She was suddenly angry, not because he was manhandling her and not even because he was threatening the future of her business, but because he was wasting his talent. “Big hotshot playwright.” She jerked away. “That typewriter has an inch of dust on it.”
“I’m not ready yet!” He stalked across the room and grabbed his jacket from a chair.
“I don’t see what’s so hard about it.” She made her way to his desk and ripped the wrapper off a ream of paper. “Anybody can put a piece of paper in a typewriter. See how I’m doing it. Nothing could be easier.”
He shoved his arms into the sleeves.
She dropped into the desk chair and flicked on the switch. The machine hummed to life. “Watch this. Act One, Scene One.” She picked out the letters on the keyboard. “Where are we, Jake? What does the stage set look like?”
“Don’t be a bitch.”
“Don’t…be…a…bitch.” She typed out the words. “Typical Koranda dialogue-tough and anti-female. What comes next?”
“Stop it, Fleur!”
“Stop…it…Fleur. Bad name choice. Too close to this amazing woman you already know.”
“Stop it!” He shot across the room. His hand came down on top of hers, jamming the keys. “This is all a big joke to you, isn’t it?”
Bird Dog had slipped away, and she saw the pain beneath his anger. “It’s not a joke,” she said softly. “It’s something you have to do.”
He didn’t move. And then he lifted his hand and brushed her hair. She closed her eyes. He pulled away and headed into the kitchen. She heard him pour a cup of coffee. Her fingers shook as she tugged the paper from the typewriter. Jake came toward her, mug in hand. She slipped in a fresh sheet of paper.
“What are you doing?” He sounded tired, a little hoarse.
She took an unsteady breath. “You’re going to write today. I’m not letting you put it off any longer. This is it.”
“Our deal’s off.” He sounded defeated. “I’m moving out of the attic.”
She hardened herself against his sadness. “I don’t care where you move. But we have an agreement, and we’re sticking to it.”
“Is that all you care about? Your two-bit agency.”
His anger was phony, and she wouldn’t let him bait her. “You’re writing today.”
He stepped behind her, set down his coffee mug, and settled his hands lightly on her shoulders. “I don’t think so.”
He lifted her hair and pressed his mouth into the softness just beneath her ear. His breath felt warm on her skin, and the soft touch of his lips made all her senses come alive. For a moment, she let herself give in to the sensations he was arousing. Just for a moment…
His hands slipped under her sweater and slid up over her bare skin to the lacy cups of her bra. He toyed with her nipples through the silk. His touch felt so good. Ripples of pleasure scuttled through her body. He unfastened the center clasp of her bra and pushed aside the cups. As he slipped up her sweater and bared her breasts, the ripples turned into waves of heat rushing through her veins. He pushed her shoulders back against the chair so her breasts tilted upward and began teasing the nipples with his thumbs. His lips caught her earlobe, then trailed along her neck. He was a master seducer playing with her body, going from one erogenous point to another as if he were following a chart in a sex manual.
Right then, she knew she was being bought.
She shoved his hands away from their carefully calculated seduction and jerked down her sweater. “You’re a real bastard.” She rose from the chair. “This was the easiest way to close me out, wasn’t it?”
He stared at a point just past her head. Doors slammed shut, shades pulled down, shutters locked tight. “Don’t push me.”
She was furious with herself for giving in so easily, furious with him, and unbearably sad. “The circle’s complete now,” she said. “You’ve played Bird Dog for so long that he’s finally taken over. He’s eating up what was left of your decency.”
He stalked across the room and pulled the door open.
She gripped the edge of the desk. “Making those crappy movies is easier than doing your real work.”
“Get out.”
“Mr. Tough Guy has a yellow streak a mile wide.” She dropped back down in the chair. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely push the typewriter keys. “Act One, Scene One, damn you…”
“You’re crazy.”
“Act One, Scene One. What’s the first line?”
“You’re out of your frigging mind!”
“Come on, you know exactly what this play’s about.”
“It’s not a play!” He stalked over to her, his expression so tormented that she winced. One of his hands knotted into a fist. “It’s a book! I have to write a book. A book about ’Nam.”
She took a deep breath. “A war book? That’s right up Bird Dog’s alley.”
His voice grew quiet. “You don’t know anything.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“You weren’t there. You wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re one of the best writers in the country. Make me understand.”
He turned his back to her. Silence fell between them. She heard the distant sound of a police siren, the rattle of a truck passing below. “You couldn’t tell them apart,” he finally said. “You had to regard everybody as the enemy.”
His voice was controlled, but it seemed to be coming from far away. He turned and looked at her as if he wanted to make certain she understood. She nodded, even though she didn’t. If what had happened in Vietnam was blocking his writing, why did he blame her?
“You’d be walking next to a rice paddy and spot a couple of little kids-four or five years old. Next thing you knew, one of them was throwing a grenade at you. Shit. What kind of war is that?”
She slipped her fingers back on the keys and began to type, trying to get it all down, hoping she was doing the right thing but not sure at all.
He didn’t seem to notice the sound of the typewriter. “The village was a VC stronghold. The guerrillas had cost us a lot of men. Some of them had been tortured, mutilated. They were our buddies…guys we’d gotten to know as well as our own family. We were supposed to go in and waste the village. The civilians knew the rules. If you weren’t guilty, don’t run! Don’t for chrissake run! Half the company was stoned or doped up-it was the only way you could make it.” He took a ragged breath. “We were airlifted to a landing strip near the village, and as soon as the strip was secure, the artillery opened up. When everything was clear, we went in. We herded them all together in the middle of the village. They didn’t run-they knew the rules-but some of them were shot anyway.” His face had grown ashen. “A little girl…she had on a ragged shirt that didn’t cover her belly, and the shirt had these little yellow ducks on it. And when it was over, and the village was burning, and somebody turned Armed Forces Vietnam on the radio and Otis Redding started singing ‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay’…The little girl had flies all over her belly.”
He stabbed his hand toward the typewriter. “Did you get that part about the music? The music is important. Everybody who’s been in ’Nam remembers the music.”
“I-I don’t know. You’re going so fast.”
“Let me in.” He pushed her aside, ripped out the sheet that was in the typewriter, and inserted a new one. He shook his head once as if to clear it, and then he began to type.
She went over to the couch and waited. He didn’t take his eyes off the pages that began sliding like magic through his typewriter. The room was cool, but his forehead beaded with sweat as he punched the keys. The images he’d drawn were already etched in her brain. The village, the people, the shirt with the little yellow ducks. Something terrible had happened that day.
He didn’t notice as she slipped out of the room.
She went to dinner with Kissy that evening. When she returned, she could still hear his typewriter. She made a sandwich for him and cut a slab of the French almond cake left over from the dinner party. This time she didn’t bother to knock before she used her key.