INT. HALL, HOTEL JEROME. MUCH LATER, SAME NIGHT.
In the third-floor hall, a tired-looking Adam is unlocking the door to the living room of his suite.
INT. BEDROOM, HOTEL JEROME. CONTINUOUS.
CLOSE-UP: we see the clothes of the tall hippie girl—we are familiar with her sweater, which she is always lifting to show her breasts. Her clothes are strewn on Matthew’s rollaway bed, her boots next to the rollaway.
PULL BACK: the ghost of the tall hippie girl is under the covers, on Adam’s side of the bed. She is reading Adam’s novel, which she found on his night table, when Adam enters the bedroom.
ADAM (V.O.)
Even I knew better than to sleep with a ghost. And it was the wrong time for a moral dilemma.
A WIDER ANGLE: as Adam undresses, leaving on his boxer shorts. Before he goes in the bathroom, he puts My Father’s Dragon on the night table next to his side of the bed.
CLOSER ON: the hippie girl puts down Adam’s novel; she picks up My Father’s Dragon, thumbing through pages.
ADAM (V.O.)
Not every dilemma is a moral one.
INT. BATHROOM, HOTEL JEROME. CONTINUOUS.
CLOSE ON: Adam in the mirror as he brushes his teeth.
ADAM (V.O.)
It was okay with me if she read all night. I just couldn’t read all of My Father’s Dragon aloud—not so soon, not again.
INT. BEDROOM, HOTEL JEROME. CONTINUOUS.
The tall hippie girl has moved to the far side of the bed, where she reads My Father’s Dragon. Her reading light is on the night table on that side of the bed. Adam’s novel, with the author photo facing up, is on his night table when Adam comes out of the bathroom and gets into bed.
ADAM (V.O.)
Writers simply have to accept readers who prefer other writers.
CLOSER ON: the two of them in bed. Adam takes a look at her, but the hippie girl keeps reading. Adam turns on his side, away from her, closing his eyes.
FADE TO BLACK. FADE IN.
CLOSE ON: Adam’s sleeping face, as his eyes open.
PULL BACK: in the foreground is the empty side of Adam’s bed, where the copy of My Father’s Dragon lies on the dented pillow.
ANOTHER ANGLE: fully dressed, the ghost of the tall hippie girl is sitting on Matthew’s rollaway, reading Adam’s novel. Adam faces her. She looks up from the novel at him.
ADAM
It’s for you. Did you see where I signed it, on the title page? There’s also an inscription, just the usual “With my appreciation”—because I don’t know your name.
She finds the title page, seeing his signature and the inscription. She gives him a disbelieving smile, holding the book to her left breast. With a sense of humor, she lifts her sweater and turtleneck, giving him a look at her right boob—the hippie girl’s way of showing him her appreciation. Adam understands.
ADAM
You’re welcome.
DISSOLVE TO: Adam has dressed and packed; he surveys the bedroom, looking for anything he’s left behind. This time, he doesn’t overlook the copy of My Father’s Dragon.
ADAM (V.O.)
It was easy for Grace or me to get a new copy of My Father’s Dragon, to finish reading it to Matthew. I knew who might like to have her own copy at the Jerome.
INT. ANTLER BAR, HOTEL JEROME. MOMENTS LATER, THAT MORNING.
NO SOUND, except Ian and Sylvia singing “Four Strong Winds”—the Ian Tyson song. Paulina Juárez and Clara Swift are talking to each other and watching Paulino, who is having fun imitating the expressions on the faces of the mounted animal heads. We know who showed Otto how to do this.
ADAM (V.O.)
Paul Goode wanted Otto to show Matthew the animals in the Antler Bar before breakfast. As a kid, my dad must have loved the animal heads on the walls of the Jerome.
ANOTHER ANGLE: on Adam entering the Antler Bar. Paulino sees him—a quick wave, then back to the stuffed heads. Clara tightly holds the book Adam gives to her; Paulina wants to see it.
