Bad Boy Read online

  Jon jerked his eyes open. He was losing it. Weeks of endless toil on the Cliffhanger project and a lousy Friday and Saturday night, topped off by this Sunday, bloody Sunday had given him the willies. He looked at his watch: 10:31. If he could just get out of the beanbag chair, he could get in at least a solid hour of work before meeting Tracie and reviewing what a lousy weekend they’d both had. Jon might have a surfeit of mothers to entertain, but on this weekend, he was careful to be extra attentive to Tracie. Without a mother, the day hit her hard. Not to mention her holiday article. God! He’d forgotten the article! She had E-mailed the draft to him and it was really good, but you never knew what it would look like when it was published in the Times. He’d been so busy today, he hadn’t had a chance to get the paper or even to look at a copy. He’d better do it on his way over to Java, The Hut.

  Actually, work was the only part of his life he had under control. Unlike Tracie, he had a successful career, liked and respected his boss, a wild woman who’d been in on the start-up of UniKorn. Bella was great, his staff was great, his job was great, and the money was great. Now he’d been given control of the Parsifal project, and if he made it happen, well, the sky was the limit. And he could make it happen. Parsifal was the code name for the project Jon had fought for since he’d joined Micro/Con almost six years ago. He was trying to bring together convergent wireless technology for a laptop/TV/phone product so advanced, he wasn’t allowed to let his right department know what his left department was doing. It would make him or break him, and it was certainly taking up every minute of his time. But if Parsifal worked, no one would ever buy a TV or phone from Panasonic again.

  It was just that in the last three or four years, there’d been no time for a social life, and when there was . . . well, it was safe to say it was very definitely less than great. He thought again of his bad Friday night, followed by a worse Saturday evening, and winced. Maybe his reasoning was faulty. He rationalized his lousy social life because of his demanding career. But perhaps one of the reasons he worked all the time was because it was easier than going out. When he tried, as he had this weekend, look what happened.

  Jon groaned aloud and sank deeper into the chair‌—such as it was. The beanbag cupped him at just the right tilt. He didn’t feel like thinking anymore, nor did he want to sign on and see how many urgent E-mails he’d gotten in the last twenty-four hours while he bombed out with women and took care of his mothers‌—both step and natural. There would be mounds of work. Jon took a deep sigh. Every one of his employees thought that their problems were the most difficult and impossible for them to solve without either his help or his praise. He sighed again. He loved his work and he’d do the E-mail now, for half an hour. One less thing to do tomorrow morning. But he’d be sure to leave by eleven-thirty. Seeing Tracie was the high point of his whole week.

  Chapter 6

  Java, The Hut was just one of the 647 coffee shops in Seattle, but to Jon it seemed different from all the others. It was suffused with memories of the hundreds of Sunday-night “breakfasts” that he and Tracie had shared, fifty-one weeks a year for seven years. From the time they met in French class and crammed together until today, the two of them had bitched, studied, laughed, chewed each other out, and even cried (he briefly only once, she at great length more than a dozen times) over mochaccino at Java, The Hut. Jon sat there now, finished with all work and all mothers for the time being. He waited for Tracie to show up.

  He had the Seattle Times spread in front of him and was shaking his head as he read the hatchet job that Marcus had made of Tracie’s article. “You look like my Lab when ’e’s got water in ’is ears,” Molly, their usual waitress, said to Jon. Molly was a tall, slender blonde in her early thirties. A transplanted East Ender from London, she’d worked at the café since Jon and Tracie had begun coming there. Word was that she had been a rock bitch, one of those “successful groupies” who actually toured and slept with two important rock idols. Molly never spoke about it but Jon had heard she’d been with someone from INXS. Tracie claimed that after it Molly had made someone from Limp Bizkit hard. Whoever it was, it appeared that Molly had been dumped or had landed in Seattle and liked the town.

