Clive straightened up and tugged at his beard. “It’s gonna be fine, Alex. You’ll see. We just can’t lose our focus. You make your day here, then tomorrow you’ll call Jess, maybe get us in touch with some people who can help. You and Jess are tight, right? I mean, thinking logistically here, if you talk to Jess, he’s not gonna turn around and run to Figgy, would he? Because we don’t need to loop her in until we’re on firm footing, right? Anyhow, you just go back and cut us a check and we’ll get started on round two….”
A bead of sweat slid down the bridge of Alex’s nose and dripped into his eye. A siren rang out from the street outside, and the dogs began howling, their voices mingling into a single high-pitched wail. Clive was still talking, still pitching, still clapping Alex’s shoulder and telling him it was all going to be fine. But of course it wasn’t.
• • •
He stumbled out onto the sidewalk in a daze, blinking hard in the afternoon glare, dried sweat itching his neck. The crew was setting up for another shot inside. He needed to lie down. He needed a drink. He jammed his hands in his pockets and looked up and down at the neighboring storefronts, narrow boutiques and specialty shops crammed against the warehouse-size space with the new Top Dog sign above the door. Forget the show—a deluxe doggie gym in the middle of Hollywood was ridiculous enough. Even more ridiculous was that Alex’s name was on the lease—Clive was still incorporating the production when Alex signed the papers. How was this not going to fail? What had he been thinking?
He got into the minivan and pulled into traffic. Automatically, he headed south to Koreatown. Miranda lived in a courtyard apartment south of Wilshire that had been graceful and desirable fifty years ago but was now occupied by sketchy old-timers, huge immigrant families, and the occasional slumming hipster. He followed an elderly lady through the front gate and went up the back stairs, squeezing past a man carrying a bouquet of inflatable toys.
Alex paused at her front door and ran a hand through his hair. He flashed back to Miranda on the street, hand on his neck, voice in his ear: Whatever I can do that doesn’t complicate your life… I’m available.
He pressed the button on her door, the dull clang like the bell on a kid’s bicycle.
From inside came the intoxicating thump of bare feet on hardwood floors. Miranda swung open the door. “Sher?” Her blonde eyelashes cast pinkish shadows down her cheeks. She was in a tufty robe with a beige towel turbaned around her head. “What are you—?”
Alex moved past her. He took in her apartment. It was a one-room studio, with a little kitchenette in the corner and an unmade bed under the window. The walls were off-white and bare except for a pair of spidery line drawings. The whole space was tiny and bright and clean—like the inside of an egg. He reached the center of the room, and not seeing anywhere else to sit, plopped down on the bed.
“Aren’t you shooting today? Is everything okay?”
He held his stomach and closed his eyes. “Sure—everything’s fine.” He looked up at her, his eyes wide and pleading, flashing for a second on Blossom the shar-pei crouched down beside Al.
“So—you’re wrapped? All done?”
“I’m all done, yeah.” He tried to smile.
“You don’t look so good.”
Alex dropped his elbows and leaned back on the mattress. “I fucked up,” he said. The room was spinning. “All the startup money—gone. He told me it was pre-sold. He told me it was a done deal.”
Miranda frowned and adjusted her robe, loosening the belt. “Let me get you some water.” She rustled up a glass from the cabinet, filled it from the sink, and came and sat beside him.
“Two hundred thirty thousand. And that doesn’t even include the rental. We’re not network rich—that’s real money.” The floor rocked beneath him.
“You’re hyperventilating,” she said, reaching out. “Put your head here.” She moved over and sat cross-legged against the headrest, then took his head in two hands and placed it in her lap. “This is a panic attack. I used to get them all the time. You’re going to be fine. Just tilt your head back and breathe slowly. Inhale through your nose. Exhale through the mouth. There.”
Alex did as he was told, his breath following her whispered prompts. She rubbed his temples with her index fingers. “Now in… now out,” she cooed. “Just relax. There you go.”
