Plus One

by Christopher Noxon

  Lounge wars. That’s what they called it yesterday, when Alex wandered out from the buffet at 10:30, looking for a place to plop and not finding a single available chaise within one hundred feet of the pool. Turns out the week around Christmas was the busiest week of the year at the Rutlidge, the enormous, objectively gorgeous, but aggressively beige hotel where half of Hollywood was spending the holiday break. Demand for prime pool space was so intense that the hotel had implemented a strict occupancy policy, the specifics of which were explained to Alex by a buff Polynesian woman in a Santa hat and an orange polo shirt whose nametag read GLADYS.

  “Guests must be physically present at all times,” said Gladys. “Unattended personal belongings will be collected and held at the concierge desk.”

  Alex had laughed at her spiel, proudly declaring himself a conscientious objector in lounge wars and laying out four towels on a far-off stretch of sand by the Aloha Snack Stand. “It’s better over here!” he said when Figgy came down from breakfast. “We can spread out and relax, nobody up in our business. I think I saw David Spade by the pool yesterday—you really think we’re gonna be able to relax next to Spade? Besides—how great is this view?”

  “Great,” she said, pulling out the bag of pineapple spears she’d smuggled from the buffet. She’d completed production the night before their flight from LAX, skipping the wrap party and leaving behind a clusterfuck of unresolved issues. Standing in the sand in a pair of linen shorts and an Indian-print top, shoulders slumped and eyes bloodshot, she looked like a person who’d witnessed a violent crime, the insanity of production intensified by the prospect of her fortieth birthday, which was just three weeks away. She was weirdly testy when he brought it up on the plane ride over, saying only that she felt like it was “an expiration date.”

  “You know I’ve got my laptop, right?” she said now. “I’ve got notes due on the last two episodes. I’m not even sure I can get a WiFi signal out here. And all this sand? How am I going to keep it off the keyboard?”

  Alex scanned the beach. “I’ll find a table,” he said. “I’ll borrow one from over by the snack stand—they’ve gotta have a little table over there. And I’ll bring you mai tais and those amazing taro chips and it’ll be great, I promise—”

  He stopped short. No way was he going to talk Figgy into being okay with this spot. Sticking up for it would only reinforce her sense that three days in, the Sherman-Zicklin holiday vacation, their first big fancy family trip, was not going well at all. The rental van stunk of cigarette smoke. They got stuck behind a bulldozer on the drive from the airport. Their room looked over a parking lot, and when they’d checked in, Alex didn’t have cash to tip the bellboy. Then there’d been some pointed discussion of Alex’s packing and the fact that he’d brought a single bathing suit for each kid. “Who packs one bathing suit for a week on the beach?” she asked. “Not a Jew—that’s who.”

  This morning, Alex had set the alarm for 6:30 and headed down to the pool, determined to claim the primest cabaña he could find. It was ludicrous, sure, but if waging lounge wars meant making Figgy happy—or at least a little less miserable—it was worth it. It was like his book—he needed to start pretending. He’d pretend to be a man who took care of business, one of those guys he saw in the hotel lobby with the barrel chests and commanding baritones, men who knew how to arrange for a suite upgrade and an 8 p.m. dinner reservation for twelve. Alex wasn’t that guy, but he sure as hell could fake it.

  He was rolling his head around trying to work out a kink when a familiar voice sounded out.

  “Hey,” said Sam, plopping down in the lounger next to him and madly strumming the screen on Alex’s iPhone. “Mom’s sleeping in. Getting room service. Said she’d meet us later. Sylvie’s in the Jacuzzi with that girl from Tucson.”

  Sam gave him an appraising look. “Aren’t you freezing?”

  “I am, but I can’t go get my sweatshirt,” said Alex. “Hotel policy—super strict. One guest can reserve a maximum of three loungers. Minute you step away, you’re out. Doesn’t matter who you are. Kind of democratic, really. And would you look at the spot I got for us? Best seat in the house.”

  “It’s okay,” Sam sighed. “The ones by the grotto are shadier. Closer to the Jacuzzi, too.”

