sitting at Michaelâs side on a leash. Behind the desk is a stylish FEMALE CLERK, 25. This is the South: she greets them with a genuinely welcoming smile.
CLERK
Good evening. How may I help you?
MICHAEL
(tired, babbling a little)
Hi, do you have any rooms available? We donât have a reservation. And as you see, we have a dog. A really quiet, well-behaved dog. Well, probably everyone says that about their dog, but Izzy actually is.
CLERK
I believe you, sir. And dogs are welcome here. How many rooms will you be needing?
Michael hesitates and looks at Elena, and the clerk gets very interested in her computer screen. The two of them come to a silent agreement.
MICHAEL
Just one room. A king, if you have it.
CLERK
Of course, sir.
INT. HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT
Michael and Elena come in, drop their bags and move into each otherâs arms without a word. They donât kiss, they just hold each other tightly.
INT. HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT
Michael and Elena lie entwined in the bed on top of the covers, still fully clothed, sleeping peacefully. Izzy is on Michaelâs other side, sandwiching him.
W E OVERSLEPT AND ended up having to scramble to get to the airport in time to meet Catherineâs flight. As we left the hotel room I looked back at the bed, thinking about what would almost certainly have happened there if we hadnât been so wiped last night and in such a hurry this morning. I couldnât feel too resentful toward the good doctor, though. If it hadnât been for Catherine, Elena and I wouldnât have ended up in that bed in the first place, and I wouldnât have woken up feeling something like happy for the first time in two years.
Elena was quiet and pensive in the car on the way to the airport. I kept casting sidelong glances at her, trying to gauge her mood, hoping she felt as good as I did, but her face gave nothing away. Ten minutes from the airport her phone chimed: a text from Catherine saying sheâd landed and would meet us outside. As we pulled into the arrivals area I surveyed the people waiting to be picked up, looking for a wise, matronly type. The only woman I saw standing alone was a tall, striking brunette who bore more than a passing resemblance to Angelina Jolie. Who Iâd had a thing for ever since I was sixteen and saw her in Cyborg 2 . I must have masturbated five hundred times to that video.
âThere she is,â Elena said excitedly.
âHow do you know?â Angelina was now waving at us.
âI told her what kind of car you had. Besides, she looks just like I pictured her.â
âHuh.â
I pulled over and Elena hopped out, and before I could even put the car in park she and Catherine were hugging like theyâd known each other for years and chattering away in Spanish. I went to join them, feeling a bit like an interloper.
âAnd this must be Michael.â Catherine turned to me, appraising me with large green eyes that I felt sure missed next to nada, a theory she confirmed by holding out her hand instead of hugging me like she had Elena. âThank you so much for coming,â she said. And then, âIâm very sorry about your wife.â
âUh . . . youâre welcome. Me too. I mean Iâm sorry too, about your brother.â I pumped her hand robotically, walloped by her beauty, which was exactly how Iâd felt the one time Iâd met Angelina Jolie, at a party at some muckety-muck producerâs house in Malibu. Catherine was older. The crowâs feet at the corners of her eyes said she was on the wrong side of forty-five, but you wouldnât have known it to look at the rest of her. She was slim and fit, with lips like eiderdown pillows, long, tousled-looking brown-black hair and an hourglass figure revealedâin case anyone might miss itâby a low-cut blouse and a pair of skin-tight jeans tucked into high-heeled boots. She looked less like a therapist than a former Playboy centerfold. A