Plus One

by Christopher Noxon

  Figgy took it all in, wheels turning. She said nothing.

  He went on: “I know I’ve got to figure out staffing and table turnover and insurance, and building out a kitchen can be expensive, and permitting can be a nightmare—”

  “Where are you getting startup money?” she said. “With the house loan and your little adventure with Clive, we’re not exactly in a position to underwrite a whole new—”

  “I’ll raise it. I’ll put together a plan and go out and sell it—I know how to do that, remember? My dad can help. He’s been wanting to. It’s about time I called in that chit. Anyway, I’ll have to juggle—but I’ll keep the days free for you and the kids and work nights. Maybe it’s my turn to hustle a little.”

  Figgy pushed a button on the car door and let in a blast of air. She checked her face in the rearview mirror and smacked her lips together. “You sure you’re not running off on another one of your adventures? Remember the book? Or how excited you were about being a full-time—what? Domestic first responder? I have a hard enough time handling success—but seems like you really can’t handle it.”

  Alex started to protest, then stopped. “It’s just aggravating is all, being home, chasing after the kids, when all anyone is really interested in is what you’re doing, how you’re getting on. I get lonely, aggravated. It’s making me into a boring person! You’ve got people at work, the whole operation at your fingertips, everyone counting on you—I just sometimes wish it was the other way, that we could trade places.”

  She stretched her legs and leaned back, her posture suddenly exhausted. “So do I.”

  Wind from outside roared around the interior of the car. Would they ever be done playing the Misery Olympics?

  “Don’t you see?” she said. “I can’t do what I do without you. You make it possible.”

  Alex got off the freeway and started working his way down Lankershim. The silence in the car deepened. “Thank you,” he said. “I like being at home. But I also feel like this restaurant thing might really be what I need. I’ve been so busy trying to self-actualize that I missed it. Cooking and kids and a big operation with a lot of moving parts—these are the things I’m good at.”

  He stopped short, suddenly self-conscious of the sales job he was doing. Figgy stayed silent.

  “So,” he ventured. “What do you think?”

  “I think I’m giving up The Natashas.”

  “What? Why?”

  “The only way your thing works is if I’m at home more,” she said. “I think it’s what I’ve wanted all along. I’m having a baby and I’ve been pretending like nothing would change—but it has to. I can still go back to Tricks next season, but running a second show is just crazy. I’m tired. It’s no way to live. Just ’cause Shonda Rimes does it doesn’t mean I have to. Fuck it—I’d rather just supervise, let someone else run it, and take Sylvie for a mani-pedi.”

  She reached over and squeezed his hand. “You’re right, Alex—you hustle a little more, I’ll hustle a little less. We trade off a little.”

  Alex looked over at her from over his sunglasses and smiled. He’d been so nervous about announcing his plans, worried that she’d need coaxing and convincing before she got used to the idea. But yet again she was three steps ahead, already working out particulars and determining her own role within it.

  After a long silence, she let go of his hand and looked idly out the window. “Just don’t call it Familia—pretentious. That lowered play area in the middle? Riff on that. Call it the Pit,” she said.

  “The Pit?” he said, pulling into the Warner Brothers parking lot, a picture of a wooden sign with THE PIT in bold capital letters forming in his mind’s eye. She couldn’t help herself; she had to top it. “That’s good. The Pit it is.”

  • • •

  While waiting at the registration table, Alex scanned the crowd as the guests milled around the faux New York stoops and sidewalks. Over by the soda fountain, he spotted Huck shoveling a forkful of papaya salad into the mouth of an older woman he vaguely recognized from Pines pickup. Dating in the Pines mommy pool? That would kill Kate—which was probably the point, Alex having heard that divorce proceedings had turned ugly. Nearby, Helen Bamper was restocking the cheese spread with cubes of sweaty cheddar, a walkie-talkie clipped to the waist of her cinched gown.

  “Name?”

  Alex looked down at a woman with a salt-and-pepper bob, chunky ceramic earrings, and frameless glasses. She tapped a sheet of computer printouts.

  “Sherman,” he said. Seeing her run her pen up and down the list a few times, he added, “Or it could be under Zicklin? We trade off.”

