The Bones by Seth Greenland

Author:Seth Greenland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2009-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Lloyd gets in his Saab and wheels off the lot without a specific plan. He could go to the Château Marmont and watch the Eurotrash drift in and out, or he could head to the Four Seasons and hang out by the pool gazing at the out-of-town actresses visiting Los Angeles to promote their projects. Or he could drive to the desert and get a bungalow at La Quinta, maybe play a little tennis under the desert sky. Anything to make Stacy feel a fraction of the powerlessness he suffered upon realizing the contents of his drawers and closet had been preemptively retired.

But he does none of these things. Instead, he drives to Brentwood. Pulling into the driveway of his new house, he gets out of the car and walks through the front door, where he gazes into the formal dining room and sees a meticulously arranged display of furniture that looks as if it had been relocated from the palace of a Viennese archduke. He immediately wonders at the number of zeros he is going to see on his Visa bill as a result of Stacy's newly high-end taste in interiors, but then realizes this is not a thought that will bring anything positive into his life right now, so he goes into the kitchen, where he finds his wife making rigatoni for Dustin, who is sitting on the marble countertop near the double-wide Sub-Zero refrigerator watching cartoons on the plasma TV screen mounted in the corner.

When Stacy hears Lloyd enter, she looks up, and in that instant that takes place when two spouses have had a fight and then not seen each other for the day while they both decide whether to pursue their respective grievances, she notices what he's wearing and squeals with delight.

"Lloyd! You look amazing! Doesn't Daddy look amazing?" she asks Dustin, who is too enthralled by the antics of an animated rat to look up. Then, to Lloyd: "Thank you so much for going shopping with Kevin. I know you were really mad and, okay, I don't blame you, I think maybe, you know . . . " Here she looks at Lloyd with a crinkly smile of relief. (Relief he hasn't left? Relief he hasn't killed her?) But she doesn't finish her thought. Was she going to apologize? Lloyd wonders. That would call for a national holiday, Stacy never being one for apologies, full speed ahead. As she kisses him on the mouth, then takes his hands and places them on the denim stretched tight across her gym-built ass, Lloyd has the thought that it is not easy being Stacy, to live a life where everything must be designed, lit, and stage-managed, where the opinions of others matter so much more than your own and where perception trumps reality; the show that is Stacy must go on, ticket sales must be maintained, despite the flagging energy of the one-woman cast for whom each performance is increasingly like a Wednesday matinee on a snowy February day.

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