Plus One (32 page)

They ate. Alex cracked a second bottle to go with the salted pork nougat with pickled radish and then moved on to a cab for the veal belly. Miranda knew everyone at their table, but she kept her shoulders squared toward him. Tipsy on the wine and meat, he launched into the full story of his upbringing, all the tawdry tales of his feral childhood in the mountains, his lesbian mom, and boarding-school punk adventures. It all tumbled out as practiced schtick, the mess of it repackaged into jokey patter. Usually, that was good for a sympathetic laugh, but Miranda just shook her head and shrugged.

“Oh, I can top that,” she said. “My dad's trans.”

“Your dad's—what?”

“Post-op, transgender. When I left for summer camp in seventh grade, he was Gerald, sad-sack insurance adjuster. When I came back, he was Geraldine, redhead ballroom dancer.”

“For real?”

“He'd been doing the hormones for a while. Guess I was oblivious. Teenagers, right? It wasn't so bad, though. Going trans was the best thing he ever did. He's way happier now. And he's super comfortable as a woman—frumpy but adorable. Whole thing is
very
premium cable.”

Alex took a slug of wine. “And your mom?”

“Still married—going on twenty-eight years. I mean, obviously there's no
sex
happening anymore, but that was never a real priority for them anyhow. She says it's beside the point. She swears she's found the secret to a good marriage: two wives.”

Alex raised his glass. “Well then. Cheers to multiple moms.”

Miranda touched it with hers, lingering for a moment. What was she—twenty-five? Twenty-six? Her top was sparkly, the color of butterscotch. What was she doing here, talking to him? What
was
this?

His face flushed; he was no longer just buzzed. How else to explain how fascinating he found her tale of worm composting or the particulars of her super-easy, super-delicious sauerkraut recipe? Why else would he volunteer out of nowhere his plans for the next day, unloading the full story about his crazy consult with Dr. Finkelstein and the cryo-preservation and the gallery of pictures of grateful second wives.

Miranda looked concerned. “So you're going in tomorrow? You're going to get cut open and… snipped?”

“No, no—they do it with clips now. Little titanium things. Same metal NASA uses for satellites and, like, space tools.”

“But what actually
happens
? Can you still, you know, produce anything?”

“Oh, sure, absolutely! In fact, the clips just block the, um, swimmers from mixing with everything else. The sperm just sort of re-absorbs.”

“Figgy must be thrilled.”

So she knew about Figgy. How did she know about Figgy? He gave her a look.

“Doesn't she have another show coming up?” she said. “I saw the thing on
Deadline
yesterday. Something about Russian brides? Smart. Taking care of family planning before starting another project.”

Alex felt his face go hot. Mention of the show was bad enough—he got a quick visual of Figgy and the Rasta actor Franklin Sykes lounging in a cast trailer. Even worse was the way Miranda had just assumed his vasectomy, which he'd come to think of as a brave, independent act, was all Figgy's doing—like she was sending him in for neutering. As if he wasn't neutered enough.

“Actually,
I'm
the one gearing up for work right now,” he heard himself say. “This show I've been developing just got a pickup. We're about to go into production—”

“What? I didn't know—you're in TV too?”

“Afraid so. Fell into it—old colleague of mine asked if I'd EP this new syndicated show. Alternative programming. Reality. But not horrible. Really no one has approached the dog space like this before.”

“The dog space? I
love
dogs.”

“Who doesn't?” he said, rolling now. “I just don't know how I'm gonna get through the next few months. It's about to get so crazy—both of us in production. Figgy's just slammed—tomorrow I've gotta take a cab to my clippy thing. And I don't even know how I'm getting home.”

She hooked a strand of hair over her ear and looked at him, her face lit up.

“I'm all open tomorrow.”

