One Fifth Avenue

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He felt his shoulders sag. “I’m with Lola.”

“Ahhhhh,” she said, getting it.

“I thought…you and Brumminger…Anyway, I’ve asked her to move in with me.”

“That’s great, Oakland,” she said, not missing a beat. “It’s about time you settled down.”

“I’m not settling down. I just—”

“I get it, schoolboy,” she said. “It’s not a big deal. I was only calling you to see if you wanted to have a drink. We’ll get together when you get back.”

She hung up. Philip looked at his phone and shook his head. He would never understand women. He put the phone away and looked for Lola. She was still splashing around in the water, but in the European tradition, she had taken her top off. Everyone on the beach was staring while Lola bounced around, pretending to be oblivious to the attention. From the other side of the short beach, two white-haired old men were making a beeline for her. “Come on, girly,” one of the men shouted in an English accent. “Let’s have some fun.”

“Lola!” Philip shouted sharply. He was about to tell her to put her top on, then realized how old it would make him sound—like her father. Instead, he smiled and stood up, making as if to join her in the water. He folded his sunglasses and placed them carefully on the table under the umbrella. He was, he thought, looking across the sand at Lola, either the luckiest man in the world or the world’s biggest fool.

Act Three

13

“Listen to this,” Mindy said, coming into the bedroom. “‘Is sex really necessary?’”.

“Huh?” James said, looking up from his sock drawer.

“‘Is sex really necessary?’” Mindy repeated, reading from the printout of her blog. “‘We take the importance of sex as a given. Popular culture tells us it’s as essential to survival as eating or breathing. But if you really think about it, after a certain age, sex isn’t necessary at all…’”

James found two socks that matched and held them up. The only thing that wasn’t necessary, he thought, was Mindy’s blog.

“‘Once you’re past the age of reproduction, why bother?’” she continued reading. “‘Every day, on my way to my office, I pass at least five billboards advertising sex in the form of lacy lingerie…’”

Pulling on the socks, James imagined how Lola Fabrikant would look in lacy lingerie. “‘As if,’” Mindy continued, “‘lacy lingerie is the answer to our dissatisfactions with life.’” It might not be, James thought, but it couldn’t hurt. “‘I say,’” Mindy went on, “‘rip down the billboards. Burn the Victoria’s Secret shops. Think about how much we could accomplish as women if we didn’t have to worry about sex.’” She paused triumphantly and looked at James. “What do you think?” she asked.

“Please don’t write about me again,” James said.

“I’m not writing about you,” Mindy said. “Did you hear your name mentioned?”

“Not yet, but I’m sure it will be.”

“As a matter of fact, you’re not in this particular blog.”

“Any chance we can keep it that way in the future?”

“No,” Mindy said. “I’m married to you, and you’re my husband. The blog is about my life. Am I supposed to pretend you don’t exist?”

“Yes,” James said. It was a rhetorical answer, however. For reasons unfathomable to him, Mindy’s blog had become more and more popular—so popular, in fact, that she’d even had a meeting with a producer from The View, who was considering featuring Mindy on a regular basis.

Since then there had been no stopping her. Never mind that he had a book coming out, that he’d just landed a million-dollar advance, that he was finally about to become a success. It was still all about Mindy.

“Couldn’t you at least change my name?” he asked.

“How can I do that?” she said. “It’s too late. Everyone knows you’re my husband. Besides, we’re both writers. We understand how it works. Nothing in our lives is off-limits.”

Except, James thought, for their sex life. And that was only because they didn’t have one. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for dinner?” he said.

“I am ready,” Mindy said, indicating her woolly gray slacks and turtleneck sweater. “It’s only dinner in the neighborhood. At Knickerbocker. It’s ten degrees out. And I’m not going to dress up for some twenty-two-year-old chippy.”

“You don’t know that Lola Fabrikant is a chippy.”