Plus One (3 page)

And then it happened. Chris Rock opened the envelope, shook his head, grinned, and announced the winner. It took a second for Alex to realize what he'd said; by the time he rose to his feet, Figgy and the whole
Tricks
cast and crew were stampeding forward, down the row of seats and into the aisle. After climbing
the steps to the stage, Figgy marched to the front of the crowd and exchanged a greeting with Rock (Alex couldn't believe it—did his wife just
fist bump
Chris Rock?).

“I want to thank the Academy and all the nominees—you guys are amazing, but sorry fellas!” she said. “This one's for the ladies!”

A great whoop went up from the crowd. Figgy held up the statue. She wasn't blinking or breathing hard or betraying any writerly anxiety at all. She beamed. Her skin looked luminous, dewy. It was as if she'd been buffed with the fame loofah.

“Oh gosh—I want to thank my killer agent Jess and my manager Jerry—you guys are
animals
,” Figgy said. “And to Kate and all our fabulous actors. And to Neil at the network and Wanda at the studio and everyone on my crew and my whole darling family, you guys are amazing!”

Alex let out a sound: half-laugh, half-sob. He was suddenly aware of his fists, clenched tight and balled at his chest. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the blinking red light on the camera. He tried and failed to relax his hands. Breathe, he thought. Breathe again.

Figgy paused, nodded once, and seemed to reflect for a moment. “Most of all,” she swallowed. “I want to thank… the Academy, for finally recognizing the oppressed minority of Jewish girls from Sherman Oaks. Rise up, my sisters!”

A huge round of applause sounded from the crowd, and Figgy raised the trophy in triumph. Alex clapped along as she was led away from the mic and into a darkened crowd off stage.

• • •

Figgy didn't come back after the next commercial break, or the one after that, leaving Alex to sit and stew, his fingertips tingling, a flutter in his throat, and a disbelieving grin locked on his face.
Her seat was soon snatched up by an older woman in a saggy, peach-colored gown. Alex gave her a confused greeting.

“Seat filler,” she said, snapping her gum. He shook his head, not understanding. “We come out for the crowd shots. So it's always a full house? Don't worry—I'll skedaddle as soon as—”

“Oh, it's fine,” Alex said, embarrassed that he needed the explanation.

“That was your wife, wasn't it?” she asked. “The
Tricks
lady?”

He nodded. “Right—Miss
Tricks
. Do you know if I can go backstage? For the press conference?”

“I wouldn't try that,” she said, her breath sugary and hot. “You need a pass to get back there. Anyway, there's only enough seat fillers to cover the winners. You sit tight—she'll be back.”

Then the stage lights brightened and the music swelled. Alex clapped and tried to feign interest in the other awards. Where was Figgy? In the moment after she won, he'd gone blank. It was as if he'd been concussed by the shock of it. Had he kissed her before she jumped up? One second Rock was ripping open the envelope… the next Figgy was up on stage, the speech spilling out, the joke, the thanks, all those names, the agent and manager and star….

Of course, he thought:
She'd had her remarks prepared all along
. He thought back to the limo and the way she'd stretched, that fancy yoga flex—it was a tell! Beneath all that never-gonna-happen bluster, she'd somehow known her name was in that envelope. Why
shouldn't
it be her? She was like this about much of her life—mysteriously certain. Whereas Alex was constantly plotting contingencies, drifting from one thing to another and clinging to vague notions of realistic expectations, Figgy plowed forward with the force of someone who absolutely deserved what it was they were as sure as hell about to get. To Alex, she seemed magic this way—“The force is strong in this one,” he'd say, as she got the gig or the parking spot or the phone call she'd been counting on
all along.

Not that she ever admitted such certainty out loud. That was part of her magic, the Evil Eye part, the part inherited from her gypsy-Ashkenazi ancestors: One never acknowledges or predicts good fortune, lest one incur fate's capricious wrath.

Figgy reappeared at last in the show's final few minutes, trophy clutched close like a football, the seat filler scurrying away at the sight of her. Alex leapt up in the narrow space between the seats, managing to get one arm around her in an awkward side-hug.

She pulled him close as they settled back into their seats.