• • •

Miranda made a move toward her handbag when the bill arrived, but Alex waved her off—“I got this,” he said definitively, peeling off $180 in twenties and joking that this felt more like paying off a drug dealer than picking up a check. Outside, their voices echoed down the empty sidewalks. Her laugh erupted in a delicious burst. He was a crackup. She was a doll. They were flush with wine and food and lit up by the steely blue silhouettes of downtown. When
they got to the minivan, she insisted he let her walk the last half block to her car. “I'm a big girl. Anyone comes at me'll be sorry—I know jujitsu.”

“You do?”

“Oh sure.”

“I should be careful then.”

“You should be.”

Alex pressed a button on his key fob and the side door of the minivan heaved open. The interior light switched on, illuminating carpet smudged with ground-up cereal and scattered with geometric building blocks and Sylvie's
Feline Sorcerer
books.

“Kids?”

“Two.”

Miranda crossed her arms and smiled.

“Cute. I love kids.”

Alex put his palms up and headed in for a quick goodbye embrace. Friendly, quick, nice. He saw a flash of her hand pass his face as her fingers glanced his cheek, then closed around the back of his neck. Warm clasp, pulling him close. Her lips touched his and then stopped, holding him there. He could feel the breath from her nose on his cheek, could taste the rib-eye and red wine on her lips. A small moan rose up from behind her teeth.

He reared back. “Okay then.”

“Sherman, listen,” she said. “You're busy, your life is crazy, I know. But whatever I can do that doesn't complicate things, I just want you to know, I'm available.”

• • •

Alex woke up with a jolt the next morning, heart thumping. What was today? Thursday. V day. He'd tried rescheduling, but the only date he could get for his procedure was today, Figgy's last day in town. He sat upright and coughed. He felt panicked, scattered,
like he had a ticket for a flight leaving in an hour and hadn't begun to pack. Next to him, Figgy was curled around a body pillow, out cold. She was leaving tomorrow to start production on
The Natashas
. Shit. The day's business rushed in on him. Get kids up. Pack lunchboxes and backpacks. Make preemptive excuse to Figgy about convalescence tonight. Drive kids to school. Come up with plan to get $230,000 for dog show. Get clipped. Catch ride home with hottie butcher. Shit shit shit.

It was insanity, all of it, but as he got up from bed, he moved with an unfamiliar sureness of purpose, his concentration locked on the tasks before him. Sam and Sylvie were roused, dressed, and set in front of bowls of oatmeal. Figgy was kissed on the back of the head and fed a story about a late-night food truck run with Huck the night before. As he clutched his gut in feigned gastrointestinal distress, she murmured something about never trusting a taco truck.

Alex had thumbed out an email the night before, sending a two-word text to Clive: “I'M IN.” Now today there was a text from Clive with a long line of exclamation points, a smiley face emoticon, and two words of his own: “GOOD MAN.”

It was as if he'd never had any doubts, as if he hadn't stashed away and nearly forgotten the
Top Dog
packet the day of Figgy's party. But now he felt like a seasoned producer, a guy with an Aeron chair and a dry-erase board. What had seemed preposterous before now felt inevitable—describing it for Miranda,
Top Dog
became an incisive look at the immigrant experience in America. “The dogs are just the hook—it's really about the people,” he'd told her, Clive's pitch re-forming in his own mouth. “This old-world guy and his Americanized daughter, both grieving the loss of the matriarch, bonding over these animals. And working all this out in the pressure cooker of these competitions—it's great drama.” He reminded himself now to tease these themes out with Clive. Working with him would be great—he needed partnership,
collaboration, the mentoring of an elder. And damn if Miranda didn't perk up when he talked about the show. The thought of her sent a twinge up his spine—that goodbye kiss? Tongues hadn't been deployed. So technically, it was really just a goodbye peck? A really prolonged, intense, super-hot peck?

Who was he kidding? He knew he'd crossed a threshold. The kiss might or might not technically count as cheating, but it definitely fell into the increasingly crowded category of things
not
to share with Figgy.

After dropping the kids at school, he immediately sat down with Clive's prospectus and a stack of statements from the bank. It shouldn't be hard to pull out two-hundred-some thousand in equity—during the renovations, he remembered Valerie mentioning something about home equity lines of credit. Because he was the sole officer of the blind trust, he probably wouldn't even need Figgy's signature to get it.

