The Bones (6 page)

"Shrimp puff?"

An attractive aspiring actress in black pants, yellow coat, and white shirt holds a silver tray where shrimp puffs are arranged
like colors on the palette of a tidy painter. Lloyd smiles and takes one, briefly considering how much simpler his life would
be if this purveyor of hors d'oeuvres were his wife.

"Thank you," Lloyd says, attempting to smile but only managing a halfhearted showing of teeth. She's already looking for her
next customer and moves on just as Lloyd is realizing the financial ramifications were his projected betrothal to Shrimp Girl
to end unhappily.

Stacy, oblivious to Lloyd's libidinous ruminations, takes his hand and leads him into the room as if he were a shy llama at
a child's animal-themed birthday party. She leans into his ear and puts her arm over his shoulder, pantomiming a devoted spouse.

"Can you believe who's here?"

"How long do we have to stay?"

"There are two studio heads, the guy who hosted the Grammy's last year, the star of a huge sitcom . . . this is totally major."

"I'm getting a headache."

At that moment, Daryl Hyler excuses herself from a conversation she's having with a director of television pilots—who has
come to this event hoping to be seen by someone who will hire him to do a feature film—and fixes Lloyd and Stacy in her crosshairs.
As she moves toward them, Lloyd has the image of her torso on the prow of a ship.

"Thanks for coming," Daryl says to Stacy, docking in front of them. Then, sticking her hand out to Lloyd: "I'm Daryl."

"Lloyd Melnick."

As he shakes her hand, Lloyd notices they are now the sole occupants of an imaginary tunnel from which all other human life
has been banished. Stacy is a dim memory as Daryl bores her brown eyes into Lloyd like concrete pilings into a beach. "I am
so glad you could come. I'm such a fan of
The Fleishman Show."

"I wish I could say I had something to do with it."

"Hello! You wrote on it for seven seasons!" This from Stacy, whom Lloyd and Daryl ignore.

"And congratulations on the Lynx deal."

"Now I have to work for a living."

"You want to meet the governor?"

Lloyd looks over and sees the governor of California standing near the kitchen nibbling on a soy meatball as an earnest housewife
in four-hundred- dollar calfskin loafers lectures him about offshore drilling.

"Maybe in a little while," Lloyd replies, teasing an errant piece of shrimp puff from his gum with his tongue.

"Robert," Daryl calls, beckoning her husband, who is deeply engaged in a conversation with his lawyer about the white-water-rafting
expedition they are planning in Idaho with Tom Cruise. "Get over here and meet the Melnicks."

Robert dutifully excuses himself, wades through the assembled guests, and greets Lloyd and Stacy with an extended hand. "Thanks
for coming. Has Daryl hit you up yet?" His attempt at jocularity is met with a swift punch in his arm from his wife, who clearly
takes exception to this characterization of her fund-raising techniques.

"Not yet, but"—Lloyd pats his chest—"I've got my checkbook right here."

"Mine has skid marks," Robert remarks. Stacy laughs too loudly; then catches herself. Lloyd smiles, notes that it's probably
not the first time he's used that line.

"Robert loves that I do all the work so he can make fun of it but still feel good about himself," Daryl says with a frankness
Stacy finds both alarming and intoxicating. As for Lloyd, whatever lofty illusions he has spun about men like Robert, leaders
of their communities, titans of industry, holding dominion over their spouses, come crashing to earth. Daryl to Robert, "But
you love it, don't you?"

"I married Eleanor Roosevelt."

Lloyd's thinking
this guy has a whole act.

"You didn't have to dress up," Robert adds, looking over Lloyd's homeless-man-at-Venice-Beach ensemble.

"It's his trademark," Stacy says, trying not to sound defensive and falling.

"Next time I'll wear the jodhpurs and riding boots," Lloyd assures his host. "By the way, I like your house. Is it all in
the same area code?" Choosing to work benign rather than saying, "I didn't know whether to check into the Napoleon Suite or
order a burrito," Daryl and Robert taking the area-code joke as a compliment, smiling.

"We like it" is all Robert can manage by way of response.

Daryl takes Stacy by the arm. "The headmaster of Horizon is here. Let me introduce you."