  “Those don’t count,” Alex said, squinting across the pool at the row of cabañas roped off for guests staying in the so-called supersuites. “Do you have any idea what those cost? They’re like a grand a day. How crazy is that?”

  “I heard the supersuites have a private buffet open all day on their floor. Eugene Bamper had like twenty-seven mango slushies yesterday.”

  “Good for Eugene,” Alex said. He regarded his boy. Sam’s hair was poofy and uncombed. His left knee bounced lazily up and down, two enormous warts clinging tenaciously to the kneecap. Something about the way his mouth hung open, the way his fingers twitched frantically against the iPhone—Alex suddenly felt an incredible urge to swat his son upside the head.

  “Gimme my phone,” Alex said. “I didn’t haul myself out here this morning so you could waste my battery on Pastry King. Go jump in the pool.”

  Sam sighed. “Let me finish this profiterole first.”

  “Come on, Sam—go swim. Now.”

  “There’s nothing to do in the pool.”

  “Get wet. Splash around. Go.”

  He sighed heavily and handed over the phone. “God, Dad—would you relax? We’re on vacation.”

  “I am completely relaxed,” he said, a little louder than he meant to. “I am Mister Vacation. Go on.”

  Sam stood his ground and tugged at his swim trunks, his posture a full-body gesture of disgust.

  Alex sat up and stabbed his finger forward. “You wanna know where I went on Christmas vacation when I was eleven years old? Iowa. To visit my grandpa in a nursing home. Big highlight of that trip was a visit to the John Deere factory—dirty snow and tractors behind glass. So, just do me a favor, okay? Look around and try to at least pretend to enjoy yourself.”

  “So we’re not in Iowa,” Sam said. “Hoo-ray.”

  Sam turned and took two steps toward the lip of the pool, then dropped into the water and began dog paddling into the deep end. Craning his neck to keep his head dry—he’d complained yesterday about what the saline was doing to his hair—he was cut off midway by a giant splash and a hysterical boyish whoop.

  The three sons of Cary and Helen Bamper had a thing for entrances—last night out on the beach, they’d charged into the surf in a great bellowing herd, on their way demolishing a drip castle Alex and Sylvie had built. Today the first Bamper to hit the water was Eugene, a broad-shouldered thirteen-year-old, followed closely by the twins, black haired, squinty eyed, and vaguely vulpine. The three of them were constantly punching, swatting, and otherwise assaulting each other; they fascinated Alex as much as they terrified Sam, who now madly paddled back toward the shallow end.

  “Leo!” called Helen, crouching down on the lip of the pool. “Constantine! Eugene! Here! Sunscreen!”

  Helen dabbed sunscreen on Constantine’s face while Cary paced the concrete behind her. Really, Alex thought: Who names their kids after Roman emperors? Even from this distance, he could see Helen’s amused frown as she wrangled her squirming child. Her expression never wavered; she seemed endlessly entertained by the mini riots her boys were constantly initiating. Cary, meanwhile, hung back, oblivious, his attention focused on his Blackberry, which he held out in front of him like a dictaphone. With his Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt, and broad, thick shoulders, Cary looked every bit like the nickname Figgy had for him: Big Daddy. It fit—besides his three boys, Big Daddy Bamper oversaw two crazy-successful network shows and was possibly the most confident human Alex had ever encountered.

  “Boys, come!” Helen called, holding up a big canvas bag of Styrofoam flotation noodles. “I’ve got the noodle bag!” Alex propped himself up and watched as she tossed the toys one by one, her boys barking like seals.

  “Leo—g
rab the orange one!” Helen called. “That’s right—whack your brother! Not on the face—back of the head! Nice one!”

  Sam climbed up the ladder and began waddling back over to Alex, hands crossed over his chest. “Where’d they get the noodles?”

  “I have no idea,” Alex said. He’d checked the hotel shop the day before; it was all hideous pastel-y crafts and rayon resort wear. The most fun thing they sold was a stuffed sea turtle. “She must’ve brought ’em from home.”

  Sam eased back into his lounger. “Bet they have more than one bathing suit, too.”

  Alex sat forward. “May I remind you who’s got it going on right now? Check out Big Daddy Bamper over there. Stuck in the sun, nowhere to sit, pacing back and forth on the hot concrete… and look at us, kiddo. Sitting pretty.”

