The REI expert pulled out a bullhorn and called up to him. “Are you all right?” Everyone in the huge store stopped to stare. The crowd grew. So this was what people looked like from the ceiling of the Museum of Flight. He watched as Tracie scrambled to the front of the assembly below. Jon could see her, but instead of yelling encouragement, she began to flash pictures of him! No matter how long you know someone, you can’t guess their reaction to things, he thought in a detached way. It wasn’t a helpful response to his situation, but Jon didn’t really mind, since he was going to die right here. “Please answer me,” the guy with the bullhorn was calling. “Are you all right?”
Jon knew it was impossible to nod his head or even to move his lips.
“A clinger! We’ve got a clinger! Would all climbers please get down,” the guy with the bullhorn bellowed.
A safety siren went off. People from all over rushed to look. Tracie backed off from the crowd. Meanwhile, Jon tried to make himself one with the rock.
After the humiliation of the paramedics’ arrival, Tracie and a pale, disheveled Jon crossed the parking lot to get back to her car. Other people in the lot stared and pointed at Jon.
He’s absolutely hopeless, Tracie thought as she pulled the car door open. She’d lose her bet with Phil, but worse, there was no article here. She couldn’t make Jon over. He was a lost cause. Worst of all was Jon’s future: He’d always be a geek and he’d wind up a bachelor “uncle” to her future children. God, she thought, he’ll teach them bad habits.
After a silence that got them onto the highway and halfway back to Jon’s house, he spoke. “So, did you see where Ruth went? I risked my life for her. Then she disappears.” Tracie said nothing so that she wouldn’t explode. “I gave her my number. You think she’ll call?”
Is he for real? Tracie thought. “Not after they brought the oxygen for you,” she told him.
“That was all totally unnecessary,” he said. “I was just hyperventilating. I only needed a paper bag.”
“Yeah. To put over your head.” She sighed. He was no Sir Edmund Hillary, but, on the other hand, he’d never take advantage of some poor Sherpa. The worst part was his lack of perception. Didn’t he know how bad this had been? It was more embarrassing than the airport fiasco. She told herself she shouldn’t give up, but she’d definitely have to give him a tutorial before his date with Beth. “We’ve got to do a little brushup.”
“Oh God,” Jon groaned. “Not another lesson.”
Tracie took her eyes off the road to give him a pointed stare. “You better not complain, mister,” she said. “Not after this fiasco.”
Jon shrank toward his door handle; then he began to protest. “Look, I can do it. I know I can,” he said. “It wasn’t like the airport. She was talking to me. She was liking me.” He looked at her. She tried not to smile. “Don’t give up on me, Tracie,” he begged. “I know you’re thinking of giving up, but don’t.”
She couldn’t help it—she took her eyes off the road again to smile at him. “I’d never give up on you,” she said. “In fact, I’ve got exciting news.”
“I don’t think I need any more excitement today,” Jon admitted.
“Well, it’s not for today. You have an official date. For Friday night.”
Jon sat up straighter. When was the last time he’d had a real date? Was it during the present administration? “You’re kidding. With who?” he asked.
“Whom,” Tracie corrected, though she often made the same mistake. “A girl from my office. Really cute. Beth.”
Uh-oh. One of Tracie’s losers. Tracie was always reporting on them, but he couldn’t keep their names straight. “Wasn’t she the one in love with that stock car racer?” he asked suspiciously.
“That was last year,” Tracie admitted, as if last year were a century ago. “There’s been a club bouncer since then. And a newspaper guy.”
Oh God. A Seattle-scene chickie. “She’ll never like me.”
“She will,” Tracie insisted. “We just have a lot of brushup work to do before Friday. Can you meet me tomorrow?”
“I have a planning meeting tomorrow.” Jon had been really lax at work. Instead of his usual twelve-hour days, he’d been cutting back, and back. At Micro/Con, a twenty-hour day wasn’t enough. This new focus on his social life was going to catch up with him if he didn’t put in some time at the office.
