Page 76 of Sleeper: The Palisades Edition

“I’ll take it,” she says, digging her nails into my back. “Give me all of it.”

Jesus.

Christ.

And I do.

Dinner isat the resort’s formal restaurant so we could stroll through the grounds to get here, drink wine, and stumble back to the cottage for more grown-up spring break sex.

I’ve never seen Willa dressed up before, and although she is wearing a simple knee-length black dress with red lipstick and sandals, I am awestruck and fully aware that she is turning more heads than I am tonight.

We dine on a patio, surrounded by small trees that are covered with warm white lights. There are heat lamps, a wood-burning fireplace, and potted plants everywhere. Willa is thrilled, and my only complaint is that the tabletop hides her slamming bare legs.

I’ve only ever shared one glass of wine with her before, and she is already on her second glass of Merlot before we’ve finished the appetizers. Tipsy Willa is nearly indistinguishable from sober Willa, except that her cheeks are more flushed and she never stops smiling or swaying, almost imperceptibly. in her seat.

“Do you miss the kids already?”

“What kids?”

She giggles.

“I always miss them when I haven’t seen them for a day or more. Do you miss them?”

She nods and then squints at something or someone behind me.

“Is that Al Pacino?”

I look over my shoulder and see a tanned, dark-haired elderly man in a white shirt and black pants. “Who—the waiter?”

“I think it is.”

“I think you’ve had enough wine.”

“Hoo-ah!”

“That is literally one of his worst performances. It’s a joke that he won an Oscar for that.”

“I like that movie.”

“Why? Because it has the word ‘scent’ in the title and he talks about perfume?”

“Yeeesss.”

“You honestly like that piece of crap but you hate my movies?”

Her eyelashes flutter and her lower lip sticks out. It’s a total Summer Miller move, but I think this is Willa’s natural response. “I never said I hate your movies.”

“You just hate the scripts for the movies I’ve done?”

She shakes her head. “I mean, I didn’t love them, but the truth is…” She sits up straight, her eyes searching mine until she comes to some decision and nods. “The truth is, it was just hard for me to watch them because I hated thinking about how you were with Margo when you made them. Some of them, I mean. I guess you were already divorced when you shot most of them, but still…”

I reach across the table to touch her hand.

“I mean, it wasn’t my idea to watch them. Chantal, the mother of the family in Versailles, she happened to be a fan of yours. I didn’t even tell her that I’d met you or that my brother knew you. She had the DVDs and always went to see your movies on opening weekend. I went with her and the kids and sometimes her mother.”

“So you saw my comedies in French?Mon Dieu.”

She shakes her head. “In English. With subtitles.”