  Sam nodded across the pool. “I wouldn’t worry about Mr. Bamper.”

  Alex looked over—the boys were still whooping it up in the water, but Cary and Helen had left the pool area. He spotted them following an attendant with long black hair—it was the same attendant he’d met yesterday, Gladys!—down a winding path that led to… the grotto. The supersuite cabañas—of course. Still talking on the phone, Cary casually stretched out and wrapped his neck in a towel. As Alex watched, the attendant spritzed his face with a canister of scented mist, squirted her hands from a bottle, and began kneading one of his feet with her long, muscular hands. Cabaña-side food massage? Evian spritzers?

  “Face it, Dad,” Sam finally said. “The Bampers do everything we do but better.”

  • • •

  Alex sat there for a good half hour, watching the Bampers get spritzed and rubbed and fussed over. He wanted to be the Bampers and he hated the Bampers, all at once. Huck had a name for it—the approach/avoidance conflict. Coveting something you can’t stand. Under-examined source of male anxiety, Huck said.

  A wet hand flopped down on Alex’s knee. Sylvie was back from the Jacuzzi; she took a big mouthful of virgin piña colada and gargled: “Goggles?”

  She had figured out how to charge drinks to the room within twenty minutes of check-in and was now on a first-name basis with the entire waitstaff. Her eyes were bright red.

  “Everything’s up in the room,” Alex said.

  Sylvie sat down on his lounger and laid a wet hand on his knee. “Please?”

  “Fine—stay here.” Alex got up and exhaled swiftly. “I’ll be right back.”

  The walk from the pool to the room was ridiculously long, across the pink marble courtyard, up the elevator, and down a long wainscoted hallway broken up with vast, empty chambers containing tables set with tropical flowers. Alex swiped his key card and tiptoed inside.

  Figgy was propped up in bed, sipping from a bowl of miso soup and tapping on her laptop. She looked up, her eyes big and glassy. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Down at the pool,” he said. “I got us a really nice spot—”

  “The kids woke up two minutes after you left and jumped all over me. We so should’ve gotten two adjoining rooms.”

  “Oh hon.” Alex sat down on the side of the bed. He nodded at her laptop. “Work stuff?”

  “New ads started airing last night. Disaster. Dipshits in publicity completely spoiled the finale.”

  Alex made a disapproving cluck and took hold of her foot through the bedspread. “Can’t Jess handle it? Isn’t that his job?”

  “It’s supposed to be,” she said, snapping shut the laptop. “You coming back to bed?”

  “I gotta grab some stuff and get back to the kids before Sylvie drains the entire island of mai tais.”

  “If we’d brought Rosa—”

  Alex made a face. He’d been adamant that the Sherman-Zicklins would not be the sort of family who lugged a domestic servant along on holiday. While it was true that Figgy had work and wouldn’t be much use with the kids, and also true that Rosa would hardly object to an all-expenses-paid workweek in Maui, Alex held firm. No way would he be the white-skinned privileged doofus roasting in the sun while plump-armed, brown-skinned Rosa played paddy-cake with the kids. He was entirely capable of monitoring the children while Figgy recuperated.

  Figgy laid her head down on his lap. “So the kids are in the cabaña? Is Helen watching them?”

  “She’s nearby, yeah,” he said.

  “The cabaña’s near the pool?”

  “Kissing it.”

  She made a purring sound and threw open the covers of the bed. “Get in here.”

  Alex did as he was told. Apparently, setting down stakes at the pool had been impressive, maybe even a little sexy. She opened her robe and he pressed up against her. God, he thought as he tugged off his pajama bottoms, they needed this. Things had been so chilly between them, even before they left—really, it had been weird since that night at the house with Zev, the Israeli DP. He’d been so paranoid, so stupid—and in the end, there wasn’t anything to indicate that Figgy had been anything but faithful. But still. He didn’t like that guy. And clearly some trust issue had been stirred up for Figgy. Alex went on ZeroIn a few days later and discovered she’d changed her password.

