Plus One (2 page)

And now here he was, actual Alex in a real-life Town Car, with its impossibly immaculate exterior and musky oil smell and walnut inlays and immaculate black carpet so soft and lush that he wanted to rub his face in it. He pressed a button and the armrest slid back with a pleasing hiss. Beneath it he found a tin of candied almonds, a chilled bottle of Dom with a note from Figgy's agent, Jess, and the fall issue of
Elite Spirit
, a glossy brick of a
magazine devoted to mini-jets and maxi-wristwatches.

The man at the wheel swiveled around and produced a card. Devon Winchester, Executive Transport.

“Well hello there, Devon Winchester,” Alex said with a smile. “That's quite a name. You from Windsor Castle?”

“No sir,” he said. “Inglewood.”

Alex learned that Devon had two boys and a girl, but he and their mom weren't together, owing to some legal trouble Devon got into a few years ago, but he was dealing much better now and making some music and maybe he should put on his CD? Some serious jams. Gonna blow up. Maybe they could use a song on the show?

“Absolutely, put that on,” Alex said, glad they were relating. Maybe they'd be friends.

“So you excited for tonight?” Devon asked. “I shouldn't be saying this, but I freaking
love
your show. Girlfriend and I binge-watched the whole season on demand in one night—up 'til 4 a.m. Could not even stop. Shit's crack.”

Figgy leaned forward and craned her face over the seat. “Well thank you very much, Devon,” she said. “So great you've actually seen it.”

“Aw no way—it's the
lady's
show?” Devon put his face up to the mirror and smiled brightly. “I didn't realize. All my papers say is I'm driving the EP of
Tricks
—and it's you? No way! I like that
a lot
.”

“Well thank you very much,” Figgy said, as Devon laughed and banged his fist on the steering wheel. “Not that I have a chance in hell of actually
winning
.”

“You never know,” Devon said. “You watch. You could be going home with some metal tonight.”

Alex sat up in his seat. “We're just happy for the party.”

He'd been parroting the same line all week—it seemed like the thing to say. He'd checked the blogs and read the trades; the
official line put the odds of a
Tricks
win at thirty to one. And that was factoring in the new voting rules and a palpable anti-network, anti-establishment mood among Academy membership. No comedy with women in lead roles had won since
Sex and the City
, and everyone knew that was really a show about gay men. It seemed to Alex that the whole enterprise was just another big corporate sham—deeply sexist, wildly political and not at all friendly to Figgy's frank, abrasive, lady-centric take on the world.
Tricks
was a token show, singled out as proof the industry valued women—even if it excluded them from the top jobs or overall deals or benefits that were the industry's genuine rewards.

But that didn't mean Alex couldn't hope. He knew how deeply uncool it was to give even half a shit about the Emmys, but the truth was he stupidly, desperately hoped for a win. It would mean so much. For Figgy and the show, obviously, but also for him. He couldn't help feeling like winning would validate their whole mismatched-but-mysteriously-right partnership. Him, the agreeable, even-keeled, happy-go-lucky husband; her, the opinionated, emotional, whip-smart, crazy-creative wife. He pictured her climbing up to the mic, clutching her chest and pouring her heart out to him, tearing up in a schmaltzy “you complete me” moment, like Oprah rhapsodizing about Stedman's “grace and dignity.”

“You're sweet, Devon,” Figgy cut in, fishing around for an Altoid. “But all I'm hoping for tonight is some nice shampoo in the swag bag.”

Then she stretched out her arms, entwining her palms and twisting them around in a fancy yoga flex. Alex watched her stretch, unsure how to read the body language. He couldn't tell what she really thought. She'd been dismissive and super casual ever since the nominations were announced, rolling her eyes when he asked if she'd written a speech and making a
pew-pew
sound when his mom told her to make room on the mantle.

Alex, meanwhile, could barely contain his excitement. A few days before the awards, he paid a visit to Sergio's Formalwear, a storefront a few doors down from their vet. It was a musty, overstocked shop, and Sergio turned out to be a pudgy Filipino guy who, after helping Alex up on a stool and going at him with his measuring tape, barely made a peep when informed that the tux wasn't for a quinceañera or a wedding or some other ceremony that marked the quaint rituals of mere mortals; this was for
the Emmys
.

