Plus One (5 page)

“How'd you turn out so normal?” This was the inevitable question when Alex ran through the high points of his origin story: Midwestern mom moves to California, hooks up with proprietor of highway goat-milk stand. Shortly after Alex is born, marriage implodes—booze a factor, also money, also Jane's dawning awareness that she's gay. After dad splits, mom dives headlong into feminist-mystic-folksinger reinvention, dates biker chicks and massage therapists and energy healers. Memories from the period are fuzzy and charged with intense loneliness—he remembers her passed out on a rattan chair on the deck of their small aluminum-sided house, draped in a woolen poncho, her yellowed
fingers still clenched around a cup of chablis. He remembers playing parachute games in a scrubby dirt lot, going weeks without bathing, and subsisting mostly on cans of chili and candy bought with coins stolen from his mom's change bucket. He remembers watching ungodly amounts of TV.

At fourteen, he discovered punk, decided hippies were the Enemy, and managed to land a scholarship spot at a local boarding school. He packed a bag and never came back.

Not that Alex was resentful. He'd done his time in therapy, dealt with his abandonment issues, sorted through his mother's internalized messages about men (who were, she maintained, power-tripping oppressors, with the possible exception of Phil Donahue, Alan Alda, and the turtle-necked guy at the food coop). In some ways, he had come to believe that his upbringing benefitted him as a man and a father. He'd had some rough years after college, drifting from shitty relationship to dead-end job, but as soon as he met Figgy, he'd resolved to get right what his own parents had gotten so wrong. He'd pay attention, stay involved, be the parent he'd never had. He'd even patched things up with his mom, their relations much improved after she went through AA, met Carol, and finally got with the standard lesbian program of shacking up with cats and mystery novels and a matching wardrobe of Polarfleece.

The only real downside of the way he was raised, Alex thought, was how it affected his relationship with Sam—he couldn't seem to figure out how to handle him. Things with Sylvie were so much easier. Yes, she was demanding. True, she was persnickety. She was self-possessed in a way many adults found off-putting. Part of it was her voice, a whiskey-and-cigarettes rasp that sounded like it should belong to a bridge-playing retiree in Boca more than a seven-year-old girl from Southern California. She was also, quite plainly, a pain in the ass, defiant and strong-willed and willfully oblivious. But she was
his
pain in the ass. She
clung to Daddy and obeyed his commands to put on her shoes or get in the bath, even as she cheerfully ignored the same requests from Figgy. (“No thank you!” she'd sing-song over her shoulder, as if she'd been asked if she'd like a second piece of pie.)

Their deepest bond centered on food. Sylvie, Alex was delighted to discover, possessed an unusually sophisticated palate. Sam survived on a diet of quesadillas and applesauce, but Sylvie would eat pretty much anything you put in front of her, and Alex took this as license to expose her to the most exotic edibles he could rustle up, serving rare chunks of blue cheese, dried leaves of salted seaweed, and spicy dishes of kimchi. It was exhilarating, having a little sidekick for his continuing culinary adventures. He'd come to feel about food the same way he once felt about punk. He loved it irrationally, felt sorry for those who didn't, and instantly bonded with those who did. Was it weird that the only person who seemed to really
get
his obsessions was his seven-year-old daughter? Probably.

Then again, weirdness was kind of a fact of life for the Sherman-Zicklins. Sylvie was the only second grader whose lunchbox routinely included separate thermoses for soup and sauces. And he didn't know any other families who dealt with domestic chores the way they did. Their family rule was All Hands on Deck, which in the chaos of their domestic life was often shortened to “All Hands” or just “Hands” or even a flashed palm. The rule was this: Whoever was closest to something that needed tending, tended it. If you opened the bill, you paid it. If a kid had a meltdown and you were inside the blast zone, it was your job to blot the tears and offer the Popsicle. If you turned on the TV and woke up the baby, you cooed and soothed. Alex loved the raw physicality of the arrangement, the way it flew beneath all the explosive gender expectations that seemed to torment other, less practically minded couples. Let them confront and unpack notions of femininity and masculinity and duke it out with the ghosts of their mothers and
fathers; he and Figgy would obey the god of
proximity
.