  He kissed her on the neck and chest and let out a long sigh. He needed this. He needed to reconnect, to feel the warmth of her, to get out of his head. He tried to remember the last time they’d done it—two weeks? Three? He worked his way around each breast and settled between her legs. Figgy tensed and arched her back, pushing her hips forward into him. After all these years together, Alex still enjoyed going down on his wife, feeling her tense and shudder at his touch. But it was also, he thought now, an obligation. He had to do it—it was a matter of principle that she reach a satisfying climax. Which sometimes took awhile, time that often resulted in neck cramps or sudden uncomfortable flashes of self-consciousness. Like now, as he tried to vary his movement and time his pace to her breathing, he was buffeted by questions that were not particularly helpful, performance-wise: What part of the marital bargain am I fulfilling right now? Is this how I pay my fare? If I was the one stressing over work and signing the bill at checkout, would I be getting my dick sucked right now instead of laboring on an equal-work, equal-pay orgasm?

  He must’ve lost his concentration, or maybe Figgy was dealing with distractions of her own, because before he’d finished the task at hand, she reached down, gave Alex a nice tug, and whispered, “I want you inside.”

  It wasn’t his finest performance—it took him a few thrusts to get hard—but it was still good. Of course it was. Why did he always forget that it was never not good? Even a quickie like this was better than nothing at all. It was like when they were first together—they’d do it on the fly, scratch the itch, then hurriedly get their clothes back on and go back to their day. Nowadays a month would go by with nothing and then there’d be this incredible pressure to make it special, and they were just so wiped out. Who had the energy? But here she was, below him, yielding. And all the usual stuff of their marriage—the logistics, the petty resentments, the scorekeeping, the second-guessing—melted away.

  “Whew,” he said afterward, rolling off her and reaching for something to clean them up.

  Alex felt the mattress sink.

  He looked at the ceiling and mulled, “Hotel sex—objectively better than bedroom sex. Why is that, do you think?”

  Figgy didn’t respond. He turned to face her. Her legs were curled up over her head, knees against the headboard, hands on the inside of her legs, pelvis held up high.

  “Fig, honey?” he said. “What’re you doing?”

  “Yoga,” she grunted. “Modified plow.”

  • • •

  “Isn’t this fun?” Figgy hollered across the table. She’d been in a terrific mood all day. It was heightened now by her closeness to Cary Bamper, who’d scored a reservation for fifteen at Onofisk, the hotel restaurant run by the Norwegian celebrity chef Gunda Gunderson. Alex was excited for the food but frustrated by the seating; their table was high and narrow, and he kept having to yell at the kids to stop ro
cking on the barstools. On his right, the Bamper boys had demolished a basket of taro crisps and were now blindfolding Sam with a napkin. On his left, Helen Bamper and a Pines dad whose name Alex couldn’t remember were locked in an intense discussion of the banking bailout. Beyond them, a mile or two down the table, Figgy and Cary were huddled close, all nods and smiles and periodic explosions of laughter.

  Alex’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out. Miranda had texted him another photo—for the last month or so, they’d been trading food pictures with short, suggestive captions. This time she’d sent a close-up of a caramelized cube of foie gras sprinkled with shredded herbs and mustard seeds. Her caption: “Just whipped this up, Sher. Foraged the greens from the side of the 101 Freeway. When do we cook something up together?”

  Best ignore that, he thought. It was one thing trading food porn—quite another “cooking something up.” He put the phone down and craned his head down the table. “Who’s got the wine?”

  The dad whose name Alex now guessed was Alan handed over a bottle of Sancerre. He was a baby-faced guy with pink cheeks, wiry eyebrows, and a gleaming bald head (Alex suddenly flashed on something he’d read about the link between testosterone and baldness—the balder the man, the higher the T-count. Could that be?). Alex seemed to remember him saying he worked in finance—portfolio management maybe? Alex felt Alan’s gaze from across the table. To him, Alex must seem like an unmade bed or a sweet farm animal. They’d met once or twice, but like most Pines dads they didn’t take much interest in each other. The moms at the school often met up for book club or trips to Target, but the dads barely knew each other. The line from the ladies at school was that all their husbands were dull and unsociable compared to the dynamic and energetic women, an impression this dad was doing nothing to contradict.