I want to be in love again, dammit.
Not with Will.
With Jack.
Or maybe with Buckley.
Or maybe just with someone.
I want to be a couple.
You want it so badly that you’re willing to plunge in head over blistered, oozing heels with whoever comes along and pays the slightest bit of attention to you, accuses Inner Tracey.
I haven’t even given myself a chance to be single for a while. I haven’t even explored the dating world yet. I can’t throw myself into a relationship with Jack or Buckley or anyone else until I’ve learned to be on my own first.
“Are you still with us there, Chief?”
I look up at Mike, realizing I must have a glazed-over expression on my face. “Nothing. I’m just tired. I guess I need some caffeine. I better go get coffee. I’m down a quart.”
He laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.
I leave him and head for the kitchen, where I find Brenda waiting for the coffee to brew.
“How was your weekend?” I ask her.
“Sucky. Paulie and I had a fight. Don’t ever get married,” she says darkly.
Okay.
“How about your weekend?” she asks me.
I fill her in on Friday night with Jack and Saturday morning’s fiasco.
She doesn’t laugh the way Buckley did. She just pats my shoulders and tells me she totally understands how humiliating it must have been.
“It was,” I say. “But he still called me last night, if you can believe that.”
“What did he say?”
“He left a message. I was out with Buckley. Oh, yeah, and Buckley kissed me,” I add.
Brenda’s eyes bulge. “He did?”
“Well, no. I kissed him, actually. But it was his idea.”
“I knew the two of you were going to hook up sooner or later!” Brenda says. “You’re perfect for each other.”
“What about Jack?”
She shrugs. “He’s nice, too. But you’ve known Buckley longer. I can’t see you getting serious about somebody you just met after what you went through with Will. At least you know Buckley is trustworthy.”
“Jack seems trustworthy, too.”
“Yeah, but Buckley is just so…wholesome.”
“So is Jack,” I tell her. To illustrate my point, I tell her how he was late for our first date because he was busy escorting a gaggle of little old ladies to Grand Central and carrying a disabled person and his wheelchair down the subway stairs.
“And you believe that?” Brenda asks.
“Of course I believe it.”
She shakes her head.
“What? You think he could make up a story like that?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think, Tracey. You’re not going to listen to me anyway.”
Actually, it does matter what she thinks. I don’t trust my own judgment anymore.
And I can tell she doesn’t think I should be so into Jack.
But I’m not in the mood to be convinced, so I change the subject.
“Is everything set for the bachelorette party Wednesday night?”
“Yeah. I told Latisha about Bodacious B and she was psyched. She said he sounds hot.”
“Why does she think that?”
Brenda shrugs. “I guess just because his name is Bodacious B. And anyway, Raphael found him, right? He’s a hot-guy magnet.”
“Who are we talking about? Raphael?” Yvonne asks, coming into the kitchen.
“How’d you guess?”
“He’s the only hot-guy magnet I know,” she says, then adds with a wink, “besides me, that is.”
“Are you excited about marrying Thor?” I ask her.
“Honey, if anybody’s excited, it’s Thor,” she informs me with her enviable supreme Yvonne confidence.
“I thought it was just a green-card marriage,” Brenda says.
Yvonne waves her manicure airily. “Whatever. He gets the green card, and I won’t kick him out of my bed, that’s for sure.”
I grin.
So does Brenda.
Yvonne pours a cup of coffee and leaves the room.
“I hope I’m like her when I’m that age,” I tell Brenda.
“Yeah, me, too. Except for the wedding to the Swedish pen pal part. I plan to be married to Paulie forever.”
“Yeah, I hope I’m long married by the time I’m Yvonne’s age, too.”
“To Buckley?” Brenda asks with a grin.
I give a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe.”
“You’re thinking Jack,” she accuses.
“I am not!” I protest. “And anyway, what do you have against Jack?”
“I don’t have anything against him. I just don’t think you should rush into anything.”
“Last week you told me how cute he was and that I should go out with him. And you just now finished saying I should marry Buckley.”
“I didn’t say that. Not exactly. And anyway, with Buckley, it wouldn’t be rushing. You’ve known him forever.”
“Just since last spring.”
“Well, it seems like forever. And it is, compared to Jack. I just don’t want to see you get hurt again, Tracey. You’re still getting over what Will did to you.”
“I won’t get hurt again.”
Not by Jack, or anyone else. My guard is up, no matter what my friends think.
“Be careful, Tracey.”
“I will, Bren. I promise.”
I limp over to Fifth to meet Kate at noon. As we browse through Sephora, she pretty much echoes Brenda’s big “be careful” speech, much to my irritation. The way my friends are acting, you’d think I can’t take care of myself.
Finally, just to shut her up and get out of the store, I buy some elaborate herbal concoction whose ingredients sound more like a recipe than a lotion. It comes in a tiny tube and costs ten bucks more than the gift certificate. I’m now officially broke until payday tomorrow and I haven’t even paid this month’s bills yet. Just one more thing for which I can blame my Secret Snowflake.