  Rumors had run rampant that there might be a room or even a whole wing dedicated to Molly in the Experience Music Project, and that her first diaphragm was among the museum’s eighty thousand rock artifacts. Jon had never believed any of it, and the opening of the museum last June had proved the rumors false, but even if they had been true, it wouldn’t have changed Jon’s feelings for Molly. She was acerbic, witty, and warm‌—at least to him. If she wasn’t exactly a friend, she was a long-standing acquaintance and every time he rode by the blowsy, shimmering EMP, twenty-one thousand metallic shingles and the flapping, bright colors made him think of Molly.

  “On your own, then, luv?” she asked now, though she knew the answer. Jonathan still shook his head as she indicated the empty seat with a jerk of her head. “The usual, then? Adam and Eve on a raft? Or are you going to wait for Little-Miss-Sorry-I’m-Late?” Molly asked sarcastically.

  “I’ll wait,” Jonathan replied.

  “Loyal, just like my Lab.” Molly left the table briefly, then returned with his favorite drink. “One mochaccino light while she takes you for granted.”

  Jon looked up at her. “You really don’t like Tracie, do you?”

  “Bingo! What insight. That must be why Micro/Con pays you the big bucks.”

  “But why?” Jon asked innocently. “She’s so nice.”

  “She’s so stupid. Thick as two short planks,” Molly said matter-of-factly as she placed his coffee in front of him, then straightened the place mat and silverware opposite.

  “Hey! She is not,” Jonathan answered defensively. “In college, she had a four point oh in everything‌—except maybe calculus. She graduated with honors.”

  “Oh. Summa cum stupid,” Molly said as she turned around, only to see Tracie looking in through the window advertising the Mother’s Day special. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  A glowing Tracie entered and hurried toward Jonathan. Of course all the other guys’ eyes followed her, but she acted oblivious to that. Jon sometimes wondered whether or not she knew the effect she had on men. He quickly crumpled the newspaper and tried to hide it, pulling out the latest Little Nickel. He smiled when she sat opposite him in the booth.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Nice try, but I already saw the butcher job. Marcus always cuts my best parts. Could my editor be Edward Scissorhands’ evil twin brother?” Tracie shrugged out of her coat, then picked up the menu. He knew her well enough to know she was upset, but also not to push it now. “I’m starving,” she said, then looked at him as if for the first time. “God, you look beat!”

  Jon smiled and shrugged. “Today was my annual Mother’s Day Olympics.”

  Tracie moved the menu away from her face. “Oh God! I was so wrapped up in my article and . . . everything. I completely forgot! Did you see all the steps? And how did you squeeze in your actual mom?”

  “I saw mine for lunch.”

  “Did she like the earrings?” Tracie’s face lit up with hope.

  “She loved them!” Jon assured her. “And I took all the credit. But she sends her love. I saw stepmoms one through five before or after.”

  “You actually visited the toad who wouldn’t let your dad come to your high school graduation?”

  “Oh, Janet’s not so bad.”

  Tracie snorted. “You have way too much compassion and too many mothers. I’ve got neither.”

  Jon had to smile. “That’s probably why we’re such good friends‌—opposites attract. Did you miss your real mom this Mother’s Day?” Jon asked gently.

  “You can’t really miss what you don’t remember.” Tracie repositioned the menu to avoid looking at him. In all the years they’d been friends, she’d never spoken of her mother’s death. Jon felt awkward, and there was a momentary silence between them. “Anyway,” Tracie sa
id, “Laura’s at my house baking enough empty carbohydrates to stock a kindergarten bake sale.”

  Just then Molly rejoined him. “So, luv. Poached eggs on toast?” she asked Jon.

  “Yeah. Gotta have ’em.”

  “And for you?” Molly asked Tracie, arching her brows with what seemed to Jon a bit too much attitude.

  Tracie looked searchingly at the menu. “I’ll have . . . the waffles, with a side of bacon.” Molly didn’t write it down. Instead, she just stood there. Tracie closed the menu decisively. Molly still didn’t move. Tracie looked pointedly over at Jonathan. Molly remained standing there.

  “You shouldn’t eat pigs,” Jon told Tracie. “You know, they’re more intelligent than dogs.”

