what you want," he says, noncommittal.
"You'd like me to spend my days driving Dustin around and having lunch with my friends and getting my legs waxed and my nails
done, wouldn't you?"
"What makes you say that?" Where is this coming from? Where is it going?
"For one thing, I'll be easier for you to control if I lead that kind of life."
"Stacy . . . " Lloyd's confused now. He's formulating a response but nothing is coming.
"You're making a ton of money, honey, if you haven't noticed," she reminds him. "And if you think I'm just going to be the
happy housewife, you're wrong. You heard Daryl. The planet's a mess. You're too wrapped up in your career to care, which I
think is fine, actually. You're the breadwinner, you have to win the bread. So I'm going to do the caring for both of us.
I hope you don't have a problem with it. Whatever we donate is tax-deductible, and you can feel like you're doing something
for someone besides yourself."
Lloyd is too flummoxed to answer. So he just says, "Okay," and keeps driving.
The next day, Lloyd arrives home from a meeting with his lawyer to find a three-foot-tall, cellophane-wrapped gift basket
dominating the kitchen table. It contains smoked salmon, cheeses, olives, muffins, cookies, and two expensive bottles of wine,
a chardonnay and a Bordeaux. The note attached reads:
Dear Lloyd,
It was a pleasure to meet you. Here's to Frank's show. Hope you'll spread some of the Melnick magic around our house!
Best wishes, Robert Hyler
Lloyd is eating a chocolate macadamia-nut cookie and rereading the note when Stacy walks in and says, "Robert Hyler is one
classy guy."
"Who doesn't like a gift basket?" Lloyd neutrally replies.
"Lloyd, I think you should do the show."
"I don't think so," he says, finishing the cookie. "And I don't want to talk about it again."
Stacy restrains herself from responding, Lloyd's massive increase in earning power having brought him significant respite
on the grief-from the- wife front. "How was your meeting?" she inquires casually, busying herself around the kitchen.
"Joel thinks I should start a production company." Joel Gruber is Lloyd's lawyer and automatically takes five percent of his
income. For this substantial piece of change, he reviews Lloyd's contracts and provides him with access to anyone in the entertainment
business.
Were he to want it.
Which he doesn't.
"You're going to be a mogul, Lloyd! Your own production company?"
"So don't worry about me, okay? I know what I'm doing."
Lloyd issues this proclamation with such self-confidence, Stacy has no doubt she has hitched her wagon to the correct star.
Not that she ever did. She loves Lloyd, admires him, and sincerely believes this embryonic comedy god will zoom her directly
toward the light.
Chapter 4
Honey Call is standing at the microwave wearing nothing but a silk camisole that stops several inches above her navel, the
twin half-moons of her gravity-defying bottom bobbing lightly as she impatiently shifts her weight from side to side. A spaghetti
strap bisects a tattoo of a dragon curled along her right shoulder.
Moving with a leonine grace developed during a brief early foray into the world of exotic dancing, Honey reaches into a pressed-wood
cabinet to remove two plates. She pulls two servings of macaroni and cheese out of the microwave, places them on the dishware,
and turns to face Frank, the paleness of his smack-daddy physique adorned with the briefest of blue bikini underwear, sitting
on a kitchen chair reading the Los Angeles Times.
"Breakfast, baby."
Frank looks up from an article on the situation in the Middle East and sees Honey walking toward him bearing carbohydrates.
Notices her pussy, shaved in the shape of a heart, Honey a great romantic.
"Is the coffee ready?"
"It's coming," she says, placing the yellow food in front of him and turning to the coffeemaker. A moment later, Frank is
ingesting the necessary caffeine.
"Can we