I’m in Saks waiting for Kate to exchange an outrageously expensive and ugly scarf she bought Billy for Christmas—for one that’s even more outrageously expensive and ugly—when I could swear I spot Will over by the leather gloves.
My heart skips a beat, as always.
Then the man in question turns his head, and I see that he’s about twenty years older than Will is. So old, in fact, that his hair is salt-and-pepper at the temples. He’s got a double chin, too.
“What do you think?” Kate asks, showing me the ugliest and most outrageously expensive scarf of all.
“He’ll love it,” I say, turning away from old, fat non-Will, insanely jealous of Kate for having a boyfriend to shop for.
“You think?” She runs her finger along the gold cashmere fringe. “Because he’s so fussy, and if I buy it for him, he’ll wear it to make me feel good, but he won’t want to.”
“Come on, Kate, who wouldn’t love that scarf?”
I lie because I know that’s what she wants to hear, and because, in a mean-spirited way, I want Billy, who is strictly standard issue L. L. Bean meets Brooks Brothers former frat boy, to have to wear the god-awful thing.
Kate smiles and has it gift-wrapped, and by the time Billy’s present is ready, it’s too late for us to have lunch. Which is fine, because I’m too poor for that, anyway.
I scrape together enough pocket change to grab a yogurt from the deli on the way back up to the office.
I’ve had two spoonfuls when Jack—like his e-mail this morning—suddenly materializes out of nowhere.
“Hi,” he says, in full showstopper dimple mode, his broad shoulders practically filling the doorway to my cubicle.
“Hi, yourself.”
Cheesy, I know, but I can’t help feeling a little breathless. His familiar, soapy-minty Jack scent wafts in the air. It’s all I can do not to close my eyes and inhale like some bizarre stoner taking a hit.<
br />
“You look like you feel better,” he comments.
“I do. Much.”
“Good. In that case, want to go out with me tonight?”
“Tonight? I, uh…sure.”
“Really? Great. I was disappointed about Saturday night.”
“You were?”
He steps all the way into my cube and leans against a filing cabinet. “Yeah.”
“Even after…”
Shut up, Tracey. Leave it alone. No need to bring it up.
“Even after the whole picture-frame thing?” I hear myself asking. Because, you know, I have to destroy all that is good and positive in my world.
I fully expect Jack’s smile to fade, but instead the dimples deepen.
“Yeah, that was pretty crazy,” he says. “For a second there when I saw the picture, I thought…”
He trails off.
“You thought…” I hum the Twilight Zone music.
He laughs. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought. But then you told me about your friend, and—”
What the hell is he talking about? What friend?
“I mean, I have friends who do stuff like that,” he says.
“You do?” I’m clueless.
“Yeah, my friend Danny is always pulling pranks on people.”
D’oh! Right. Naturally, he’s talking about the prank-pulling friend who supposedly put the picture of me and Jack in the frame.
I almost feel bad all over again about lying.
Then again, he obviously bought it, so what the hell?
Besides, he asked me out again, and if I tell him the truth, he’ll decide I really am some kind of nut job.
“I’m glad you’re over it,” I tell him. “I mean, it would freak me out if I saw myself framed in some guy’s apartment, too, after only a week or two of going out.”
“Yeah, frames shouldn’t come into play until at least a month into a relationship,” he says, so deadpan it takes me a second to realize he’s teasing.
“You think?”
“Don’t you?”
“I was thinking more like six weeks,” I say with a flirtatious flop of my hair. “Or even two months. Two months, and you’re definitely in the frame stage.”
“That long?”
“Well, maybe six weeks,” I amend. “In special cases.”
“Or a month,” he says, “in really special cases.”
“Maybe.”
We smile at each other some more.
It feels great to be back to normal with Jack.
Not that we’ve been together long enough to even have a “normal.”
But maybe we can.
I know I shouldn’t be thinking like this, but maybe, in a few weeks, I’ll be able to take that picture of us out of the drawer and put it back into the frame after all.
Monday night after work, Jack takes me out to dinner at a cozy Italian restaurant in the East Fifties, right off Second Avenue. There’s a piano bar and we hang out until late, drinking cappuccinos and singing along to Christmas carols. It’s really fun. I love that Jack just loves to sing, even though he stinks at it.
Then we go back to my apartment. I don’t even remember whose idea it was, and it doesn’t seem to matter.
Tuesday morning, we ride the train to work together.
It feels strange walking through the lobby with Jack, and getting into the elevator with him. For a change, there’s no wait, and for a change, it’s empty when it arrives.
“What if somebody sees us?” I whisper to him as he presses the buttons for my floor and for his.
“Who cares?” he whispers back.
The doors slide closed.
He kisses me.
He’s still kissing me when the doors open again on my floor, but he’s right. Who cares?
Buckley calls me that morning.
“Are we still okay about Sunday night?” he asks.
“Of course,” I say, trying to stifle a little twitch of guilt. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“Because you didn’t call me yesterday.”
“You didn’t call me, either.”
“I was waiting to see if you called me.”
“Well, so was I.”
That, and I was out sleeping with Jack.
