Bad Boy (28 page)

“No,” she said. “Is it my turn?” Tim laughed into his hand and disguised it as a cough. Allison tossed her perfect hair. Tracie decided once and for all that she would write her article for some other publication and do her best to get the hell out of Dodge.

Photos and Post-its were taped all over the inside of her desk. All of her ideas about nerds, cool guys, and the differences between the two were jotted on charts and graphs. Jon before and Jonny after were immortalized in photos. Each step of his progress was minutely detailed. But somehow, the date with Beth changed things.

She had called around to all of her journalistic contacts, verbally pitched the story to a couple of them, typed several query letters, and faxed them in a flurry of activity that made her
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look as if she was truly dedicated to the
Seattle Times
and Marcus. Too bad for the
Times
that all of it was motivated by her need to get away from him. It was too soon to tell, of course, but it seemed as if
Seattle Magazine
or a laptop publication in Olympia might bite.

But what was she going to do next? Add another Post-it that said “Jon fucks Beth”? Would Marcus like to have the article now? In fact, her wall looked like it was yellow, with a bad case of peeling. You could hardly see the green wall under all the Post-its. She sighed. Lots of notes, but no writing.

When the phone rang, Tracie was glad for the distraction. But before she could answer it, Beth scurried across to the phone. As Tracie reached for it, Beth put her hand on the receiver.

“Can I answer that for you?” Beth asked.

“No,” Tracie told her. “Not since you didn’t answer all weekend. Anyway, since when do you want to answer
my
phone? Just since your date with Jonny.”

“Yeah? So?” Beth sat down. “Did you talk to him? What did he say about me? Does he like me?”

“If you let me answer it, I might find out.” Tracie finally picked up the receiver. “Hello,” she snapped into the mouthpiece. Beth watched her as if she were performing surgery instead of talking on the phone. “No, I can’t. I have a deadline for this stupid cupcake article. No, the food, not the musician. Well, maybe what I do is as important to me as what you
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do is to you. No. Maybe tomorrow night.” Tracie placed the receiver in the cradle.

“That wasn’t Jonny,” Beth said, and Tracie figured she should get the Nobel Prize for that one. Beth’s eyes were open wide. “You just blew off Phil?”

“Yeah.” Tracie had the strongest impulse to smack Beth, though she didn’t know why. It was just her face. She had never really noticed just how annoying it was. “He’s so self-centered. He wanted to have dinner.”

“When you see Jonny again, can I come, too?” Beth begged.

“No!” Tracie told her, then realized she was almost shouting. She calmed down. “Look,” she said slowly, as if she were talking to a child, “Jonny knows your name and number. You know his. As you said, you’re both adults.” Tracie felt exhausted, as if she’d run a marathon or climbed the rock face at REI a dozen times. She wanted to go home, crawl under the blankets, and have Laura serve her anything but meat loaf instead of sitting here, looking at a glowing Beth and writing about cupcakes. “You two work it out from here on in,” Tracie said. “Call him if you want to see him so much.”

“I already called him three times,” Beth admitted. Again Tracie really felt like slapping her, and she put one hand over the other, just in case. “You know,” Beth continued, “he doesn’t have an answering machine or voice mail at home. Isn’t that weird?” Tracie just shrugged. “He’s not married, right?”

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“Would I set you up with someone who was married?” Tracie asked, and shook her head. What had Laura called Beth? An airhead?

“Well, do you think he has a steady girlfriend?” Beth the Relentless asked. “Do you think he lives with her?”

“I
know
he doesn’t.” If Tracie told Beth the truth about the lack of other options Jon
‌
—or Jonny
‌
—had, Beth would probably drop him like a hot potato. “At least he didn’t,” she admitted.

“I’ll just try him again,” Beth said.

“Don’t you think it’s a good idea to just give it a rest?” she asked. She realized, with an unpleasant start of surprise, that she didn’t like Beth or Jon very much at all.

Phil and Laura sat at Tracie’s dining table playing cards. They were playing for peanuts: not low stakes, but actual peanuts, because, to Phil’s disgust, Tracie had no chips. Tracie was looking over her notes and photos, but the laughter from the other room kept distracting her. Perhaps it was something else: She still hadn’t really talked to Jon. It was odd: The article sucked, but the makeover seemed to be progressing nicely. Despite not knowing Jon’s
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take on his date, Tracie was determined not to obsess over it. After all, this turn of events gave her an ending for her article. In fact, it justified the piece. She knew she should be grateful and just get on with writing it.