The major flaws in All Hands became apparent pretty quickly. For one thing, Figgy had a way of being either just out of range or totally absent when jobs needed doing. Alex wasn't sure whether she was simply better at anticipating problems and removing herself from domestic flashpoints, but it was Alex who, when Sylvie was little, always seemed to be with the baby when she erupted in a level-eleven doodie explosion, Alex who was in the kitchen cooking when the fridge broke and needed a new Dispenser Control Board.

Then there were all the All Hands exceptions, tasks that without question always fell to him. Like changing light bulbs. Or operating the barbecue. Or handling household finances. Or anything at all related to computers, cameras, or electronics. Figgy never said out loud that these jobs were, you know, man's work. She simply ignored them.

Like, for instance, playing Legos with the boy. Assembling tiny villages being one of the tasks exclusively for people with penises, apparently. Not that Alex minded this particular task—he actually felt a tinge of sadness when, after an hour or so of work, the phone rang and the ladies stirred and playtime was over.

Figgy answered from the bedroom, hollering for Alex to pick up the phone.

“…it was just marvelous! Empowering!” It was Alex's mom Jane, mid-gush. He hadn't known she'd been aware of the previous night—he doubted she'd changed the TV from the local PBS station since the Carter administration—but judging from her frantic, jubilant tone, she'd not only seen the Emmys but viewed it as a historic milestone, a crowning victory for The Movement. “That shout-out to the sisters!” she went on. “Needless to say,
tears
. The symbolic victories, Figgy—they're so meaningful. They matter. We marched for this. We did. I can't tell you how it feels to see all the hard work we've done over the years paying off. I
could've done without the ‘girl power'—really Figgy, you are so not a girl, so very much a woman.”

“Hear me roar,” Figgy croaked, still half asleep. Figgy adored Jane. Where Alex felt a mix of embarrassment and bitterness when it came to his mom, Figgy was amused.

Jane went on: “Oh! And that dress! Sumptuous.”

“Mom,
gross
,” Alex piped in. “I'd swear you're trying to pick up my… girl.”

“Oh yes, Alex,” she said, her voice darkening. “Did you see yourself? On the TV? Carol taped it and you come on right after Figgy does the power salute with her fist. We've been rewatching it all morning. Oh, Carol—freeze there! Right there—on Alex's face.”

Jane quieted down. He pictured his mother at home on the couch, snug in her sweatpants and reading glasses pushed down her nose, a honeyed mug of chamomile in her lap. “That's
unfortunate
,” she said, the receiver dropping away as she assessed the frozen image of Alex on TV. “Do you see? I can't tell if it's the camera angle, or what? It's only a second or two, but do you see how
sickly
? How
waxy
? Did you have some kind of makeup on? Some kind of… cakey base?”

“No, Mom—that's just my face,” Alex said. “My waxy, cakey face.”

“Oh sweetie,” she said. “I'm just saying. With Figgy looking so splendid, it's just such a
contrast
. Did you have to
pee
, honey?”

A parental alert had gone out, apparently, because not twenty seconds after they got off the phone with Jane, Figgy's folks called to weigh in. Joanie Zicklin was an opinionated, anxious shut-in with a thicket of Clairol-red hair. She'd had troubles with pharmaceuticals in the eighties, which had led to a brief affair with Figgy's birth dad—a plastic surgeon she called “a putz with no business raising a child”—and then, when Figgy was eleven, a marriage to Clive. He'd been a stabilizing presence for Joan, but he and Figgy
never quite connected—to this day, he seemed weirdly competitive with his stepdaughter.

As usual, Clive and Joan spoke at high volume and simultaneously, in only occasionally related monologues. Joan's revolved around a call that morning from her poker friend Audrey. “She was full of
mazel tovs
and
how wonderfuls
, but oh, how it was killing her,” she said. “Do you know what her daughter the Ivy League lawyer is doing right this minute, while you're home with your Emmy and those gorgeous grandchildren? Divorced, thirty-seven, and in Zanzibar or Zaire—one of the Zas. Signed up with a Jewish legal charity something-or-another to examine ballots and get malaria.”

