Plus One (30 page)

“Absolutely,” Alex said. “No problem.”

• • •

Figgy rolled in from the office at ten that night. Alex was sitting at the kitchen island working on a bottle of pinot that had arrived in a gift basket that afternoon. As she dumped her computer bag and plopped down on a barstool, he pulled the card out from a sparkling cluster of cellophane. “'We're thrilled to be in the Figgy Zicklin business. From all your fans at Streamz.'” He put the card down and gave Figgy a look. “That's Streamz with a ‘z.' Sounds like some sort of porn thing. Or a dessert topping?”

Figgy cocked an eyebrow. “New Internet network. Run by some Cupertino guys looking for”—she air-quoted—“ ‘content'. Nerds working on multi-platform, new-delivery-paradigm, whatever-the-hell. I was spitballing in the room and mentioned
The Natashas
with Milla Jovovich attached. Seems they've got an
algorithm
—and when they fed Russian brides, Milla's cleavage, and the creator of
Tricks
into it, their computers all got hard-ons.
They want to go straight to series. No pilot—thirteen episodes.”

“Seriously?”

“They're working on the deal now. It's kind of awesome.”

“Jesus.” Alex drained the remainder of the bottle into an empty glass and slid it across the island to Figgy. “Congratulations? I mean, this is a good thing, right?”

“I guess,” she said, ignoring the glass. “Jess says we gotta strike while the iron's hot, but I don't know. I don't even know if there's an actual
show
there. I'm kind of hoping it goes away. They're talking about shooting Baltimore-for-Belarus in January. Some kind of tax boondoggle. Only upside is we got Franklin Sykes to co-star.”

Franklin Sykes was a lanky, dreadlocked Caribbean-born singer-songwriter who'd recently started doing TV; his guest spots on a network police procedural never failed to elicit an audible groan of desire from Figgy. Alex distinctly remembered a post-coital game of theoretical hookups in which she named Sykes as one of two celebrities she'd get a free pass on. The other was Javier Bardem.

“That's just because he's Spanish,” he'd said. “But what about that face? Those fish lips?”

“It's not any of that. He's so deliciously
rapey
. Don't you ever wanna, you know…?”

“What?
Rape
you?”

“Yeah.”

“I don't know how I'd even
do
that,” Alex had said.

They'd dropped it there. Alex knew Figgy didn't harbor actual rape fantasies, and there wasn't much chance of her ever encountering Bardem or any of her other theoretical celebrity hookups. But now, with a little maneuvering on her part, she'd put herself in a position to actually get up close and professional with Franklin Sykes.

“Hold on a second, now,” Alex said, suddenly opposed to
everything to do with
The Natashas
. “What about
Tricks
? And the kids? And really, honey—
Baltimore
?”

She got up from the table and kissed him on the top of his head on her way to the fridge. “You know what they say—‘television's a pie-eating contest—and the prize is more pie.' ”

She sat back down with a big glass tumbler of chia-seed tea. “So—how was
your
day?”

He blinked hard. There wasn't anything to say about the book—he'd stalled out this morning after two hours at the typewriter, his glacially slow pace interrupted by a handyman who couldn't find the right part for a window shade. Scintillating. She'd have loved to hear about the creepy Friends of Finkelstein photos and the speech about frozen-versus-vigorous sperm, but that was definitely out. What was it he'd told Huck? Take it off the table. Ask forgiveness, not permission.

He should tell her about Wild Boar, the pop-up restaurant. Some hot-shit line cook was doing a nose-to-tail dinner for twenty-five with meats from Malcolm's; Miranda had sent him the invite. Their online exchange was getting increasingly flirtatious—it was still all food related, but it was way chummier than was probably appropriate. In any case, Figgy was almost certainly working that night, but the smart thing would be to ask if she wanted to join. But what if she said yes?

“Are you okay?” Figgy asked.

Alex realized he'd been babbling inaudibly for the last minute as all the things he couldn't talk about rolled around like a mouthful of marbles.

“So—what
did
you do today?” she said. “Just… hang out?”

“No,” he said, a tad too defensively. He popped up from his chair and reached for a stack of papers beside the kitchen computer. He shuffled the stack. The warts on Sam's knee were back—were they okay with the dermatologist burning them with lasers? The painters were finished in the guest room, and the Deep Amber
looked dark to Alex—was that really what she wanted? Katherine Pool had sent an invite to a Blue Man Preschool fundraiser featuring “original artwork by our sons and daughters”—were they
obligated
to bid on six-year-old Bingwen Pool's finger-paint masterpiece? And what about this crazy request from “Funbags,” a breast cancer fundraiser that featured artful, neck-down portraits of the boobs of powerful Hollywood women. Did she want to pose?

Figgy frowned while Alex worked through the pile, offering terse verdicts on each item (no to the laser treatment, yes to the Deep Amber, $100 max for the Bingwen painting,
aw hell no
to Funbags). Then she laid her chin down on her arms.

“Is that it? I'm ready for beddy.”

“That's it.”

She slurped down the last of the chia seeds, then pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know what I hate?”

“What?”

“Forty,” she said. “I'm ancient.”

“Aw, honey,” he said. “Forty's nothing. If you were a record, you'd be track one, side two. And look at everything you've got, right? All the pie?”

Figgy stretched her arms over her head and yawned. “I guess.”

“You know what
I
hate?” he said.

“What?”

“I hate that I see you for twenty minutes a day and all we have time for is… logistics. I barely talk to anyone anymore who I don't write a check to. Except the kids. And they don't listen.”

“I feel you,” she said, rising up and heading for the stairs. “Just hearing about all this is exhausting. Thank you for dealing. See you in bed. I'm wiped.”