  “Oh, of course—Mr. Sherman-Zicklin—hello!” said the woman behind the table, tugging at her nametag. “It’s me—Daria? Principal at the Pines. We met when you came in for your comfort recording.”

  Alex shifted uncomfortably and reached out to shake hands. “Of course—good to see you.”

  Daria handed over their nametags and then did a fast and breathless breakdown of the evening program—“Inner-city hip hop dancers at nine, flip-book booth open until eleven, tarot and palm readers at the tables in back”—then gave them each an anonymous bidding number for the silent auction. As they were turning to go, Daria stood up and reached across the table and held Alex’s forearm.

  “I just have to tell you—the recording you did? Incredible, really.”

  “Thanks,” he said, the memory of it triggering a cramp in his gut.

  He started to pull away, but Figgy stopped short. “What recording?”

  “Didn’t he tell you?” Daria said. “Not to toot my own horn, but the comfort recording was my initiative—I’d always hoped a few parents might really grow and learn from the experience. But your husband—wow! Beyond anything I could’ve dreamed of. Just transformational. I have to tell you, we’ve been using it in staff seminars—with your blessing, I’d love to devote a whole breakout session to it at the staff retreat. It’s helped us reconnect with what’s really happening with our Pines fathers. Honestly, I wish my husband was half as reflective and honest as this man here—you’re a lucky woman, Mrs. Sherman.”

  Figgy pursed her lips, her face a mix of pride and confusion. “Thanks?” she said. “But I’m afraid I don’t—”

  Before she could continue, Helen Bamper burst through the crowd, latched on to Alex’s arm and began pulling him toward the buffet tables. “Oh thank God you’re finally here,” she said. “The people from the Test Kitchen are driving me nuts. They say we’re out of bruschetta and gluten-free cookies and no one seems to know who’s in charge—”

  Alex stopped and turned back to Figgy. “You okay without me for a bit?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’m fine. Go do your thing.”

  He squeezed her hand and felt a tingle up his arm. As he followed Helen into the party, he felt an unhealthy charge—not minding at all the feeling of being tugged away from his wife by the impossibly fit Helen Bamper. He followed her through clusters of chatting parents and teachers and into the volunteer and staff area.

  The bruschetta situation was quickly worked out, and he’d soon located the missing trays of baked goods and assigned two additional staffers to restock the buffet table. Helen stayed at his side, her panic abating as he quickly extinguished the fires she’d only managed to flap her arms at.

  “Thank you, Alex,” she said, grabbing a flute of champagne. “I can handle things from here. Go mingle—I’ll hunt you down if things get crazy again.”

  Alex ducked back into the crowd, spotting Figgy huddled with Richard Bamper by the portapotties. He headed in their direction but took a detour to check out the silent auction table, surveying the items up for grabs. Three complete Botox sessions. A body-fat consultation. Two tickets to Vegas to see Celine Dion. So that’s why the auction numbers were anonymous.

  Close to the far end of the row, he stopped at a clear plexiglass box containing a mounted sculptural head. It was orange-skinned and bug-eyed, pebbled with miss
hapen warts and softened by a downy coat of silvery fur. A sticker identified it as part of a lizard monster costume used in the remake of a cult sci-fi TV show. Hundreds of bids were being made for the Spectacular Sushi Soiree, the Aspen ski weekend, and the walk-on part on Mad Men, but the bid sheet for the monster head was entirely blank.

  It was hideous and glorious and totally out of place. Alex knew they had to have it. He pictured it in the living room of the house on Sumter Court, staring down at them from one of the oak bookshelves. He wrote down his number, then moved a nearby basket of Kiehl’s to obscure the monster head from view.

  He made his way over to the winery tables and drained a cup. As he was standing in line for a plate of chicken satay, he caught sight of Huck. It had been a few weeks since they’d seen each other, and Huck made a fuss, pulling him in for an extended, four-slap man hug. Huck had on a caramel-colored suede coat, pinstripe pants, and a loose linen shirt, his Euro-’74 jet-set vibe undercut only by the giant leather purse he was failing to hide behind his back.

  “Nice bag,” Alex said.

  “Sandra just asked me to hold it while she went to pee.”

