Grab the Groom
CHAPTER TWO
In the office on Sunset, Suzanne shifted from foot to foot, all too obviously waiting for some further recognition from Brad. Irwin felt a twinge of sadness in his chest. He remembered all too well what it was like to long for someone out of his league. He wanted to intervene, to say something, but that would be self-defeating. She was the best hire they’d ever made, hopelessly loyal to Brad and hence to the show. And Irwin didn’t have to worry about his partner’s chronic womanizing when it came to her.
Irwin stood on tiptoe, looking over Brad’s shoulder. “At the risk of being repetitious, the ‘no touch’ rules apply to all the girls.” The curb was still unoccupied.
“I heard you. No Me Too scandals,” Brad chanted in falsetto. “No new child support.”
Their show’s schtick was finding love, not getting laid, though that was usually the only thing that happened. Onscreen drama, rivalry between the girls, carefully released, was internet gold, but avoiding dissension, and drama offscreen, were the only ways to protect from delays, from the ravages of underfunding. From the need to keep the new streaming network, IntertainMint, and the investors on the hook, promising nothing more than stock options. “Easy for you but not for me.” Brad said, without turning his head, his eyes still fixed on the street.
“I may be gay but I’m not dead. Some of the crew’s pretty hot,” Irwin said.
“Ehh.” Brad looked over his shoulder with a soft chuckle. “Fernand’s not coming, you know.”
Season after season, Irwin had eyed the handsome gaffer, who was so skilled with lighting that a contestant could stay up all night hurling from drink and sex yet appear the next day fresh and desirable if you stayed up wind. He wanted to say, “You know I’d never cheat on Guglielmo,” which was the truth, but instead found his mouth hanging open. Like a fish longing for its fatal hook. “Why, for God’s sake?” he blurted out.
“A French great-aunt of his lived near the location. She claims everyone knows the place is haunted. Made it impossible for us to get a full local crew.”
“It was easier to find locals in the islands.”
“Yeah, but Normandy’s cheaper, especially off-season. The place is isolated. There won’t be tourists interrupting or paparazzi peeping through the bushes. Not to mention that finding love is too easy in paradise. This place is more realistic. Lousy weather will help them concentrate on the show.” Brad’s phone blonged. He pulled it from his pocket and looked at the text.
The blood drained from his fresh-shaven cheeks. “She’s almost here.”
Brad elevatored down to the sidewalk. He held a brand-new Barbie, one he’d bought after his assistant purchased a thing that could only loosely be described as a doll—ungainly, misshapen, with a squashed oval head atop a tiny body and gangly outsized limbs. A train wreck, a victim of toy-body dysmorphia, though Suzanne said it was the latest, all over the kidfluencers’ sites. Suzanne had horrible taste.
He rubbed Barbie’s body with his thumb, absentmindedly sliding up over teeny-weeny, pointy breasts and back down the slick flat belly. Though only plastic beneath his fingers, it was familiar as his ex’s in its lack of yielding. Sex with her was like copulating with a knothole in a one-by-twelve.
Why hadn’t Ana Maria had a simple, easy to understand boy? Female children were mysterious, junior versions of their mothers, taking to any new fad, no matter how hideous, as long as it was with his money.
Hopefully, little Hortensia would view these gifts as a positive introduction to the stranger called “Daddy.”
The thought that her mind had already been poisoned by her mother cricked the back of his neck. Damn his exes! Why did they hate him so? Why make his children despise him? He was a bigshot, a successful producer, he sent money, lots of money. Even Brad Jr., now a sullen and pimply adolescent, acted as if he were irrelevant. And if his youngest, Hortensia, arriving by limousine any minute now, was anything like her mother, she was sure to loathe him. He felt the rising steam of resentment competing with his fear.
Indignation was his strongest paternal feeling.
He’d met Hortensia’s mother, Ana Maria, at Lake Oroville, up above Sacramento. Dripping after a swim on the fiercely hot day, she lay on the North Forebay—which he afterwards thought of as “North Foreplay”—beach. Her shirt’s thin cloth, bright orange and yellow, was nearly transparent on her damp tan skin. She’d done that magical woman-thing, removing her bikini top from beneath her shirt, rummaging around to get the cups down. Freed, her breasts had bounced like eager little bunnies longing for a bite of carrot.