• • •

In the days leading up to Figgy's birthday, Alex's phone rang every fifteen minutes. He heard a few times from the party planner, Alice. But mostly, the voice on the other end belonged to his mother, who'd determined that as the originator of such an utterly brilliant and original party idea, she had a special responsibility to direct a “festive, effective,
transformational
event.”

“Let's make this a cell-phone-free space,” she said. “We'll collect everyone's devices when they arrive. And I can do a handout on conflict minerals from the Congo—this could be a real teachable moment, right?”

Alex didn't discourage her, though he didn't even want to
think
about the carnage that would result if they tried to wrestle phones away from Figgy's twenty or so work friends. Instead, he did what he always did with his mother, which was to let her talk and then go ahead with whatever he wanted. In this case, that meant letting Alice the party planner handle the arrangements.

When the big day arrived, however, Alex quickly realized he should've maybe conferred a little less with Jane and a little more with Alice. She'd arranged for the guests to meet at the house and then travel together on a chartered bus. That seemed entirely sensible, until the moment came on the cloudless Saturday morning of the party and Figgy, the kids, Jane, Joan, Clive, and all the guests were gathered outside… and a forty-foot party bus with the words “Voodoo Lounge” printed on the side pulled up to the curb.

This wasn't right. At all.

Alex climbed the stairs and surveyed the interior. The walls were black lacquer and lined with mirrors. At the center of the bus was a dance floor of flashing colored squares arrayed around a copper floor-to-ceiling pole.
A stripper pole.

Figgy grinned as she stretched out on a mahogany velour couch. “I hope we've got food for the drive—Vegas is four hours away.”

“We're not going to Vegas.”

“The roller rink?”

“No.”

“Go-carting? Trampoline park? Disneyland?”

“No, no, no. Stop guessing.”

The drive to the party was raucous, giggly, and, for Alex, increasingly tense. Everyone seemed to be having a blast. Mimosas were passed. Sam fired up the fog machine. Clive found a classic rock station on the stereo and cranked up Bob Seeger. Dani Dooling took a turn on the pole, swiveling around in comic gyrations. Alex had to physically restrain Sylvie from following her.

As the bus turned off the 10 freeway and downshifted into the densely packed streets east of downtown, Huck called Alex over. “Where
are
we?” he said, nodding toward a stray dog gnawing on the ripped upholstery of an abandoned lounge chair.

A block later, a small child in a saggy diaper stopped and stared as the bus pulled to a stop beside a chain-link fence.

“Okay, everyone, we're here!” Alex said cheerily, rising to his feet.

Behind the fence, the wood-stud framework of a half-built duplex was decorated with silver velvet ribbons and mylar balloons. In the dirt lot beside the building was a banquet table overflowing with flowers, purple “Figgy is 40” hard hats, and faux gold-plated hammers, one for each guest.

As the guests began to file out the door, led by Jane and her guitar, Figgy stayed put, pressing her nose against the window.

“Isn't it awesome?” Alex said, selling it. “That's not just any house over there—it's a
Happy Home
. You know—Happy Homes, the volunteer group? That builds houses?”

“So—we're
doing construction
?”

“And having lunch. After we build. You can drywall! Haven't you always wanted to drywall?”

Outside, the kids led a crowd of guests into the dirt lot, where
Jane was already perched on a pile of lumber playing her guitar and Alice was passing out glasses of pink lemonade.

“We're doing manual labor? For my birthday?”

“We're
giving back
,” he said. “Come on—it's a party!”

She took another glance outside and frowned. “You sure we can't swing by Home Depot and just hire a few guys?”

“Come on,” he said, trying to remember how Alice had put it: “'It's the most fabulous house-building party ever!'”

Figgy tilted her head dubiously and crossed her arms. For a second he wasn't sure if she'd even get off the bus. “We'll discuss this later,” she said. Then she took a deep breath, collected herself, and headed out into the bright morning.

• • •

From the moment he stepped through the gate, it was clear that far from being cowed or chastened, Figgy's guests were tickled by the opportunity to play at hard labor. Or at least they weren't going to let the proximity to poverty get in the way of a good time. Laughter pealed across the worksite. The woman whose house they were helping to build circulated through the crowd, hugging everyone. Then she climbed aboard the party bus with her son and cranked up the ranchero. Figgy joined a crew of ladies and got busy drywalling a bathroom.

After spending an hour on the roof shingling, Alex made a circuit around the party. Figgy was holding forth in a pair of safety goggles, chatting happily with a group of moms from the Pines. He'd been counting on Mimi Feldenbaum, she of the high hair and strapless dresses, to make at least a small fuss about the dust or the roosters or the cholos drinking from bags on the porch next door. He'd imagined himself stepping in with an impassioned speech about how it was high time they pierced their privileged bubble and offered some real, tangible help to people
in need—not a luncheon at the Beverly Wilshire or a half-page tribute ad or a tax-deductible donation to some annual bullshit appeal.

But he never got the chance—Mimi, like everyone else, was having a fine old time building and noshing and sloshing a roller around a paint tin. Looking around at the happy scene, he felt a pang of relief jolt through him, followed quickly by a backwash of guilt. How screwed up was it that he'd tried to sabotage his wife's birthday to make some passive-aggressive statement about economic inequality?

Figgy was crossing the worksite when Alex intercepted her, the wrapped and ribboned Daniel Frick jewelry box hidden behind his back. “Hey hon—how goes the hard labor?”

Figgy stopped and adjusted the strap on her hard hat. “Dusty.”

“You still pissed at me?”

She turned back and moved in close. “This is fun. The nail gun is awesome. But I don't know, I was hoping for… maybe just a nice dinner? Or a hotel?”

Alex pulled out the jewelry box. “Open it.”