"Horizon?" Lloyd innocently inquires. "What's that?"

"Is he for real?" Daryl asks Stacy. Then, to Lloyd, "It's, like, the best progressive private school in Los Angeles. The twins
are going there next year. Come on over and talk to him. Make a contribution, we'll write a letter for you . . . maybe you'll
get lucky." She tugs Stacy by the arm and, as she's leading her away, turns to Robert, suggesting, "You two can talk about
golf."

"Where do you belong?" Robert asks.

"What do you mean?"

"What club?"

"Club?"

"What am I, talking Chinese? What country club?"

"We don't. I'm not a golfer."

"Well, what good are you, then?"

Lloyd immediately notices Robert is afflicted with the need so common in those who deal with funny people in their professional
lives but are not funny people themselves: the never-ending desire to be humorous, too. For someone like Lloyd, who has the
gift, it is always slightly aggravating in a conversation when a person who is not amusing on a professional level stumbles
off the clear path of simple communication and lurches into the thickets of comedy.
I
don't tort with the lawyers. I don't quark it up with the astrophysicists. Why must these people try to make me laugh?
It always ends unhappily, with a pained, if polite, smile from the intended beneficiary, followed by the fervent wish that
the entertainer manqué would please cease and desist. On top of everything else, Robert's riposte "What good are you then?"
rather than injecting levity into the exchange, only managed to sound vaguely hostile. But Lloyd's so uncomfortable and this
guy's trying to be his version of pleasant so,
let's keep it going,
Lloyd's thinking,
before I have to fend for myself in this catered hell.

"Do I look like someone who could get past a membership committee?" he remarks, self-deprecation always the default setting.

"They look straight through the pants and right into the wallet," Robert says, clearly something he's thought about. "You
like the Lakers?"

"Sure."

"Nada has courtside seats at Staples. I'll take you."

Amazing what the announcement of a lucrative deal in the trades will do for a former nonentity with a receding hairline, tattered
clothes, and no previous social cachet.

"Did Frank talk to you?"

"I saw him last week." Lloyd deciding how to play it. He knows Robert represents Frank, and wherever this is going, it's intended
beneficiary is Robert's client.

"Did he tell you about the pilot Lynx wants him to do? The Eskimo thing?"

"He mentioned it."

"He's concerned it may not be the best vehicle for his talents. Have you read it?"

"No."

"Would you mind if I sent you a copy?"

"Yeah, sure. Send it."

"If you think it's any good, maybe you can come on as a show-runner."

"I'm developing my own stuff."

"What are you working on?"

"Nothing yet. I just got the deal."

"Okay, so if you're not busy with anything else right now, you can take a look at this for us." Lloyd gets the picture that
he is an ankle and Robert a pit bull who has sunk his jaws into the flesh.

"Send it to me," Lloyd surrenders.

The loud clinking of a spoon against a wineglass cuts through the moneyed hum. Lloyd looks toward the source of the sound
and sees Daryl Hyler standing on a chair, towering over the tanned and prosperous crowd.

"I want to welcome everybody to our home," she honks. "Robert didn't want to have this shindig here but I made him, so let's
all thank Robert, too." All eyes turn toward Robert and Lloyd. There are some nervous laughs at Daryl's lack of guile (not
to mention judgment) and a smattering of applause, Lloyd thinking,
The poor bastard's fuck-you rich and his wife still breaks his balls in public.

Daryl goes on to make a speech about how important the environment is and how the oceans are garbage dumps and the ozone layer
is the size of a G-string and everybody should write a big check because they are the leaders and need to set an example for
the rest of the country. But what is strange to Lloyd is the way Stacy watches Daryl. It is clear she has a new hero. Stacy,
who had never evinced an interest in anything that didn't involve the betterment of her own place in the world, nods with
the earnestness of a Berkeley freshman at an antiwar demonstration as she gazes upon the solemn visage of Daryl Hyler, Lady
Bountiful of Los Angeles, haranguing her guests. Lloyd rolls his eyes as subtly as possible and prepares to be separated from
a large chunk of his checking account.

Not that he doesn't agree with everything Daryl is saying.