  “Sandra? That her over there?” Alex said, nodding toward a fiftyish woman with kinky hair and a Harari pantsuit, chatting with a group of other women by the dessert table. “What happened to the amazing Sydney?”

  “Got old.” Huck sighed. “No more spinning instructors or waitresses for me—Sandra’s VP of business affairs at Touchstone. Total package. Kid’s a senior at the high school—off to Brandeis in the fall. Seriously—I think this one’s for good.”

  “For good, for good?”

  “She keeps talking about popping off to Vegas for a quickie ceremony, but I’m in no rush. I’ve got three more years of alimony coming from Kate. Gotta keep the balance, right?”

  Alex smiled and took a slug of wine, trying to reckon what constituted Huck’s idea of balance. As long as he kept getting alimony from Katherine, he could remain Sandra’s equal partner? He flashed on that night at the Emmys, when Huck had come to his rescue with the roll of gaffer tape. He’d seemed to know everything then, to possess knowledge of the world Alex could never hope to glean.

  “Seriously, Huck?” he said. “That’s kind of despicable, you know that?”

  Huck just laughed. “You are in no position to judge, friend. How you doing anyway? Big anniversary coming up. You keeping your head down?”

  Alex shrugged and craned his head over Huck’s shoulder, suddenly anxious to extricate himself. “Something like that,” he said. “Listen, I better go catch up with the lady.”

  “We should hang next week,” Huck said. “Hit the Gem spa? Hang some dong?”

  Alex turned to go. “Pretty crazy right now. Got a lot on my plate. But I’ll call you.”

  He did a circuit around the crowd and ended up back at the silent auction area. The monster head was still hidden behind the gift bag, but on the sign-in sheet he found that another bidder had taken an interest. Number eleven. He frowned, grabbed a pen, and doubled his bid.

  He thought he might find Figgy at the tarot card tables and headed over in that direction. Twenty minutes and two more plates of baked goods later, he was back at the monster head. It had happened again. Number eleven wasn’t backing down.

  He upped his bid again and worked his way back to the wine table, getting ever more tipsy and ever more determined to beat out the mysterious bidder for the thing no one else at the party seemed to want. The fourth time he returned to find a bid from number eleven, just five minutes remained in the auction. He decided to dig in and stand guard. He’d stop the one-upsmanship and face number eleven in person.

  Then she appeared, charging forward with a ballpoint pen like a dagger. “Oh God, Alex, you’ll never believe what I found!”

  “I know,” he said.

  Then Alex leaned forward and kissed his wife. And took away her pen.

  Acknowledgments

  My deepest thanks to the friends who read early drafts and offered suggestions: Ali Rushfield, Rick Marin, Jill Soloway, Matt Weiner, Linda Brettler, Joel Stein, Dave Jargowsky, Peter Micelli, Dana Reinhardt, Rhona and John Conte, Dave Jargowsky, Micha Fitzerman-Blue, Jamie Dembo, John Ross-Bowie, Laura Slovin, Tracy Miller, and Bob Schmidt. Nasrin Aboulhosn helped me work out plot and dialogue.

  A special thank you to all the experts who schooled me in aspects of the story: Mitch Kamin for sharing his experience in the LA punk scene; Douglas Wilson for an inside look on reality show production; Nate McCall for letting me pick up a shift at McCall’s Meat & Fish; Josh Weltman for advice on the business of marketing; Audra Lehman for the tutorial on obstetrics; Renee Mochkatel for her consult on California divorce law; Patti Ruben for the real estate expertise; Mary Yanish for feedback on illustrations; and Robert Russell for the cover design.

  A special plus one thank you to Bruce Gilbert, Pete Weiss, Gareth Kanter, Charlie Mars, and John Huck for their coffee-klatch gabbing on mornings when I should’ve been working. And to all the relatives who read and offered feedback: Jenji Kohan, Rhea Kohan, Buz Kohan, Marti Noxon, Nick & Nicky Noxon, Mary Worthington, and Pam Gruber.

  Huge thanks to my agent, Betsy Amster, for her tireless support and expert edit. And to Colleen and Patty at Prospect Park—thank you for your enthusiasm, creativity, and resourcefulness.