“Oh God, honey—I am so, so sorry,” she whispered. “I was a hot mess up there. I don't know what happened.”

“Stop!” Alex said. “You were great.”

“But the speech? I can't believe I pulled a Swank.”

Alex narrowed his eyes, not getting it.

“You know—Hillary Swank? When she forgot Chad Lowe? That's all anyone remembers about her Oscar: forgot Chad. I'm so sorry—I meant to say something nice—I wanted to! But with those insane lights and the guy waving me offstage, all I could think of was my list of work people and my
darling
family. Darling? How lame is that? Like some basket of kitty cats?”

She let her weight fall against him, plopping the trophy into his lap. “I'm such a fucking idiot.”

Alex shook his head and laughed. “It's fine. I'm fine.
Seriously
. You were incredible. Don't you dare get into a funk right now—this is nothing but good.” He pinched one of the statue's wings and laughed. “How crazy is this?”

“The craziest,” she said.

She gripped his hand tightly for the remainder of the show, and then pulled him, giggling, all the way up the aisle. They met up with Katherine and the rest of the
Tricks
contingent—more squeals, this time accompanied by big sloppy kisses—and headed into the crowd, which parted magically at the sight of the trophy.
Strangers smiled and flashed thumbs-ups. Alex began to feel that same loopy high he'd gotten in the auditorium, the same pang of confidence by osmosis. He clutched Figgy's hand and led her outside, across a concrete patio, and toward a press tent. Beyond two vinyl flaps, he could see a swath of red carpet and phalanx of waiting cameramen and correspondents.

Maybe it was all the time he'd spent stewing in his seat while Figgy was backstage, but looking inside, Alex felt a rush of take-charge urgency. He gave Figgy's hand a squeeze, sidestepped around Katherine, and led the way, waving in a half-salute like a candidate stepping onstage at a rally. As he moved forward, he felt something strange on his foot, like he'd stepped in gum. He looked down. Something was sticking out from underneath his right shoe, bending away from the sole.

Before he could investigate, Alex felt his face go hot. He was now alone at the entrance to the tent, lights flooding the space. He sucked in a breath and collected himself. He was, after all, the man behind the woman, the proudly feminist supporting spouse; this was his moment, too. He prepped himself for the questions from reporters preparing second-day think pieces about the significance of Figgy's win:
Mr. Sherman-Zicklin! Mr. Sherman-Zicklin! How does it feel? What are your thoughts on the evolving roles of women in Hollywood? How will this change things for you at home? For your kids? For your marriage?

The gaze of the room zeroed in on him. Then silence. A cough. It was as if a thousand onlookers had simultaneously sucked in a breath, held it for a moment, and then exhaled in a single whisper: “noooooboooody.”

Rushing forward on either side, Figgy and Katherine stepped around him. The energy of the room kicked back to life, flashbulbs popping. “Over here!” “On your left!” “Over the shoulder!”

“Hold this a sec,” Figgy said, passing her jeweled clutch with a deft backhand.

Alex took the purse and froze. The tent filled with the barks of photographers calling requests to Katherine, who ducked her chin coquettishly, one impossibly long leg peeking out from her high-slit gown.

“Excuse me—champ? Your shoes? What is
up
with the shoes?”

Alex turned. The voice was a lazy drawl. It was Huck somebody, Katherine's husband—he'd just come inside and was standing a few feet back. He had a shaved head, just-so stubble, and a fitted charcoal tux with a loosely knotted black silk tie. The Concierge. So named by the tabloids, which had feasted on his story a few years back: Nobody singer-songwriter working at Telluride hotel has whirlwind romance with TV star Katherine Pool, marries her in quickie Vegas ceremony, and becomes surrogate dad to her two kids, ten-year-old Penelope and an adopted Chinese baby named Bingwen. Now Huck motioned toward Alex's feet with a look of alarm. Alex followed his eyes down and saw that both soles of his shoes had peeled away from the undersides and were now flapping madly, like two long, moist tongues.

He hollered ahead to Figgy, his personal shopper. She was a few feet ahead and managed to cut away, mid sound bite.

“Fig, honey?” Alex said. “The shoes you got me? Where'd they come from?”