But the truth was, she couldn’t get very far with it. Without a deadline, she was having trouble focusing. Right now, she wanted to eat something, or to call Jon, or to put on the TV, or to lie down just for a minute and close her eyes. To be honest, she wanted to join in the card game. It sounded like fun.

Tracie heard Laura slap her hand down on the table. “Gin!” Laura exclaimed. On her bed, Tracie shook her head in pity for Phil. All their girlhood card playing in Encino had taught her that no one could beat Laura at gin. She’d once stripped their entire Girl Scout troop of money, jewelry, and Barbie dolls.

Tracie smiled at the memory, then forced herself to look back down at the makeover piece. She sighed and decided she couldn’t concentrate on the article until she talked with Jon and found out what was really going on with Beth.

Had Jon become so unavailable? Was he avoiding her? Stranger things had happened. Maybe Jon really liked Beth. Tracie knew that would be delicate to talk about, because she truly didn’t think that Beth was nearly good enough for him, certainly not smart enough. But since Jon hadn’t had anyone for so long, he might confuse sex with love. Tracie decided she’d have to try gently to guide him out of
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that idea, but she’d have to be sure that he didn’t hurt or insult Beth in any way when he did it.

But who knew? Maybe it would work and she should just keep her nose out of it. After all, there were a lot of friendships that broke up when people fell in love and got married. She thought it had happened with the Beatles, but she wasn’t sure which ones. Maybe when Paul married Linda.

Marriage! The idea of Jon marrying Beth was so ridiculous that Tracie didn’t know whether to laugh or to shudder. God, what am I doing, sitting here wasting my time over the idea? she thought. She told herself again that the incident was probably just a momentary attraction and would burn itself out in a few weeks.

Tracie looked at her Post-it notes stuck on the door frame, the window, and flapping off of pages of printout notes. She sighed at the thought of gathering them up and putting them away. Nah. She’d leave them where they were.

Meanwhile, she could hear Laura rattling the peanuts as she pulled them to her side of the table while Phil was shuffling the cards. “Have you lost weight?” she heard Phil ask Laura. Surprisingly, the two of them seemed to be getting along lately, but that was sweet of Phil anyhow. Tracie smiled
‌
—he could be thoughtful if he tried.

“Maybe a little,” Laura told him, obviously concentrating on her game. There was a very brief silence. Tracie sniggered. If Phil was trying to distract her from her game, his
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attempt would be useless. Laura was the only girl Tracie knew who didn’t care about her weight. “Gin,” Laura said.

“Shit!” Phil exclaimed. “You can’t have gin. We only drew one card.”

“Gin,” Laura repeated, implacable.

“Misdeal!” Phil cried.

Ha! Tracie snickered. She knew that route was futile.

“You dealt,” Laura told him.

Tracie could hear Phil complaining and gathering up the cards. The two of them argued for a while as Tracie tried to tune them out, knowing the irrevocable outcome. How long until Jon arrives? she wondered. What will he say? What’s going on with him? She stretched out on her bed and might have dozed off for a few minutes. Then she heard her name drift into the bedroom. “So you know, I’m trying to follow some of your advice, but I don’t think Tracie is noticing.”

“Oh, I’m sure she is,” Laura said in the distracted voice she used when she was counting cards.

Tracie immediately wondered what the advice was, why Laura hadn’t mentioned it to her, and whether Phil had asked for it or if Laura had volunteered it. Phil was speaking again. She moved to the end of the bed.

“I think you’re right. I think I used to . . . take her for granted or something,” he was saying, “but you know, now I think she might be doing the same to me.” Laura murmured something Tracie couldn’t hear. Then Phil must
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have gotten up from the table, because she heard the refrigerator door opening. She snuck to the bedroom door and peeked out. Phil had pulled open the vegetable drawer and was removing a head of iceberg lettuce. How had that gotten in there? Tracie hadn’t been grocery shopping, and Laura despised iceberg lettuce.