“Ma, Pam's in Zambia,” Figgy said. “We emailed last week. She's doing great. Met a pro surfer. Having the time of her life.”

Joan barreled on. “And remember when she was at Northwestern and you were working at that yogurt shop? Passing out samples on La Cienega, wearing that horrible
visor
? Living with that Hispanic boy? Just a few years until Sylvie starts putting
you
through such worry—just wait, honeybee, your turn's coming.”

Meanwhile, Clive's basso profundo boomed on a simultaneous track, reviewing the morning trades. “You see the Internet today? ‘Academy Wowed by Zicklin's
Tricks
!' That is some nice coverage—whose palm did the network grease for that? Listen—I know you've got a lot on your plate, but when you talk to
Deadline
, see if you can work in a plug for
Top Dog
. You're talking to
Deadline
, aren't you? For their Emmy wrap-up?”

Clive was supposed to be retired—he'd sold his video distribution company to Paramount fifteen years ago. And while Figgy pointed out that his actual job had been about as glamorous as that of an auto parts distributor, he had somehow managed to exploit every industry perk and, to Alex anyway, pulled off a respectable version of the shaggy, glam, Robert Evans–era showbiz mogul: He drove a smoke-spewing Alfa Romeo, which he piloted
to Fitzerman's Deli in Chatsworth three afternoons a week for cabbage soup and rice pudding, devouring his lunch while swiping his perpetually wet lips with a silk calico-print kerchief. For the past few years he'd been shopping around reality-show ideas, his latest about a family of dog trainers.

“We could really
leverage
this, honey,” Clive said. “Build on your cable success? Help get
Top Dog
on track? These network guys just need a reminder—this could really get us some momentum.”

A holler came from the front hall, and Alex took the excuse to say goodbye and get off the phone. Sam was standing at the front door, scratching his belly and squinting into the buttery light. On the front stoop stood… something. Sprouting up from an enormous wicker basket was a thicket of jungle flora, a chaotic web of tendrils splayed around a dome of tropical blossoms in full flower. It wasn't so much a bouquet as an ecosystem.

“Oh, it's the
big basket
.” Figgy had joined him on the porch. “It's gotta be from Jess. His assistant told me: Big clients get the big basket. There's gotta be a card—find it, will you?”

“No way,” Alex said. “I think I saw a cheetah crawling around in there.”

Figgy made a face and dug the card out. “ ‘To the new Queen of the Jungle. From Jess and all your friends at Forefront,' ” she read, flipping it over. “Oh my God. It's the Supreme Tropical Paradise.”

She dropped the card and crumpled in laughter, picking up the arrangement with a grunt and hurrying inside. “Come on!” she called. “Let's look it up!”

They fired up the kitchen computer and checked the website of the florist: The Supreme Tropical Paradise retailed for $600.

The figure jumped out at Alex. “That's how much I paid for Doug.” Doug was the name they had for the dented, mustard-colored Datsun B210 that had reliably if unfashionably transported
him around L.A. in his temping days, when they first started dating.

“You overpaid for that car,” Figgy said. “This is in another league entirely.”

Alex took a second. Look at the two of them! Figgy, whose mom had grown up dirt poor in the Bronx, whose grandfather fled the Nazis for a factory job in the U.S., whose great grandparents had been terrorized by Cossacks. Then he flashed on his own ancestors, Iowa farmers and Ontario Quakers who, from what Alex could tell, spent their entire lives catching infections in drafty meeting halls. Now here they were, staring down a flower arrangement that cost more than a car.

The florist's website showed the Supreme Tropical Paradise in a sleek, modern kitchen, a burst of lurid color in an otherwise placid expanse, like a sculptural piece of farm equipment on a polished glass coffee table. It was what was called, Alex recalled from the home décor reality show he guilt-watched, a
contrast item
.

Not here it wasn't. He looked around at their cluttered countertops and overflowing shelves. They owned nothing
but
contrast items. Their plumbing was bad and the electrical system was fritzy, but they'd amassed a hive of tchotchkes, evidence of Figgy's extensive travels through the thrift shops and estate sales and discount emporiums of Southern California.