But Buckley doesn’t have to know that.
“Want to have lunch today?” he asks.
“I can’t. I have to go shopping with Latisha and Brenda for X-rated bachelorette party gifts for Yvonne. We’re going to some porn shop in the Village.”
“Really?” He sounds intrigued. “Are you going to pick me up a pair of edible undies while you’re there?”
“Buckley! That’s disgusting!”
“Just kidding, Trace.” He laughs. “About the underwear, anyway. Sounds sticky. But if you see something while you’re browsing that you think I might like…”
“One set of handcuffs and a whip, coming right up,” I promise.
“Great. We can try them out Friday night, after the show.”
Thud.
My stomach just landed on the floor by my desk in the litter of newly dropped poinsettia petals.
I forgot all about Friday night.
Jack didn’t even mention it.
Well, maybe he forgot.
Obviously, Buckley didn’t forget.
“I was just kidding about the handcuffs, Buckley,” I say nervously.
“What about the whip?”
“Oh, uh…”
He chuckles. “Relax, Tracey, I was kidding, too.”
“Good. Because I, uh…”
“You’re not into S&M?”
“No!” I pause. “Are you?”
See, this is one of the few things I don’t know about my good friend Buckley. I mean, Sonja was pretty moody, and sometimes I thought he took a lot of shit from her. For all I know, that could have been only the tip of the iceberg. He could be into the whole dominatrix thing.
I have only one thing to say about that.
Ew.
“Of course I’m not into S&M,” Buckley says. “You know I have a low threshold for pain.”
Okay, that’s true. Relief washes over me. Buckley freaks out over stuff like going to the dentist and stubbing his toe.
“So I’m not going to see you till Friday?” he asks.
“I guess not. Tomorrow I’ve got Yvonne’s bachelorette party, and Thursday is laundry night with Raphael. We could have lunch—”
“Never mind. I’m working from home again this week, and I’m on a deadline. Friday’s fine.”
“Good.”
He gives an odd little laugh. “This is weird, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“You know…”
I do know, but I can’t admit it. “What?”
“It’s just…things aren’t different, but in a way, they are.”
“You think?” I ask, like I’m surprised.
But I’m not. And he’s right. The kiss changed everything.
Now he isn’t Buckley, the friend in whom I confide everything.
He’s Buckley, the potential boyfriend.
“I guess I’ll see you on Friday,” he says.
“I guess you will,” I agree, praying that Jack will get stuck in Atlanta—or that he forgot all about my inviting him to the show.
Jack didn’t forget about the show.
He e-mails me first thing Wednesday morning with his trip itinerary from the travel department. Look, my flight lands before five, so I can go to Radio City with you, he writes, and tags on one of those little smiley face icons. You know,:-)
I write back, Great news! I’m so glad!:-)
Meanwhile, I’m totally thinking:-o
Now what?
Jack asks if we can go out tonight for dinner after work. I’m almost glad I have to tell him no because of Yvonne’s party.
He stops by my desk just before five o’clock.
“I wanted to say ’bye. I’m flying out first thing in the morning.”
“Oh…I’ll miss you,” I tell him.
He leans over and kisses me. “Be good while I’m gone.”
Be good while he’s gone?
What the hell kind of thing is that to say?
I mean, it’s not like we’re married.
It’s not like I’m not allowed to see somebody else if I feel like it.
It’s not like—
“I hear that Bodacious B is hot stuff,” he adds with a grin.
Oh.
“I’ll try to keep my hands off of him,” I say.
“If the party gets over early and you want to stop by on your way home…”
“You’re in Brooklyn,” I point out. “Not exactly on my way home.”
He shrugs. “I’ll be up late, so if you change your mind…”
I smile. “Thanks.”
“Otherwise, I’ll see you on Friday night. I’ll call you when I land.”
“Great.”
With that, he’s gone.
I’m still sitting there stressing about Friday night and which guy I’m going to blow off when Latisha sticks her head in a few minutes later.
“Brenda’s waiting by the elevator. Ready to go?” she asks.
“All set.” I stand and turn off my desk lamp.
“What about the chocolate penises?”
“Oops, forgot them.” I reach into my drawer for the bag containing the party favors.
“Are you okay?” Latisha asks, peering at me.
“Yeah. It’s just…”
“Jack?”
“How’d you know?”
“Brenda said you really like him.”
“I do, but—”
“Take it one step at a time, Tracey,” Latisha advises. “Don’t go rushing into anything.”
“I thought you were the one who said I should go for it with Jack.”
“No, I didn’t. I said be careful.”
“No, you didn’t. You said he had tight buns.”
“Yvonne said that.”
“Well, you agreed. Plus, you said not to listen to people who warn me not to fall for him. You said you and Derek didn’t listen, either.”
“Did I?” She shrugs. “Well, you and me are different, Tracey. You’re younger. You’re more…what’s that word?”
“Vulnerable?”
“No…”
“Sensitive?”
“Nope…”
She ponders it as we walk toward the elevator bank.
Confessions of a One Night Stand Page 18