Of course he
should
talk it over with her first—but as this conversation played out in his imagination, he knew in an instant how it would go. He'd bring it up during one of their late-night logistics meetings, laying out Clive's folder on the kitchen island alongside the school forms and furniture catalogs. She'd think it was nuts. She'd tell him he shouldn't work with Clive. She'd shit all over it. And then what would he do? Insist he knew what he was doing? No. He was done playing the part of flaky middle manager to the decisive CEO of Figgy Inc.

By the time a cab arrived, Alex had downloaded a home equity loan application and made an appointment to meet with a manager at the bank. He'd tell Figgy about the show when the pilot was done and syndication was wrapped up. Maybe he'd make it a two-fer and tell her when he told her about the vasectomy. He pictured himself sitting down with Figgy as the autonomous, sterile, empowered, confident producer of a new TV show, negotiating his new place in the marriage from a solidified position of
accomplishment.

The house was his as much as hers. But his balls—those were his and his alone. Time to start acting like he had some.

• • •

Alex had determined on the cab ride over that he was going to be utterly unembarrassed when Dr. Finkelstein cut a hole in his scrotum. He was going to be the steeliest, most resolute guy ever to don a paper robe and sling his feet into stirrups.

But now that he was here, naked from the waist down while Finkelstein finished up with another patient down the hall, he felt his resolve waver.

The setting was all wrong, for one thing. He'd been expecting something more like an OR, with a bank of swiveling lights and softly bleeping displays and at least one hovering resident in crisp blue scrubs. Instead, his transformational rite of passage was taking place… in an ordinary exam room with floral print wallpaper and a desktop radio on the counter tuned to an oldies station. The nurse, Diana, had teddy bears with party hats on her scrubs. He'd felt more seriousness at a teeth cleaning.

Alex shifted on the padded blue upholstery, his paper gown crinkling and warping, exquisitely attuned to updrafts from below the table. He kept his eyes fixed on a framed landscape of an Italian hill town. He flashed on Finkelstein in shorts and sandals at an art fair in Laguna Beach, picking this landscape off a wire grid display and sticking it in the trunk of his Acura.

“Hold still.” The nurse held up a straight-edge razor. “Just a little prep before we get started.”

Alex's heart hammered away. He pointed at the razor. “Haven't seen one of those in a while. So retro!”

She moved toward him without comment. He jerked up.

“Please hold still, Mr. Sherman-Zicklin.”

He held his breath and she went in again. Shaving cream. It felt warm going on, the lather thick. He closed his eyes and sighed. When Huck had raved about getting his pubes professionally trimmed, Alex wrote the notion off as vain and vaguely pervy. But maybe there was something to be said for manscaping. This was very nice. A few slow deliberate swipes and she was done. Alex let out a quick breath, glad she'd stopped before the stirring in his groin had reached its full expression.

The nurse went back to her tray of supplies and then advanced again, this time with a roll of surgical tape. She ripped off three, four, five strips and then crisscrossed them against his penis, flattening it against his stomach, as if his now-tiny nubbin was a wild animal that might make a run for it. Then she mopped him down with a swab of cold fluid that filled the room with a coppery, vaguely vinegary odor.

The door swung open and in came Finkelstein, grinning and slapping his hands together like a headliner waltzing on stage after the warm-up act was through. “Okay Diana—all prepped here? Mr. Zicklin, you ready to go? You feeling okay?”

“Just dandy,” he said, as casually as he could, trying and failing not to picture the view from the opposite side of his knees.

“Let's get the anesthetic going.” Finkelstein knelt down and picked up a syringe. “You'll feel a slight sting.” Alex swallowed hard. He flashed on Figgy in the delivery room with Sam, chin set against her chest, her expression locked in primal determination. Now here he was, a high, wheezy whimper escaping his mouth as the needle went in. The pain radiated into his abdomen and spread through his intestines.