He could feel the cushion of her calves under his head. A wave of calm washed over him. She smelled like licorice. He opened his eyes and looked up. Her face was reversed above him, the light from the window flaring behind the crown of her hair, her lips directly above his eyes. He felt swaddled, enfolded. He reached up and touched a pale freckle on her throat, then began tracing a line across the soft skin of her neck. She put her hand against his cheek. He held steady, holding her gaze. He was floating now, rising up and tilting his head to the side, his mouth pressing up against hers.
She returned the kiss, her hand pressing against his cheek and then down to the top button of his shirt. He reached up and slid his hand inside her robe, found the plush curve of her breast. Her nipple hardened under his fingertips.
“Oh Sher,” she said, loosening his shirt. “There you are. Just lay still—let me.”
She knelt beside him and in one motion hooked his pants with the arch of her foot and slid them down his legs. She ran her hand down his chest, over his stomach, under his belt. God, she was good at this. His penis popped free and she took hold of it, then slapped it playfully against his stomach.
“You’re all good down here,” she said. “Everything healed up nicely.”
Alex’s eyes shot open. “I… I can’t believe I’m here.”
“Just relax. Don’t worry—let me.”
“I just haven’t—with anyone but—”
“Shhh.” She kissed his neck and reached around and pressed down on his hipbone. “She’s not here now. I am. No one has to know anything. She’s far, far away. Baltimore is a long, long way away….”
He felt a jolt shoot through him. “Baltimore? How do you—”
Miranda loosened her grip. “I spoke with Anne-Marie yesterday—”
“Who? You mean Figgy’s Anne-Marie?”
“Right—my pilot? It’s on top of the pile. We’re supposed to get an answer back next—”
Alex lurched backward, batting her away. “Wait, what? You’re… doing a show? With Figgy?”
Miranda sat up, her robe draping off one shoulder. “Not official or anything—but… I thought maybe she’d told you. After you were so nice about the script—on the ride home from the doctor’s? My agent sent Gerald & Geraldine over. I know Figgy’s been busy, but Anne-Marie loves it and thinks we have a real shot—Figgy shepherding, me running the room. You know how big this could be for me….”
“So—what’s this then?” Alex sputtered. “You really think Figgy’s going to work with you after—this? You and me, we do this, and then you go off and make a show with my—my wife?”
Miranda took his hand in hers, leaned in, and kissed his fingertips. “She doesn’t have to find out, dummy. She never has to find out. You’re still nine months away from your tenth anniversary, right? You’re not going to tell her—not now. And why would I? That would ruin my career.”
A chill shot through Alex’s chest. Miranda not only knew about the magic ten, she knew precisely how long he’d been married. All at once, Alex pictured himself at home, tangled up in his sweaty sheets, pathetically jerking off to visions of Miranda’s milky white skin… and meanwhile, Miranda was perched on her bed with her laptop, methodically scanning Wikipedia and Deadline and Starhomes.com to piece together the particulars of his marriage, her career, the floor plan of his house. He tried to speak. All that came out of his mouth was a raspy stutter.
She pulled back and tilted her head. “Look, I like you, Alex. And I know you like me. This could work out for both of us.”
Alex shut his eyes tight and coughed. “I know nothing.”
“What?”
He scram
bled backward and pulled apart his balled-up clothes. “I thought—I don’t know—with the blog and the butcher shop and—I thought you were all about food.”
Miranda stayed on the bed. “You know what a butcher makes an hour? It’s ridiculous. I’ve gotta look after myself. I’m not like you—I didn’t marry up.”
He yanked up his jeans and took a wobbly step backward.
“Look, Alex—I’m sorry! I’ve just been trying to be helpful, you know? And don’t you want to help me? With you and Figgy both in the business—we can all help each other. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Relationships?”
She reached over and touched his foot, her hand still warm. He said nothing. The silence was broken by a buzzing in Alex’s pocket. He plucked out his phone.
It was a text from Figgy. “Emergency kits! School just called my office! Why haven’t you taken care of this?”
“I’m sorry—I’ve gotta go,” he said.