  “Don’t start,” Tracie warned. “Next, you’ll begin imitating the singing mice in Babe. So, you had the whole Mother’s Day trial while I had the Mother’s Day article fiasco. But that wasn’t all. Get ready to end your winning streak, because I had the worst weekend of my entire life.” She looked up at Molly, who was still standing there, looking as permanent as the red London phone booths. Tracie waited her out. “I’ll have my coffee now, if you don’t mind.”

  Molly finally started to walk away, but Tracie reached out and took hold of Molly’s arm, as she always did. Jon restrained a laugh. “Wait. I think I’ll have the pancakes. The pancakes and a side order of ham.” She stared at Jon. “The hell with the pigs.” She turned back to Molly. “I mean it this time.”

  Molly heaved a big sigh, obviously bored, and pulled up a chair and sat down.

  “Excuse me?” Tracie said rudely. “I don’t remember asking you to join us. And I think I placed my order.”

  “Admit it to yourself,” Molly said. “You want scrambled eggs and you want them dry.”

  “I told you pancakes . . .” But Tracie wavered and then gave in to herself. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll have the eggs.”

  “No chips, slices of tomato on the side.” Triumphantly, Molly showed Tracie the order was already written down, then sashayed off to the kitchen.

  Tracie waited a minute to regain her dignity. Jon just looked at her. For years now, they’d been meeting every Sunday to discuss their romantic lives, such as they were. And Molly’s eavesdropping meant she probably knew the facts as well as they did. “So, my weekend has to make me the winner,” Tracie told him. “It was a social nightmare.”

  “Let me guess: On Friday, Swollen Glands never got to play and Phil was pissed off and got drunk. On Saturday, the Glands did get to play, but they didn’t invite Phil, so he was pissed off and got drunk. Then he flirted with some girl; you walked out of the club and hoped he’d follow. He didn’t, so you went home. But he came back very late to your place, where he passed out in the foyer.”

  “You think you know everything, don’t you?” Tracie asked, sounding half-amused and half-annoyed. “You aren’t always right.” She paused, but Jon waited her out. “Well, he didn’t pass out in my foyer,” she protested at last. “But you got the rest right.”

  Jon sighed and shook his head. “Trace, why don’t you give this guy the keys to the street?”

  Just then, Molly returned and placed Jon’s plate carefully on the table in front of him. She slung Tracie’s across the table.

  Tracie looked down at the scrambled eggs quivering on her plate. “I know it’s stupid . . . but I really love him.”

  “It’s not love; it’s obsession,” Molly told her as she refilled Tracie’s coffee mug. “It’s not even an interesting obsession.”

  Tracie tilted her head toward Molly but looked at Jon. “She doesn’t like me,” Tracie announced.

  “That’s not true,” Jon said in what he hoped was a consoling voice.

  “Yes it is, rather. I’ve been listening to your ’istory of bad boyfriends for dog’s years. You ’ave one of these wankers after another. Frankly, you bore me.” She walked to the next booth.

  Jonathan called after her, “Molly! Don’t be mean.”

  And then came the moment he was dreading. “So how was your weekend?” Tracie asked.

  Chapter 7

  Jon had a problem. He told Tracie everything, or almost everything, which was good. But looking like an idiot and a goofball and a pathetic excuse for a man was not so good. He needed her empathy and advice, but he was afraid of her pity. So, usually, he made a joke of his pain. Now Jon raised his hands and clasped them over his head. “The undefeated world champion with the worst social life in America . . .”

  “Well, with Mother’s Day, it would be‌—”

  “No. It was the disasters previous to Mother’s Day that hurt.”

  Tracie raised her eyebrows and scrunched up her eyes in an exaggerated moue of remembrance. She was really cute when she did it. “Oh God! I’m so sorry! I forgot! The look-see didn’t work out?” Tracie sighed. “What about the big date?”

  Molly returned with coffee and poured it out for Tracie, then shook her head and left. Tracie leaned across the booth and lowered her voice. “What happened? What went wrong with the look-see?” Her face assumed a look of horror. “You didn’t wear that plaid jacket, did you?”

