s voice carried up the stairs: “Nick, are you up there? We’re giving Mom her presents.”

So now here they were, in the doorway to Dot’s kitchen, again sheltered by a woman who had been decades older than they were, who had made a home for herself. “Nick,” she said. “Thank you.”

He lifted his hand and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. “I always think about doing that,” he said. “Whenever I see you.”

“Because my hair is in my face?” She smiled.

“Because I haven’t touched your hair in a really long time,” he said.

She bit her lip, closed her eyes. Opened them again, and he was still there. She looked up at him and arched her eyebrow. “You better go. Unless you’re going to come back in.”

He broke into a grin and looked at the ground, nodding. “Your brother’s in there.”

“He is,” she said.

“Should’ve gotten you to throw me down on the reference desk,” he said. “I guess I missed my moment.”

She shrugged. “You’ve got to stay sharp, Cooper. You never know when you might get another one.”

The answer, of course, was whenever you want one, but that was hard to say out loud.





Chapter Seventeen


“I want my name to be, like…Bob Wanamaker.” Ryan was gulping a cup of coffee the next morning on the deck as Laurie nibbled a cranberry scone and sorted another box of Polaroids.

“No,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because,” she said, “this is not an episode of Mad Men and you are not the fictional president of Coca-Cola. You’re just a guy who knows a guy. You’re like him. Like Matt. And Bob Wanamaker doesn’t sound like him; Bob Wanamaker sounds like his landlord. Or his landlord’s landlord.”

“How about Mutt? Mutt McClain? Mutt McClain, just your basic guy.”

“That sounds like the star of a videogame. A kids’ videogame where you’re a detective. A dog detective. Mutt McClain, Dog Detective, rated E for Everyone.”

“How about…Dave?” he said.

She looked up from her photos and narrowed her eyes. “Dave what?”

He looked up at the ceiling for a minute, then back at her. “Dave ‘Hot Rod’ Davington. They call him ‘Danger Dave.’?”

She swallowed a bite of her scone and nodded. “His name is Dave Davington, and his nickname is Hot Rod, and they also call him Danger Dave. So Danger Dave ‘Hot Rod’ Davington, that’s your inconspicuous undercover identity.”

Ryan spread his arms wide. “I think it’s beautiful. I think it works.”

“I’m naming you John. John No Last Name.”

He sighed. “You’re not making it very easy to get into this role.”

“I’m just hoping he doesn’t recognize you. Hopefully he doesn’t watch Law & Order or Halls of Power.”

“Or well-reviewed off-Broadway theater,” Ryan said. Then he waved his hand. “Nothing to worry about. The closest I come to being recognized is that somebody thinks they knew me in college or I used to date their sister or something. My agent told me once, ‘You have a face people can’t imagine they haven’t already seen.’?”

Laurie looked at him. “That’s awful.”

He shrugged. “I’m like the weighted average of all the white dudes in New York who sometimes get work on TV. So when people try to remember who I am, they always slowly realize they’re thinking of somebody else. Sometimes they think I’m from Suits, that show Meghan Markle was on. What’s amazing is that there are two guys from Suits, and people think I’m both of them. That’s Hollywood for you.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I mean, there are white dudes they know I’m not—they know I’m not, you know, Richard Kind. I’m not Paul Rudd. I’m just in there somewhere. The good part is that casting directors do it too. Intellectually, they’re looking at my résumé and they know I’m not the person they’re thinking of, but at some level, I am the person they’re thinking of. And I’d love to be precious about my individuality, but I work a lot more than I would if I were not a guy people think they must have already seen on TV.”