“So you're on the TV?” Sergio asked, motioning to a wall of headshots picturing female wrestlers, seventies child actors, and puppets. “You have picture?”

“No, not me,” Alex said. “My wife. She's up for best comedy. Very big.”

“So
she's
on the TV?”

“Not her, no,” he said. “She's a writer. It's her words—her whole
world
. She makes the show.”

“So no picture,” said Sergio, measuring his inseam with a little more roughness than Alex felt was entirely necessary.

The tux fit well enough, even if the first words to pop into Alex's mind when he put it on were:
dickhead maître d'
. Even so, with the dress shoes that Figgy picked up special for the occasion, Alex figured he looked decent enough—if not dapper, at least a passable partner to Figgy, who had secured the loaner Valentino through her costume department, with pleats and cinches and underwires and all sorts of enhancing lifts and supports.

“Be outside and ready to get us, okay—maybe circle around?” Figgy said, as the car funneled through traffic. “We may flee early, after we go down in flames to that ABC crap about the
lawyers
. I'd like to get home early and let the babysitter go.”

And there it was again: the yoga flex. What was that?

Then the Town Car lurched to a stop and the door was flung open by a man with an earbud and a crewcut. Alex hopped out
and looked up at the Shrine, a massive auditorium adorned with Moorish spires that extended upward like mounds of soft serve. Helicopters hovered above towering banks of bleachers. The entrance was flooded with a saturated glare that turned everyone into players on a soundstage. Everywhere there was lipstick and cleavage, tiny waists and gleaming dentistry. Welcome to Toontown. It really was a cartoon world.

Alex straightened up as the assembled fans and photographers zeroed in on them. He felt a sudden, palpable rush of longing and excitement. He adjusted his sunglasses and ducked his head down, prolonging the moment. For this brief second, he was someone they'd come to see—not a star, obviously, but maybe the sitcom best friend, or the host of a PBS wildlife series.

“Hey!” Figgy called. She was still in the car, reaching out and tugging at the tail of his jacket. “Little help?”

Alex swiveled and offered his hand. Figgy bounded up and plowed into the crowd, immediately falling into what appeared to be a strictly understood protocol. The actors and nominees flitted around the edges of the press lineup, pollinating at ripe spots along the way. Meanwhile the unfamous were funneled into the faster-moving current at the center.

“Come on,” said Figgy over her shoulder, sticking her elbow back and guiding his hand around her inner arm. “Squire me.”

Alex gave her a squeeze and started to join the procession, but within a few steps, Figgy was intercepted. In a flurry of squeals, a press agent from the network introduced herself as “one of the Melissas,” issued a command on her walkie-talkie, uncoupled Figgy from Alex, and herded her away into the
Tricks
posse: five writers, two network executives, and Katherine Pool, the Ozarks-born, Yale-educated actress who played Toni, the housewife-turned-madam.

“Figgy honey—don't you clean up nice?” Katherine exclaimed, pulling her in for a stiff embrace. “Heels even! I don't
think I've
ever
seen you out of those marvelous clogs!”

Figgy grimaced and poked out one foot. “I've already got blisters. But look at you! That dress? Gorgeous.”

Katherine made a little curtsey, and the two of them headed toward the press line, all smiles, no visible sign whatsoever of the epic power plays they'd waged against each other over the past year. Katherine was an incredible actress—she had a wide-open, plate-shaped face that appeared to be constantly churning on some deep, mysterious thought—but she was famously difficult. Most of it was standard diva stuff—lateness, rudeness, a refusal to wear anything that didn't show off her yoga-toned arms—but her big problem revolved around the show itself. She spent much of the season complaining that her dialogue was substandard and out-of-character and, worst of all, there wasn't enough of it.