“Hey! What’s more important—your career or your love life?” Tracie asked. She had a disconcerting way of responding to things he had only thought and not said. Usually, he enjoyed it: It made him feel understood. Now, however, he felt exposed. “No one ever died wishing they’d spent more time in the office,” she reminded him.
Yeah, he thought. And no one got to be vice president of development if they had a social life. He sighed. “Okay. Okay. So where do I meet her?”
“Across from the Seattle Times. In front of Starbucks. Or inside if it’s raining.”
“And where do I take her?” he asked. He actually felt himself getting nervous already.
‘Take her to a nice restaurant. But not too nice. Now, you remember the rules about ordering.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said glumly. “No Cobb salads.”
Chapter 21
Tracie walked up the dirty stairs to Phil’s apartment on the second floor. The door was open. He always left the door open, which made Tracie nervous. Tracie knew she was a conservative, keep-it-zippered, lock-it-up kind of girl, but this was dangerous. Phil’s neighborhood—near Occidental Park—wasn’t the best one in Seattle. She didn’t even like parking here. Once, her left fender had been scratched badly, and another time, her antenna had been broken off. She actually liked Phil to go to her place, but she refused to have him do it all the time. He almost lived there already. Hence the bet. So here she was, parked in a dangerous spot, climbing the dirty stairs, prepared for dirtier sheets, just to be with him and make her point and keep some kind of balance. She shook her head. Men were so difficult. She knew he’d rather be with her than live like this, but he wouldn’t admit it. Tracie figured she’d better win the bet.
She walked in, and the big room—Phil called it that because he thought living room was a middle-class term—was in the usual shambles. She stepped delicately around the objects. From the doorway of his room, she heard a clicking noise and knew Phil must be writing.
That was so great—he wrote without a deadline, without the knowledge he’d be published. She could never do that. She hated to interrupt him anytime he was writing, but to do it now and ask for a favor might be really difficult. She tried to figure out how to present what she needed from Phil to make her project happen. What she’d figured, after Jon’s failure alone at the airport and the documented failure at REI, was that to get an article out of it, she had to have some success with Jon. She really needed to see him on a date. Maybe she should go with him and coach him. And it wouldn’t hurt if she got some success pictures. She jotted a note on a Post-it to remind herself to take her camera along. But Phil wasn’t usually interested in going out—unless there was a movie he wanted to see or a gig he was playing—much less in playing duenna to help her. Tracie sighed. She was making progress with Jon. Ruth, or whatever her name was, had really liked him until he had to go freeze on the mountain.
But Phil wouldn’t care about that, and he wouldn’t care about her article. He’d tell her she shouldn’t be writing such middle-class trash anyway. And she guessed he was right, but somehow it didn’t seem fair. She paid for the groceries that he ate with the middle-class money she earned. Don’t be bitter, she told herself. You respect him because he’s an artist, a free spirit. And there was something about him . . . his freedom and his anarchy that made him tremendously alluring. It was too easy to find a dog and domesticate it, especially if the dog was already hungry and weak. When you found a bobcat or a mountain lion and could domesticate it, that was an achievement. Jon was a little Dalmatian or Lab puppy, just looking for a home. But Phil
was a wolf, and to get him to eat out of her hand without biting her was an endlessly fascinating task.
For another moment, she thought about the bet she’d made with him. If she won, he’d move in with her. She wondered if that was what she really wanted. Sleeping with him was wonderful, but living with him might present more problems. She loved his longing to be free, but sometimes she wondered why he couldn’t mature a little, get a job, and act a little bit more . . . well, middle-class. Tracie wasn’t looking for a diamond solitaire and she didn’t want to wind up a rich wife in Encino, but everything middle-class wasn’t hideous. Marriage and family and a nice place to live and good food—those were all what Martha Stewart would call “good things.” Not only were they good, but Phil liked them, too. That’s why he spent so much time at her place.