A WIDER ANGLE: Clara is showing Paulina the illustrations, just the first few pages, when Adam slips away. Paulina blows him a kiss as he leaves. Clara waves goodbye.
INT. LOBBY, HOTEL JEROME. CONTINUOUS.
The still-bleeding Aspen volunteer is curious about the new reader in the lobby. The tall hippie girl is on the couch; she doesn’t look up from Adam’s novel as Adam walks by. Jerome B. Wheeler gives Adam a salutation as Adam passes through the lobby. Adam pauses to bow, showing his respect for Wheeler.
Up the volume on Ian and Sylvia’s “Four Strong Winds,” as Otto and Billy come through the lobby, followed by two luggage carts and two cowboy porters.
INT. FRONT DESK, HOTEL JEROME. CONTINUOUS.
Adam and the two bodyguards are checking out at the same time—cowboy porters coming and going, as Ian and Sylvia keep singing.
ADAM (V.O.)
The Hotel Jerome is real—it’s a great hotel. If you ever go to Aspen, you should stay at the Jerome, if you can afford it.
EXT. ENTRANCE, HOTEL JEROME, E. MAIN. CONTINUOUS.
An army of cowboy doormen and porters is loading the Jerome van, as Otto and Billy and Adam wait together. The three of them are talking to one another, but we don’t hear what they’re saying—only “Four Strong Winds,” now fading, and Adam’s voice-over.
ADAM (V.O.)
It seemed suitable that my father’s bodyguards and I would share a van to the airport. We had more in common than our flying away from Aspen and our experience at the Jerome.
INT. HOTEL JEROME VAN, THE FIRST ROW OF BACKSEATS. CONTINUOUS.
Billy gets in the sliding door first, slipping across the seat to the spot behind THE DRIVER. Adam gets in, expecting Otto will choose the second row of backseats for himself, but Otto crams himself into the same row of seats with Billy and Adam—squeezing Adam between the bodyguards.
In the front seat of the van, the driver adjusts his rearview mirror. We see Billy’s face first; tears stream down Billy’s cheeks. Then we see Otto’s big face—he is sobbing. Last, the mirror shows us Adam—he’s crying, too.
ADAM (V.O.)
We had all lost someone important to us—someone who, for different reasons, had always been separated from us, someone we understood only at a distance. Yet my father’s importance to us—as removed from us as Paul Goode was—would be irreplaceable.
A WIDER ANGLE: on their three faces as the van lurches ahead.
FADE OUT “Four Strong Winds” as the Jerome recedes from view.
50. EM AS ISHMAEL
I heard about the snowstorm in the Northeast at the Aspen airport. My Chicago connection would be canceled. To Albany, or to Hartford—it doesn’t matter that I don’t remember. I wasn’t going to get back to Vermont from Chicago—that was clear. I decided to fly from Denver to New York. I knew Em was at the snowshoer’s pied-à-terre on East Sixty-fourth Street. It was her apartment now.
I called Molly from the Denver airport. I thought the old ski patroller would know everything about the snowstorm, but she didn’t care about it. “It’s just snow, Kid. By the way, we’re done hearing from Jasmine,” she told me.
A nurse at a home for assisted living in New York had called Molly. (The nurse was calling all the numbers Jasmine called most frequently.) Jasmine had passed away peacefully in her sleep, the nurse wanted Molly to know. “I told the nurse I was sorry about the peacefully part,” the old patroller said.
I called Grace from Denver, too. Given the good bookstore in Manchester, Grace had already bought a new copy of My Father’s Dragon. Grace said she would read Matthew the last two chapters while I was in New York, waiting out the snowstorm in New England. Em had delivered her novel—“based on her life with Nora,” as Grace put it. I thought her life with Nora was a vague way for Em’s publisher to describe the novel. This meant Em and Grace couldn’t agree on a title, I was thinking. “Em sent two copies, one for you,” was all Grace would say.