Alex made his way into the crowd, joining a lane of traffic just behind the press line. After a few steps, he realized he'd fallen in with the wife pack, a cluster of smooth-skinned, spooked-looking ladies from the leafier districts of the 310. He recognized a few as spouses of guys on Figgy's staff—they were stay-at-home moms, mostly; they met up for coffee or play dates when production kept their husbands at work until all hours. But just as he'd avoided them at work parties and ignored their occasional emails, he now took a few steps sideways out of their wake.

He didn't
dislike
them—not at all! They were all nice enough, and of course he had nothing but respect for their choices as women and mothers. But he wasn't one of them. His life maybe wasn't as over-the-top as all this, but it was at least vaguely creative. Alex was an account manager for BestSelf, a boutique ad shop that worked with nonprofits—or as described by his boss, the aggro-smarmy Jeff Kanter, BestSelf was “a values-driven agency.” At the moment, Alex was working on testicular cancer, organic school lunches, and shaken babies. He took pride in finding clever ways to employ the dark arts of marketing for righteous
causes. Nonprofits didn't bring in big money, but Alex did okay, well enough to have covered them through the lean years. He'd also taken full advantage of the agency's “family-friendly flex-time” policy and health insurance, working the system to get six months of paternity leave when the kids were born.

Close to the entrance to the hall, Alex stopped on the red carpet and stood on his tippy toes, peering over the coiffed heads. He spotted the
Tricks
crew at the end of the press line, Katherine huddled with Melissa Rivers and Figgy giving a thumbs-up to a reporter for Slavic TV. He caught up with Figgy at the towering front doors of the auditorium and led her inside.

Figgy leaned close. “Makeup check,” she whispered. “Am I smudged? That guy from
Access Hollywood
was practically licking me. Have I got monster face?”

“No monster face,” he said, looping a strand of her stiffly ironed hair over her ear. “You're perfect. Breathe. And breathe again.”

Figgy smiled, the two of them having recently decided that a yoga studio near their house was obviously attempting to one-up and out-do mere breathers with a big sign out front that commanded: “Breathe. And Breathe Again.”

“You know I love you, right?” she said.

“Right back at you.”

Alex planted a kiss on her cheek and reached over Figgy's shoulder to flag down a tray of champagne. They downed their glasses in quick gulps and headed into the crowd, huddling close and submitting to the raw excitement of the spectacle. Alex was surprised at how pleasing it was, seeing so many heretofore fictional characters in person (Jon Stewart, futzing with his bow-tie! Rupert Murdoch at a urinal! Janeane Garofalo, smoking a Camel!). When they found their seats—center row, middle back, not far at all from the podium, a good sign—Alex was struck by a sweet, tingling, intoxicating feeling of… what was it?
Hopefulness? Hubris? Maybe it was just the proximity to so many fawned-over, sought-after powerful people. He got a chemical jolt of adrenaline just being in their air space, seeing them shift in their seats and scratch their marvelous faces and tug at their tailored collars—they were just people, after all, people not all that different from him. All the success in the room, all the fame, all the confidence and recognition and ego—for this moment, anyway, Alex felt like just being here was to be assimilated, incorporated, sucked into their force fields.

And the show itself—even that was more exciting than he'd thought possible for what was essentially a glorified TV taping, with an announcer breaking in during commercial breaks to remind everyone to keep smiling, keep clapping, keep up the
energy
. Ricky Gervais was a genius! And the interpretive dance tribute to the World War II miniseries: actually kind of moving! Alex felt irrationally happy for winners he deemed deserving, of whom there seemed to be a great many, more so than usual, which led to a faint hope that Figgy's dark-horse oddity might pull an upset.

Please, Alex thought, please let it happen. Just this once. Let her win.

The best comedy award came midway through the show, just after a commercial break. Alex knew it was imminent when an ox-shaped guy with a camera on his shoulder came loping up the aisle, crouched down and aimed his lens directly at them. Oh God, he thought: the reaction shot. He squeezed Figgy's arm. It suddenly occurred to him that his wife might actually flip off the camera when the award went to the lawyer show. “Don't even sweat this, 'k?” he whispered in her ear. “Just keep smiling.”