She moved closer to his door and stepped on the lid of a pizza box.
“That you, Tracie?” Phil asked without looking up.
“Yeah,” she said, trying to imitate him. “I got home late from rehearsal.”
Phil turned from the computer screen and rubbed his eyes as if he’d been typing a long time. “Hey, you don’t have rehearsals.”
‘You win the prize,” she said, and went up behind him to put her hands on his shoulders. They were so wide. “Hey, I need help.”
“Got an itch that needs to be scratched?” he asked, stretching.
“Not now. I’m talking about my project with Jonny.”
“Jonny? You mean Jon? The so-called sexless savant?”
He’d been reading her notes for the article! Tracie blushed and crossed to the bed, away from him. She was careful to respect his privacy. He’d obviously been looking at her notes and Post-its. Well, she admitted to herself, she did stick them all over. But it still annoyed her that he was snooping. He’d be sorry. She moved a half-filled bottle of Evian. “That’s just it. He doesn’t look like a Techno-Nerd anymore. He’s really coming along. Want to check him out?”
Phil turned back to the screen. “No.”
She’d known that one wouldn’t work. “I’ve got a date set up for him on Friday,” she told Phil.
“Is Chelsea Clinton that desperate?” Phil asked. “And how will Mr. Techno-Nerd cope with all the Secret Service agents watching his every move? Not that he has any,” Phil added.
“He’s got moves. I taught him moves,” Tracie said in Jon’s defense. She hoped that despite her chickening out on her sex lecture, he did have a couple of his own. She paused. She’d have to try now to slip this in gently. “Look, I fixed him up with Beth from work.” Maybe if she just made it sound casual and fun. “For Friday.” She paused again. “So won’t it be a hoot? We need to go out with them. Like a double date.”
“ ‘Like a double date’? Now I know I’m dreaming. Or is this a nightmare?” Phil asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Tracie, I don’t date. I certainly don’t double-date. And, if I did, it wouldn’t be with that Techno-Nerd. Or your little friend Beth.”
Well, there was nothing left but begging. “Come on, Phil. We don’t have to be with them. I just have to watch him. Like a coach. I have to be able to help him if things go wrong. It’s the first time.” She paused. “And for reportage, I have to observe.”
“That doesn’t mean that I have to be subjected to it.”
Sometimes he was so selfish and predictable that she wanted to kill him. “Phil, I swear to God. If you don’t do this for me . . .”
“I don’t want you helping him anymore,” Phil said suddenly. He took her hand, put down the water, and pulled her to him. He cradled her between his legs. “This is taking up too much of your time,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “You were gone almost all night. Plus, if you win, then . . .”
His moves gave her a shiver of pleasure down her back. “Then we’re sharing laundry duties,” she said, finishing the sentence for him. “You’d look so good over a box of Tide.”
He pushed her away and stood up abruptly. “See,” he said. “See! I told you! This is not what I wanted. And you want me the way I am. That’s why you picked me. You don’t want me in an apron, dusting the living room. Domesticating the outlaw is a lose-lose.” He threw himself onto the bed. “I wish you’d just drop this stupid project of yours.”
Tracie sat at the edge of his bed and put her arms around him. “Maybe my dad wants you as an in-law,” she said, ribbing, “but that’s not on my mind. Besides, Phil, I really want to write this piece.” If child psychology didn’t work, maybe teen psychology would. “You’re just afraid I’m going to win the bet, right? And that you were wrong about Jonny.”
“What’s with this Jonny stuff?” he asked. “Anyway, I wasn’t wrong. You can’t turn that guy cool.”
“Then come see,” she said as he rolled her on her back and kissed her deeply. “Will you come?” she whispered, and he nodded his head in a silent promise.
Friday morning at work, Tracie was frantically typing at her PC when the phone rang. Without a missed keystroke, she reached over and pushed the headset button.
“Tracie Higgins here.”
“I know that. I called you,” Laura said.