  “No,” he assured her. “I wore my blue blazer.”

  Tracie, her mouth by now full of coffee, almost did a spit take. “You wore a blazer for a look-see?”

  “Yeah, I‌—”

  “Never get dressed up for a look-see. The whole point is to appear casual.” Tracie sighed with frustration at him, not for the first time. “So . . . what happened?”

  “Well, I walked into the bar; she waved. She was attractive in a skinny, redheaded way. So I went over to her and gave her the flowers . . .”

  “You brought flowers?” Tracie cried, her hands flapping in exasperation. “God, that stinks of desperation.”

  “Maybe that’s why it lasted eleven minutes. We’d hardly begun to talk when she said she’d left clothes in the dryer and didn’t want them to wrinkle.”

  “That’s a new wrinkle in lame excuses,” Tracie told him. They both let the horror of it sink in for a few moments. Then, as always, Tracie brightened. Jon was certain her optimism was genetic. “Oh, forget about it. I’m sure she wasn’t a natural redhead anyway. The drapes never match the rug.” Jon managed a grin and Tracie grinned back. “So what about Saturday night? You know, the date with that woman you work with? The one you yearn for with the lust of a thousand pubescent boys. What’s-her-name?”

  “Sam. Samantha,” Jon reminded her. For a moment, he wondered why he always knew every friend and boyfriend of hers by given, middle, and nicknames but she . . . He sighed. “Actually, it was worse,” he admitted.

  “How could it possibly be worse than an eleven-minute look-see?”

  “Well, for one thing, I was meeting her outside. For another, it was raining. And for a third, she never showed.”

  Tracie’s lower lip dropped in real surprise. Then she exaggerated it, just to cover. “She totally stood you up? She wasn’t just late? I mean, you waited long enough?”

  “Two hours.”

  “Oh, Jon! You stood in the rain for two hours?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t mind that as much as the fact that I have to see her tomorrow at work.”

  “Ouch!” Tracie winced, his upcoming humiliation on her face, then tried to recover. “At least tell me she called and left a message with a plausible lie,” she begged.

  “Neither. No message at home, work, not even an E-mail. And I’d left messages for her on all three.”

  Tracie grimaced. Jon flushed, embarrassed again. “I wish you hadn’t done that,” she said.

  Jon got defensive. “Well, what should I have done?”

  Tracie narrowed her eyes. “It reminds me of the Dorothy Parker line: ‘ “Shut up,” he explained.’ ”

  “But how else could she know I was waiting?”

  “Like she needed to? You weren’t humiliated enough already?”

  Now she was irritated with him. Jon saw something in her face that looked too much like
pity. “Well. What else could I do?”

  Before Tracie could answer, Molly returned to their table, obviously drawn by bits of the conversation she’d overheard. “Find girls who want to date you? An older woman, perhaps,” Molly suggested as she batted her eyes at him. Tracie didn’t even look up but Jon managed a wan smile. “Oh, I guess that’s a dumb idea. But then I didn’t go to college.” She whisked their empty plates away and sashayed back to the kitchen.

  Tracie sighed. “Okay, Jon, you win. Your weekend was worse. I think that’s eighty-three consecutive weeks. A new world record.” She scribbled on a Post-it pad she pulled from her purse and stuck it on Jon’s shirt. It had a blue ribbon drawn on it.

  “Great. Winner of the Losers.”

  Tracie stopped to consider him for a moment. “You know, it’s not all your fault. Women tend to gravitate to . . . trouble. Men who are . . . challenges. You know, on Friday, my friend Laura arrived . . .”

  “Laura? She finally came? Will I at last get to meet Laura?” Jon had been hearing about Laura for years.

  “Sure, but the point is, she’s come to stay with me since she broke up with Peter. She’s nuts about him, but Laura calls him an IPPy‌—”

  “And that would be?”

  “An Intimacy-Phobic Prick. So I think maybe women prefer pricks until they give up on them.”