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Plus One

Page 21

by Christopher Noxon


  Alex had run out of road and was descending into the parking garage. “Losing bars—gotta go,” he said. “I’m going in. Wish me luck.”

  “Don’t even stress this.”

  He hung up as he turned his keys over to the valet and headed for the lobby. The elevator was packed, and he had to wedge himself against the wall, keeping his head down to avoid the close cluster of faces. Everyone in the elevator, he sensed at once, knew exactly where he was going.

  At the reception desk, he signed his name on a sheet of perforated stickers, pausing briefly at the box marked “reason for visit” and briefly considering “Snip?” or “Clip?” before settling on “Consult.” As he eased into a padded chair with his clipboard and intake forms, he scanned the waiting room—just a nervous-looking guy in his forties clenching his hands hard on the armrests while a woman at his side ran her hand up and down his neck.

  Alex tried to focus on the form, frowning a little as he spelled out the address on Sumter Court, and then making a long row of Xs in the NO column beside the shockingly long list of conditions: small stream, cloudy urine, dribbling, impotence, frequent voiding, stones. None, nope, not really, only sometimes, only when drunk, gross, super-gross, thanks for asking! Three pages in, on an insurance form so densely printed it looked like a solid block of gray, he wrote Figgy’s name in the box marked “primary cardholder.”

  Somehow, he’d thought he could leave Figgy out of this whole business: Why’d she get to be primary cardholder? He knew keeping this business a secret was—how do you say?—wrong. But it also felt necessary, crucial even, not to mention thrilling in a way he couldn’t quite explain, this throwing his feet up in the stirrups. He was a pioneering feminist, crossing state lines to exercise his rights. My body, my choice!

  Alex finished the form and waited. It could’ve been ten minutes or an hour later, he had no idea—but finally, his name was called and he was ushered back into Finkelstein’s office. The paneled walls were decorated with framed diplomas and a gallery of family portraits. Alex got close and examined the faces—mostly older, tanned, comfortable men with comely young women. In each photo, babies bounced on knees or slumped against shoulders.

  “Ah yes—the Friends of Finkelstein.”

  Alex swiveled around and faced the doctor. Fiftyish and fit with small, wire-frame glasses and a big, crooked smile, he wore a loud paisley tie and a stethoscope slung jauntily around his neck. “My patients send me these pictures—I’ve helped bring over twenty-two hundred babies into the world, at last count.”

  “Isn’t the general idea to prevent babies?” Alex asked.

  “Vasectomies are simple—the lube job of urology, ha ha,” he said. “Pure craft. Reversals, on the other hand—that’s the art.”

  “Huh,” Alex said, sitting down.

  Finkelstein narrowed his eyes at Alex’s chart. “So: thirty-eight, married, otherwise healthy, no prior urological issues. You’ve got—what? Two kids? All done? Positive you don’t want any more?”

  “Yup,” Alex said. “Ready to hang up the spurs.”

  The doctor gave him a polite chuckle. “And Mrs. Sherman-Zicklin? Where’s she on this?”

  Alex flashed to Figgy at her office, glued to her laptop, gnawing on her nails, oblivious. “She couldn’t get out of work today,” he said. “But yeah—she’s great with it.”

  A flicker of suspicion passed over Finkelstein’s face as he leaned back in his chair. “I’m obliged to inform you that this is a one-way procedure. It can be extremely problematic to undo the work we do together. Of course down the line… if things change… as they so often do—especially among my patient population—you’ll keep me in mind. I don’t mind saying I have a tremendous success rate.”

  “I see,” Alex said, gesturing over at the photos on the wall. “I think for now, I’m good with just the basic… lube job.”

  Finkelstein pushed a glossy brochure across the desk printed with huge block letters: CRYOPRESERVATION. Alex flipped it open and scanned pictures of men in lab coats, steaming metal vats, and happy couples walking toward bright horizons. “Are you up to speed on banking?” the doctor asked. “We collect a sample of your sperm before the procedure and store it—as long as you need it. There’s no guarantee your swimmers will do the job once we thaw ’em out—frozen semen is not half as vigorous as fresh sperm. And then there’s the cost of storage.”

  “No, thanks,” said Alex, quickly deciding he’d rather not spend the next twenty years hiding monthly bills for the upkeep of a chunk of iced semen.

  “Suit yourself,” said Finkelstein with a smile. “My schedule’s tight right now, but I’m sure Donna out front can find a place to squeeze you in. Recovery time is two days max—you’ll want to stay off your feet and avoid any lifting or exercise. And you’ll need someone to bring you in and take you home. The missus can get out of work for that?”

  “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.”

  She smiled and tore off the paper in one move.

  Alex hadn’t been sure how she’d respond to the necklace—she’d liked the few pieces of jewelry he’d given her in the past, but he hadn’t had much choice in this one. As she held it up and dangled it in the light, he felt his chest tighten.

 

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