“Are you going out to look for a job today?” Tracie asked her. She loved having Laura there, and she certainly didn’t want Laura to go back to Peter, but she couldn’t stay cooped up in Tracie’s apartment.
“I have an interview at three o’clock,” Laura said proudly. “And I thought I’d stop by afterward so we could have a drink.”
“Great,” Tracie told her. “That’s great, Laura.” Then she remembered that tonight Beth was going out with Jon and that she was coaching. “I can have a quick drink,” she said, because she didn’t want to let Laura down after her interview.
“Fine,” Laura said.
“But it’ll have to be quick, because I have to go out.” There was a pause.
“Do I have to baby-sit Phil again?” Laura asked.
“Nope. He’s going out with me.”
“Wow! Congratulations,” Laura said. “What’s the event?”
“Jon’s coming-out party.”
“Why? Is he gay? It didn’t seem as if he was
gay.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tracie snapped. “He’s going out with Beth.”
“Oh, so tonight’s the night. Circuithead meets Airhead.”
Tracie was about to protest to defend both of her friends, but then her phone flashed. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you around five,” she said. Then there was a call interrupt.
“Tracie Higgins,” she announced.
“Are we still on for tonight?” she heard Jon ask.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, you’re still on. Why wouldn’t you be on?”
“You know,” he said, “I’ve had a lot of last-minute cancellations in my career. Plus, I really ought to work. I mean, I’ve slacked off lately and I’m so far behind . . .”
He was impossible. He’d worked twenty-four/seven for years. He was using work as an excuse, when, in fact, he had no self-confidence. Beth hadn’t even met him yet, and he still figured he was striking out. “Forget about the past,” she told him. “You’re a new man. You look bad, you act bad, and you are bad. You are a bad boy, a chick magnet. Think of Beth as nothing more than an iron filing.”
“Hey, did you have those little games when you were a kid?” he asked. “The ones that had the face of a bald-headed guy and a bunch of iron filings in a plastic bubble? You could make them into hair or a beard by using the magnet?”
Tracie drew her eyes away from her screen and stared into the phone. “Jonny, don’t ask any questions like that tonight, okay?” she suggested. “No Mr. Potato Heads, none of your imitations of Cartman from South Park. And don’t sing the entire Gilligan’s Island theme song. When in doubt, be silent.”
“Silent. Right,” he agreed from his end of the phone. “But do you have to call me Jonny? It’s so . . . weird.”
She thought his voice sounded a little hurt, but she told herself it w
as for his own good. “Yes. Get used to it.” She tried to think of what he could do to guarantee Beth’s interest. She paused. The best trick would be to be unavailable. But how? She remembered a fight with Phil and smiled. Yes! “Jonny, there’s something I want you to be sure to do,” she told him. “Some time after you flirt with the waitress, I want you to excuse yourself and go over to the bar and talk to a woman.”
“A different woman? But I . . .”
The light for line two on Tracie’s phone went on. “Jonny, hold on a second, will you?” She was liking his new name, she realized as she pressed down the button for line two. “Hello, this is Tracie Higgins. May I help you?”
“What I want from you is a little more than help,” Phil said.
“Hold that thought, and hold for a second.” Tracie pushed line one and continued with Jon—uh, Jonny. “Where were we? Oh, yeah. You’re at the bar talking to a woman . . .”
“Trace. For tonight, I already have a date. I couldn’t get one girl. I can’t simultaneously pick two women up.”
“That’s not the point,” she said. “Think of it as a magic trick. It’s illusion.” She remembered Phil on the other line. “Hold a minute,” she said, then punched her other button. “Phil, I’ll be right with you.” She punched line one again. “So, Jonny, just ask her what time it is. Or the best road to take to Olympia. Anyway, then I want you to write a phone number in pen on your hand.”
“Whose phone number?” Jon asked.
“Just any phone number,” she told him, exasperated. “Then go back to the table and don’t say anything about it. Just make sure Beth sees your hand.”
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