She lived with her parents on an almond farm. “They are very strict, Mami and Papi,” she said, her slight Spanish accent charming, her eyes dark and seductive. “Today I told them I am with our priest. It may not be possible for me to see you again.”
This was his only chance with her, a diem to carpe!
“There’s a quiet spot,” she continued. “An almond grove in full bloom—falling petals white and clean as snow. No one about, just trees and flowers and buzz-buzz of the bees.” She stretched her arms to the sky, that magical shirt riding up over a taut rib cage. “Take me in that pretty, pretty car.” She pointed to his parked Lamborghini.
And so they’d set off, her hair fluttering in the breeze, the sparkling sun shining down. Pushing a hundred at times, the Lambo made the 2-hour drive in an hour fifteen.
The grove was fragrant, the hum of dancing pollinators adding to the intoxication of her skin’s sweetness. Sweet and yet with the faintest of feral undercurrent, tangy and wild.
What a day that was! What were the odds of her getting knocked up the first and only time they’d do it?
Apparently, pretty high. Now she needed to unload the kid, whom Brad hadn’t seen for…he wasn’t sure–oh, yes, not since Hortensia was about three months old.
Ana Maria’s neglect of maternal duties really made Brad sick. He shelved the erotic memories to relish years in the future, in the long cold winter of his Viagra age.
A text from Irwin: WHEN U COME BACK IN?
Brad tucked the toys in his armpit and texted back: KID ARRIVING.
A sleek black sedan pulled up to the curb. Brad rocked on his heels with anxiety. He had no idea what to expect of a five-year-old girl or what she’d look like.
Maybe he should have opened the emails from Ana Maria—one might have included a photo. Last time he’d seen the kid she’d been a baby and babies all look the same. But he’d never been able to correspond civilly with his exes, so the rule was: forward everything to the lawyer without opening—damn the expense. It was cheaper in the long run than getting into a fight.
The driver took out two pink suitcases from the trunk, deposited them on the pavement, and opened the passenger door. A short figure slid from the seat and into the sunlight. Standing before him, glowering from beneath lowered brows and an unfortunate mid-forehead fringe of deep-black hair, was a tiny version of the fat girl from the Oblongs cartoon. Decades ago, he’d watched the Oblongs while giggling, stoned and slightly drunk with his—as the family maid complained—delinquent teen friends. The ones who brought the beer.
What was the name used on the Oblong show for the blighted cartoon child he and his friends had mocked? It took a moment and then it came to him: Helga Phugly.
A voice, paradoxically both high-pitched and gravelly, interrupted his reverie with, “Are you my daddy?”
That’s when it hit him. This little toad-like Helga clone was the offspring of his loins, the product of his genes. DNA analysis had proven her to be his. Against all logic, his and the gloriously sublime Ana Maria.
Ana Maria had won a good chunk of Brad’s income for the next eighteen years, more if the kid went to college. He needed to get a little of his own back, as unappealing as that now seemed. He needed to win. Win her over, that was.
He held out the doll he’d bought. “I picked this one out myself,” he said, thrusting the Barbie at her, and letting the other doll dangle.
Looking up into his face, Hortensia hesitated a moment and then grabbed both dolls, clutching them to her rotund torso. She headed toward the doors of the office building.
“Well, thank you, Daddy,” Brad muttered under his breath, and then called aloud, “Just a minute!”
When the child turned, he snapped a photo with his phone. “I want to remember this moment,” he said to Hortensia. When she looked confused, he plastered a smile on his face, and, without looking down, texted the picture to Irwin—otherwise, the surprise that was little Hortensia might be too great. Then his long legs took him ahead of her to open the heavy brass and plate-glass door.
As Hortensia crossed the threshold behind her father, she let the Barbie slip from under her arm without a backward glance. The door closed with a dull whoosh, beheading the tiny plastic beauty. Her dad was busy yelling to someone called “mailroom boy” about the luggage. He didn’t stop to pick up the Barbie.
The elevator whisked them to the fifth floor, where a man, much smaller than her daddy, was waiting in the hall. Hortensia pointed toward him. “Who’s he?” she grumbled.
The man crouched down to her level—not that far for him—and said, “I’m Irwin, your daddy’s partner.”
Hortensia swung the remaining doll at his face. The man fell on his ass, feet up off the ground. She almost gave herself away by laughing.