• • •
Alex drove across town in a daze, hands locked tight on the steering wheel, the usually soothing voice of the GPS faint and far away. He left Figgy’s text unanswered. He resisted the temptation to call and tell her to get off his back, stop treating every dispatch from their proudly laid-back school as a matter of do-or-die urgency.
He arrived at the Pines just before dismissal and collected the emergency bags from the trunk. On the quad, a group of kids was clustered around a guy in a tank top finger-picking an acoustic guitar and a girl in short-shorts who looked to be about twenty-six but couldn’t have been more than sixteen. She was scooping tiny colored pellets from an icebox painted with a sign that said “Dipping Dots for Darfur!”
He made his way to the administration office and plopped the bags on the counter. “Hi—I’m Sam and Sylvie’s dad? I guess I’m a little delinquent with this—but can I turn it in now?”
A dark-skinned woman with a nose ring popped up from her desk. “Oh hi. I spoke to your wife. All here? Change of clothes, pictures, medications?”
He gave the bags a wan tap. “Yup—good to go.”
“You’re all set for the comfort recording?”
“Sorry?”
The receptionist flashed a tight smile. “The comfort recording. Part of our innovation initiative—you’ve been getting emails about it? Very exciting. Instead of traditional emergency letters, we’re doing digital audio recordings. The studies show stress levels are dramatically reduced by the actual voice of loved ones in times of crisis.”
Alex shook his head, a barrage of half-read e-mails now coming back to him. “I guess I’m a little unclear about the whole ‘times of crisis’ thing. What ‘times of crisis’ are we talking about here?”
“Earthquakes, obviously,” she said. “But also flooding, gas leaks, shootings, police lockdowns, wildfires, urban uprisings—we need to be prepared for all contingencies, don’t we? It’s L.A., after all!”
She pulled open a drawer under the counter and produced a handheld recorder. “Would you prefer recording a separate message to each child or would you rather address both children at once? We’re absolutely amenable to shared messaging.”
“Sorry—what?” Alex pinched his nose.
“Two recordings or one?”
“One is fine.”
She handed him the recorder, nodding sagely. She stayed put, intent on ensuring that he properly completed the assigned task. He cleared his throat and looked around the room at the three or four other people working at their desks. No one paid him the slightest attention.
He clicked the red button and held the recorder to his mouth. “Hi Sylvie honey! And Sam—hey kiddo! Dad here. This is pretty weird, right? I guess something bad has happened? That’s why you’re hearing this? But it’s going to be okay, okay? You’re safe here at school with the teachers and the nice nose-ring lady and the kid who plays guitar on the quad? Sam, he’s your buddy, right? Go get your sister and hang with him and I promise I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”
He looked over at the receptionist and hunched his shoulders. She smiled and motioned for him to go on. He paused, not sure what else to say. He closed his eyes. At once, an image formed. Sam and Sylvie were crouched in a darkened classroom, faces smudged, strands of insulation hanging from the ceiling, electrical wires whipping overhead, flashlight beams cutting through the murk. And then he saw himself in his own kitchen at home, pinned against the floor in a pile of rubble, his voice calling out for help.
“But I may not be able to get to you,” he was saying now, voice trailing out from the wreckage. “It’s a time of crisis, right? I may be—I don’t know, stuck under the fridge.”
He kept going, voice trembling, the events of the day making the prospect of calamity entirely plausible. “The point is, shit happens. It just does. So if this really is the last time I get to say anything to you… God.”
Alex coughed and looked up above the receptionist’s desk at a square of sky through a high window. “Sam, honey. Are you gay? You’re gay, right? You poor sweetie, that’s gonna be hard. I always knew. You’re so mad at me. Why are you so mad at me? I’m not mad at you—really I’m not. What other eleven-year-old has his own line of cosmetics? Do you know how incredible that is? You know you made more money than I did last year?”
The receptionist leaned forward with a look of concern. “Sir—maybe we should stop here and get some tea? Would you like some tea?”