Phil proceeded to cut the greens in half, then into quarters, and put the pieces on three plates. He took them to the table. “You wanna eat?” he asked Laura. Phil put out three place mats and three folded paper napkins. Then he lighted
[“lit?”]
a candle, but once he’d done that, he obviously didn’t know where to put it. He looked around for a candlestick, then, not seeing one, he stuffed the lit taper into the top of an empty beer bottle, Chianti-style. What in the world was he up to?

“You know, women want different things at different times of their life,” Laura was now telling him as she put away the cards, gathered up her peanut winnings, and turned to Phil. “I was going out with that nitwit in Sacramento because he was exciting. But when you get old
‌
—I mean, I’ll be thirty in just two years
‌
—you want something more stable. Someone with a job. Someone who can give back.”

Phil nodded as if he’d take this as gospel. Tracie felt her jaw hang open. She could hardly believe it, or what he did next, which was lifting an already-opened can of Chef Boyardee ravioli and dumping the contents into
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a waiting pot. She couldn’t believe it. He was trying to make dinner!

Of course, his attempt was laughable, but he was trying. It was so cute, like Peter Pan trying to stick back his shadow with soap. He was about to turn up the flame, when Tracie left her room. She couldn’t stand it any longer. Laura was still sitting at the coffee table, eating her winnings. Phil now had his back to her and was stirring the ravioli with a fork. Just then, the intercom rang. Jon had arrived at last. Tracie ran to press the intercom to buzz Jon in.

“Are we expecting someone?” Phil asked.

“Jon’s just dropping by for a minute,” Tracie told him.

“From what I hear, Beth says nothing Jon does takes a minute,” Laura said, wagging her eyebrows.

“When did you talk to Beth?” Tracie asked Laura. It seemed as if Little Miss Busybody was talking to everyone behind her back.

“Most of this afternoon,” Laura admitted, sweeping peanut shells into a wastebasket. “She kept waiting for Jon to call her back, which he hadn’t, and she had to talk to someone about him in the meantime.” Laura shrugged. “I was an obsession recipient.”

Tracie shook her head. “Don’t mention her,” she warned Laura.

“Hey, I don’t have dinner for four here,” Phil announced as Tracie crossed the room to open the door.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Laura told both of them. “I don’t have to join you.”

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“Don’t be silly,” Tracie told her. “This’ll just take a couple of minutes. We’re going for a walk; then just the three of us will have dinner.”

Tracie opened the door, and as usual, they hugged. She was interested to see what Phil’s reaction to the new Jon would be. So when Jon entered the living room, Tracie was behind him. Looking over Jon’s shoulder, Tracie watched as Phil eyed him from the top of his black-and-blue spiked-up hair down to the soles of his new boots. The expression on Phil’s face was one of surprise, quickly followed by dismay, and then replaced by false nonchalance. Watching the changes was like watching the three seasons bloom and fade in time-lapse photography, like they always did on the Disney Channel.

But when Tracie turned again to Laura, her friend’s reaction
‌
—though a little more subtle
‌
—was more interesting and more of a tribute. Laura gazed unblinking at Jon and, for just a moment, her eyes had that longing, the expression that men got when they admired sports cars too fast or too expensive for them.

“Hi, Jon,” Laura said in the voice that she used only when she was trying to be cute.

“I don’t believe it,” Phil blurted as Tracie and Jon walked into the room. Suddenly, she realized there was no way they could talk about what had happened in front of Phil and Laura.

Phil stood up, put down the empty Chef Boyardee can, and walked halfway around Jon. “You didn’t buy this stuff,” Phil said.
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“Tracie bought this stuff.” He turned to Tracie. “Where’d you get that jacket?” he asked. “It’s just like the one I used to have. I want a jacket like that.”

“We got it at
‌
—” Jon started to say, but Tracie interrupted him.

“Never reveal your sources,” she told him, touching his shoulder. “We’re going for a walk,” she told Phil and Laura, then grabbed her coat.

“What did you do to your hair?” Phil asked Jon as Tracie began to push him from behind. She had her hand in the spot between his shoulder blades, and before he could talk to Phil, she’d pushed him out the door.

“Be back in a half an hour,” she called over her shoulder.