Brad’s mouth dropped open as Irwin hit the floor. “What the…!” He looked down and saw one of Hortensia’s pudgy little hands was empty. “And you dropped your Barbie! I’ll go back and look for her.”
“’s okay,” she said, hugging the remaining toy. Whoever had bought that doll understood.
The mailroom boy came from the service lift, wheeling Hortensia’s two suitcases. “Mr. Hudson, want the luggage in your office?”
Brad nodded, noticing the Barbie strapped atop one case. “Wait a sec,” he said, grabbing the doll. The torso was now a disc that flopped over at the waist and the pointy little breasts were flattened under the torn pink prom dress. Worst of all, the head was missing.
Hortensia shrugged and gave a look that seemed designed to be reassuring. “Barbie’s no good now. She’s broken.” She smoothed the cloth doll’s head. “Kimmie threw her away. Kimmie don’t like Barbie.”
“Who the hell’s Kimmie?” Irwin asked.
Hortensia held up the weird doll Suzanne had bought. It was grinning as if demented, its pastel limbs flopping in the air. “This is Kimmie. I loooove Kimmie.”
They continued past the row of offices. Hortensia fell silent, eyes scanning the photos of previous years’ winners. She only acknowledged one person: after looking Suzanne up and down, she cracked her first smile, a huge one. “You got me Kimmie, didn’t you?”
The path to ridding himself of responsibility for watching the kid was suddenly clear. Brad gave Hortensia a shove—just a little in—toward his assistant.
Hortensia planted her feet in the deep carpet and stood her ground, turning to her father. “Really,” the rough-edged, squeaky voice said, “Kimmie and me both hate Barbie. And maybe you!” She glared at him and reached out for Suzanne’s hand.
Flustered, Brad ducked into his office. Then he snapped his fingers and waved to Suzanne. “Seems the little darling has taken to you. Keep her entertained. Irwin and I’ve got a ton of work.”
An hour later, Irwin and Brad were having a finance meeting when Suzanne returned.
“Arrangements set? You get Fernand to change his mind?” Irwin knew it would be hard to find someone as talented as Fernand. Especially one who looked like a young Sidney Poitier, his boyhood celebrity crush. While other kids adored the cast of Friends, Irwin had spent family dinners holed up in his aunt’s bedroom, watching her ancient DVD of “To Sir with Love.” While the family gobbled brisket in the kitchen, he imagined himself alone in a classroom, getting help from a man he called “Sir.” Thank God his aunt had a chenille bedspread. A lot of body fluids could be hidden in the grooves of good chenille.
“Nope,” Suzanne said. “Ferd’s dead set on leaving.”
Pain sharp as an arrow shot through Irwin’s right eye. Losing Fernand as eye-candy? A cluster headache! He clapped a hand over the side of his face.
Brad poured them each three fingers of scotch. He asked Irwin, “Offer him an extra ten percent?”
Irwin whispered, “Maybe make it fifteen? We’re due to leave in two days. Hard to replace anyone at this late date!” The throbbing in his head increased and his eye watered. Fernand, his Sir, was drifting away, the possibilities unexplored.
Dammit! How many times had he approached Fernand only to stumble at the last moment, too shy, asking a stupid question as an excuse for talking to him? How many times had Irwin let his always-busy husband’s offer of an open marriage slide by?
“Need a pill?” Suzanne asked, concern making her face even plainer. When Irwin gingerly shook his head, she went on. “I found a substitute gaffer.”
Irwin’s heart sank.
“Not Fernand, but almost as good.” She began to check things off on her iPad. “Everything else is moving along—several of our guys are already in place (check), hiring locals to arrange the partition walls and make sure the electricity works (check)… The full crew arrives later today (check), they’ll start setting up (check). The contestants come tomorrow on Virgin Atlantic (check). We booked the whole plane so no paparazzi…”
“What about our flight?” Brad asked.
“Tomorrow, around the same time as the Virgin flight, private jet for you guys and the biggest investors.” She glanced at the iPad. “And a few girls to keep them happy.”
Irwin said, “Good. I wanted to make sure everything was top-notch.” He waved his hand toward the door, to indicate that Suzanne was dismissed. Instead of leaving she remained, looking worried.
“Something else?” Irwin’s eye was running now.
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