“I’d suggest taking the all-or-nothing approach. It’s so much more relaxing than having to engage your mind and judge every word out of my mouth. Plus, as you can tell, I’m ever so slightly drunk.” She gazed out the window, and then turned back to him with a mournful droop in her eyes. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and her pale, naked face, eyebrows carefully plucked into thin lines, looked like an unfinished portrait. With her hair loosed from its bun, the skin on her face was less taut, more carelessly draped around the bones of her cheeks.

Desmond found his eyes wandering back to her exposed breast and thought that if he could do so without there being any consequences, he’d like to reach in and cup it, feel the softness and weight of it in his hand. She seemed to be trying, with a mixture of derision and depression, to seduce him into making this kind of overture, although from his point of view, it wouldn’t be an overture but the whole symphony. She caught him staring again and said, “Are you looking at my tits with desire or envy?”

“Just looking.”

“I should blush, but I don’t know how.” She stretched back on the sofa, basking in his discomfort, and said, “Just so we can get this out of the way, what is it you wanted to say about that book?”

“I wanted to tell you how much I liked it. I hated coming to the end, and, to be honest, I was deeply moved by the way you talked about love. And more specifically, about your marriage.”

“Did you weep?”

“Yes. More than once.”

She frowned and lifted her wineglass to her mouth. “People are always telling me they wept reading it. It makes me think there’s something wrong with me for not shedding a single tear while writing it. Since we’re both in the scribbling game, I’ll let you in on a secret: I think one of the great tragedies of our time is the way people insist upon being ironic about everything. Look at me; I’m practically drowning in the stuff. I have to undercut everything I say with irony, and in addition to being time-consuming, it’s emotionally exhausting. And worse than that, the huddled masses in this country have equated irony with its lesser cousin, sarcasm, mostly thanks to good old television. So when I sat down to write the book, I decided to hell with irony, let’s try something new here; let’s get really sophisticated and go for heartfelt sincerity and big-time earnest.