He put up a finger and closed his eyes again. “Sylvie, honey. Oh God, Sylvie. You’re such a princess. I’ve spoiled you rotten, I know. You’re kind of a brat, aren’t you? At least with Mom. That’s my fault. The truth is that some sick part of me loves it when you ignore her and act rude to her—because when you do, I’m the favorite. You may not know it now, but that’s some unhealthy vain shit right there.”
“Sir, please,” the receptionist said.
Alex took a single step back. He paused for a breath. “The point is, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for not being a better dad—I’ve been so crazy, about Mom’s show and the move and the rest of it. I’ve been checked out. But the truth is you guys are both so strong and funny and smart. I wish I could claim more credit, but everything that’s good about you is yours alone—you came in fully loaded, and you’ll have what’s good about you long after I’m gone. So don’t worry. You’ve got each other and you’ve got your mom—and she’s the most loyal, ferocious lioness in the jungle. She’ll keep you safe. She’s a lot like you, Sylvie. And Sam, you too. What I’m trying to say, kids, is that being your dad is the best thing I’ve ever been even involved in. And you should know that I’m thinking about you even if my body has been cut in two by an industrial-grade refrigerator.”
Alex clicked the stop button and put the recorder on the counter. The receptionist was silent, her eyes narrowed and expression blank. Behind her, the principal and a few others had come out of their offices and were standing around watching the show.
“All set then,” he said, turning to the door. “See you at the gala.”
Fifteen
When he got home from school, Alex plopped the kids in front of the TV and ducked into the yard with an iPod, a bottle of Sancerre, and a bag of tortilla chips. He felt winded and lightheaded, a faint hum ringing in his ears. He sat on a bench on the far side of the lawn, shoveling back chips between slugs of wine. The Circle Jerks blasted in his earbuds as he picked through the wreckage of the day. The meltdown at school, the scene with Miranda, Clive’s money grab—everything was collapsing around him. No, everything had already collapsed. He was just finally realizing it.
The encounter with Miranda—of all the day’s humiliations, that had been the worst. How he’d gone limp on her bed, laid his head in her lap, arched his hips up as she slid his pants down, then scrambled away as she matter-of-factly explained her intentions—thinking of it now, his stomach tightened into a ball. Had he really been stupid enough to mistake her Hollywood hustle for actual attraction? Had there been anything real there at all? If s
he hadn’t mentioned her script and the deal with Figgy, would he have gone through with it? Even though he hadn’t technically consummated anything, he’d gone far enough. He’d cheated on his pregnant wife—what an asshole. Worse: what a cliché.
And for what? For the sex? It would’ve been nice, amazing even—Miranda was so young and smelled so good, and he might never again get a chance to press up against a woman like that, to touch and taste and plunder all that freshness. And hadn’t Figgy told him (in so many words, way back when) that as long as he kept quiet, he could do what he wanted? So why hadn’t he gone ahead—why had he retreated like a prude the moment she’d mentioned Figgy? Now that he played the scene back, he knew. Sex was beside the point. The pull Miranda exerted, the force that drew him to her bed that afternoon—sex was just a flavor in the air, a hint of something else. He hadn’t gone to Miranda to get laid; he’d gone because he was empty, defeated, wrecked. He’d ached for the way she made him feel when they talked and ate together. He’d gone to Miranda’s apartment for the same reason he’d tried writing the punk rock book. He hadn’t been horny—he’d been hungry.
What if Figgy found out? She might already know—that’s part of why he loved her, her knowingness. It was miraculous. The idea of life without her flooded over him in a panic. The life they’d built together—their kids, their home, the whole mess of it—he had to protect that, get it back. All his plotting and score keeping and stupidity—none of it made sense now, it was all bound up in his fear of her leaving him, eclipsing him. And when she’d gone to Baltimore, it felt like he’d been ripped in two, like he might never get her back.
Then the sun was out of the sky and he was still sitting here, the bag empty and the bottle drained beside him. He needed to go inside and check in with the kids, see about dinner, corral them for baths, books, and bed. But he couldn’t get up. Across the lawn, the dog appeared from behind an azalea bush and loped toward Alex, tongue lolling out of its mouth. He ruffled the fur around her neck and she plopped down at his feet.
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