She smiled and flashed him a thumbs-up. “The County Morgue Thrift Store! Amazing, right? Fifteen bucks!”

Alex felt a knot bunch up in his gut. His Emmy shoes were never meant to hold the weight of a living man. They were made for a corpse. No wonder they were decomposing.

“Dude, you are
fucked
,” laughed Huck, who shook his head and quickly ducked away, in a hurry to go God-knows-where. Alex stayed put. Any additional movement, he feared, would cause the shoes to come apart entirely. Figgy had gone back to her interview. As the procession flowed around him, he waved lamely toward the press lineup, as if, yes, he was thrilled to be
here, the guy with the sudden paralysis, the jeweled clutch, and the crazy face.

Off to the side, a security guy muttered something into a mic on his lapel and took a few steps forward, intent on putting a stop to the spastic grandstanding of this mere civilian. Out of the corner of his eye, through the tent's entrance, Alex caught sight of someone clambering over a metal gate. It was Huck, head gleaming in the overhead kliegs. Just as the security guard reached Alex to physically shove him along, Huck burst through the entrance, proffered a role of duct tape, and ripped off two silver strips.

Huck knelt down on the red carpet and wrapped each of Alex's shoes in tape. “Got this from a gaffer,” he said. “There you go, Cinderella—glass slipper fits. You're good to go.”

“Thank you,” Alex stammered, relief and gratefulness flooding over him. “Stupendous. Seriously—that's some MacGyver handiness right there.”

“Just tape,” Huck said, rising up and clapping him on the shoulder. “Shit seriously solves ninety percent of the world's problems. Come on—let's drink. Let the ladies do the dog and pony show. They'll catch up with us at the after party.”

• • •

Tricks
was assigned to table 852 on the far outer reaches of the tent, near the bathrooms. Somewhere near the center of the space, a football field away, a contortionist in a kelp-patterned unitard gyrated to the tune of plinky electronica, this year's party inexplicably done in an undersea/nautical theme. Swirly blue lights cast odd shadows over the thousand-plus tables below. Alex and Huck sat across from three wives huddled around an immaculately turned-out fellow called Dan who was describing his Hawaiian wedding to Phil the line producer, while the rest of the
Tricks
contingent mixed it up in the circulating mob.

“Would've been nice to be closer, wouldn't it?” Alex craned his head over the crowd, looking for their wives; the last time he'd spotted Figgy she'd been at the dessert table with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. “If this were a solar system, we'd be out near Pluto, on one of those icy planets that no one knows the names of.”

“Dwarf planets,” Huck said, the stem of a lollipop wagging in the corner of his broad grin. “Love those. Ceres, Makemake, Haumea—irregular orbits, all gaseous and icy. Total fucking mystery. Astronomers can't get a bead on where they are or even what they're made of. Dwarf planets
rule
, am I right?”

Alex shook his head and smiled. No dummy, this concierge. “Hey—thanks for the help with the shoes. That was incredible. I'm not sure electrical tape goes with my tie, but I'm just glad not to be barefoot.”

Huck peered down at his handiwork and shook his head. “Nah—looks kind of slick, actually. Like it's a thing. Next thing you know taped-up shoes'll be going for $700 at Kitson. Dandy-pop?”

Huck reached into his breast pocket and offered Alex a green lollipop.

“No thanks.” Alex shrugged.

“You sure? Government-strain medicine. Prime canabiotic. Takes a minute to kick in, but nice. Full-body high, no couch lock, like popping two Xanax. And it's
candy
. Greatest thing ever.”

Alex took one. The two sat quietly for a while, sucking and slurping, Huck periodically shooting meaningful grins at Alex. As the lollipop took hold, Alex felt a cozy glaze settle over him. He felt a little bad he wasn't out there with Figgy, who might need him to disentangle her from an aggressive agent or refill her glass or do whatever it was spouses in these situations were supposed to do. But he didn't feel bad enough to move. She'd come get him if she needed him, and anyway, he was happy to kick back on the outskirts of the room with Huck, away from the roar of
you look
so great
and
let's have lunch
and
I'm off gluten and I feel fantastic!