Certainly, pollution is bad and humans, as curators of the planet, need to take better care of it. But something about Daryl
Hyler makes him want to trade in his Saab for a large SUV in which to drive to the job she is inspiring him to get as a distributor
of toxic waste. From the way things look, this Goddess of Goodness has a new disciple in Stacy, and Lloyd, who understands
fully the depths of his wife's superficiality (which has increased in direct proportion to the size of their tax return),
notices another chink in the marriage.

Later, Daryl introduces them to the governor, who informs Lloyd he is a big fan of
The Fleishman Show.
Lloyd manages a smile but thanks to having consumed more iced tea than he'd intended finds himself in the nearest bathroom
while Stacy nervously makes small talk with the state of California's top official. As he prepares to relieve himself, he
notices a sign over the toilet bowl reading SAVE WATER PLEASE, USE AT LEAST THREE TIMES BEFORE FLUSHING. That is when he knows
it is time to go.

On the way home that evening, heading south on the 405 freeway, as Stacy prattles on about her prospective life as a philanthropist,
a Rage Against the Machine song comes on the radio, an industrial boogie of alienation and dislocation that so perfectly articulates
what Lloyd is experiencing he cries out in recognition.

No, not really.

Sad to say, it doesn't come on the radio, the Rage Against the Machine song, and no crying out is done, at least not externally.
That song's appearance would have been entirely too serendipitous, and what's on the car radio only reflects the inner life
of an individual when that individual is in a bad movie. Lloyd simply wishes it had roared from the speakers and believes
himself entitled to just such an unexpectedly perfect moment, since his life seems devoid of them recently. The music that
really fills the car comes from a Barbra Streisand CD his wife had purchased; yet another of her sins, which are becoming
too myriad for Lloyd to enumerate.

"What were you and Robert talking about?" Stacy demands gently.

"He asked me to work on this show with Bones."

"And you're going to, right?"

"Why would I? I have my own stuff."

"Like what?"

Why was he being asked this so regularly today, he wonders, as if he needs to justify himself to anyone other than the people
who were overpaying him at Lynx.

"Like I'm working on it and why should I do some piece of crap that Robert has?"

"Maybe because Robert wants you to and he can make a lot of things happen," Stacy says, looking at him in a way meant to convey
finality.

Lloyd focuses on the traffic coming toward them and tries to form descriptions of the oncoming headlights: a perambulating
pearl necklace, the eyes of nocturnal electric snakes, a starry parade. Finds his powers of description wanting, although
he thinks
starry parade
shows promise in a 1930s MGM kind of way. Makes a mental note to get cracking on the metaphors, maybe start keeping a notebook.
He no longer wants to write television. He must be taken more seriously, he thinks, by people he respects.

He glances at his wife, who has relaxed now that in her mind their argument has been settled. Her lips are moving as she quietly
sings along to the CD. Then she stops and turns to him. "You don't want me to get involved in SOAP, do you?"

"You can do what you want," he says, noncommittal.

"You'd like me to spend my days driving Dustin around and having lunch with my friends and getting my legs waxed and my nails
done, wouldn't you?"

"What makes you say that?"
Where is this coming from? Where is it going?

"For one thing, I'll be easier for you to control if I lead that kind of life."

"Stacy . . . " Lloyd's confused now. He's formulating a response but nothing is coming.

"You're making a ton of money, honey, if you haven't noticed," she reminds him. "And if you think I'm just going to be the
happy housewife, you're wrong. You heard Daryl. The planet's a mess. You're too wrapped up in your career to care, which I
think is fine, actually. You're the breadwinner, you have to win the bread. So I'm going to do the caring for both of us.
I hope you don't have a problem with it. Whatever we donate is tax-deductible, and you can feel like you're doing something
for someone besides yourself."

Lloyd is too flummoxed to answer. So he just says, "Okay," and keeps driving.

The next day, Lloyd arrives home from a meeting with his lawyer to find a three-foot-tall, cellophane-wrapped gift basket
dominating the kitchen table. It contains smoked salmon, cheeses, olives, muffins, cookies, and two expensive bottles of wine,
a chardonnay and a Bordeaux. The note attached reads:

Dear Lloyd,

It was a pleasure to meet you. Here's to Frank's show. Hope you'll spread some of the Melnick magic around our house!