Bad Boy

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “I thought you hated him,” Tracie told her. “Isn’t he the guy who never calls you back?”

  “He called me back just after I talked to you,” Beth said with a triumphant but guilty little smile. “That’s why I’m here. It’s an emergency.”

  “I hope you told him to stick it,” Tracie said, but she felt her heart dropping in her chest, because if Jon had called, and if he’d asked her out, Beth was going to go.

  “I told him I’d love to see him tonight,” Beth gushed.

  “Tonight? He didn’t call you for days and then he asks you out for tonight and you say yes? You are hopeless,” Tracie told her.

  “I figured it out,” she said. “Jonny’s a very sensitive guy. I just think he’s afraid he felt too much for me. It scared him.”

  Tracie and Laura exchanged a look. Behind Beth’s back, Laura rolled her eyes.

  “He was afraid of his feelings. It happens with guys.”

  “Beth, sweetie,” Tracie said in a kind voice, “you didn’t scare him.”

  “Please vould the psychology convention convene at the university? Or in the insane asylum? Just not here. No speaking here,” Stefan said firmly.

  Beth paid no attention. “You know, he’s just traumatized because of his brother’s death,” Beth told Tracie.

  “What brother? Jon‌—Jonny’s an only child,” Tracie said.

  “No,” Beth said, shaking her head. “He doesn’t like to talk about it. Except to me.”

  “Oh God!” Tracie groaned.

  Laura rolled her eyes again and snorted. Tracie couldn’t believe it. She’d taught him that trick‌—to come up with something dramatic‌—but that he’d actually done it, and succeeded! Even with Beth‌—not exactly a polygraph.

  “What?” Beth asked, staring at Tracie. “Oh, don’t be hurt. A lot of guys will confide things in me that they don’t tell anyone else.” She waved. “I gotta go. I don’t want to be late for him.”

  “Get out of here,” Stefan said, and Tracie didn’t know if this was in response to Beth’s comment or if he was trying to maintain creative control.

  She ran out of the room, and Stefan, with a noise somewhere between a sigh and a moan, took two more snips at Tracie’s hair.

  Laura squinted her eyes and shrugged, then pointed wordlessly to Tracie’s head. Tracie felt a tug of terror. “Remember, not too short, okay?” Tracie told Stefan again. “Isn’t that unbelievable about Beth?” she said to Laura.

  “Oh, yeah, that’ll keep her going for another three months of obsessing,” Laura said. “But I have to say, I think I’m over Peter.”

  “Great!” Tracie exclaimed.

  “And I think I want to stay here in Seattle.” She paused. “I’m looking for an apartment.”

  “Terrific!” Tracie told her, and she meant it.

  “Yeah. I figured that would be good news,” Laura said. “I’ve been a pain in the ass with my moping. Plus, I know it’s been a strain to have me at your place. I know I’m kinda getting in the way of your thing with Phil,” she added.

  Tracie shook her head to say no, then heard Stefan’s quick intake of breath and realized she had moved at a critical moment. “Sorry,” she said to Stefan. “No problem,” she told Laura, but Tracie felt guilty, since she’d so recently thought the same thing.

  “I know you didn’t mean to have me move in permanently . . .”

  “You’re always welcome,” Tracie said.

  “In my country, ve say guests, like fish, stink in three days,” Stefan said, and took another slice at her hair.

  “So anyway, I can’t afford a place without a job, and I can’t set up as a caterer without capital, but they need a cook at a brunch place and‌—”

  “You got a job?” Tracie asked, surprised and delighted.

  “Yeah. I talked to the owner. It’s a done deal.”

  “Do I get a discount if I go there?” Tracie asked.

  “No, but as an incentive, I promise I won’t spit in your food,” Laura assured her.

  “Great!” Tracie said. She tried to put her hand up to her ears to see if they were still covered, but Stefan hissed and pushed her hands away.

  “Well, congratulations.” For a while, they sat in silence except for the ominous sound of Stefan’s scissors. “I really can’t believe Beth,” Tracie said after a moment or two to break the silence. “How could she have said yes to Jon after he’d dissed her so badly?”

  “How could she say no when she likes him so much?” Laura responded, shrugging.

  “You know, he told me he’d made a date with Ruth, that girl from REI. He’s probably seeing other women, too. And he hasn’t told me anything,” Tracie complained.

  “What does it matter to you what he does? I think you are obsessed with him.”

  “I’m not obsessed with him,” Tracie protested. “I just need to keep my information straight for my article.” She heard Stefan sniff. He was taking a very long time. He never took this long.

  “That is so ridiculous. You can’t get me with that crap, Higgins,” Laura told her. “I think you’re in love with Jon.”

  “Laura!” Tracie jerked her head to turn toward Laura and Stefan’s scissors narrowly missed her ear.

  “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” he cried. “This is about my head, not your heart.”

  “My head,” Tracie corrected him. “And my heart has nothing to do with it. I love Phil. Jon is just my friend. He’s always been my friend.” Laura began to hum, as if listening to Tracie was a waste of time. “Come on. You know that, Laura,” Tracie protested. “I’m just trying to do a job, that’s all. I’m not obsessed with him.”

  “That’s what you think,” Laura said. “We always deny we’re obsessed in the beginning.”

  Stefan made a frightening noise somewhere between the hiss of a radiator and the rattle of a snake. He stomped over to Laura, and for a moment, Tracie thought he was going to hit her. Instead, he unfolded a piece of foil. “Ya. That is true,” he said. “You are finished.” Tracie wasn’t sure if he meant Laura was done with her streaking or that Tracie was in emotional trouble. Whatever, he returned and snipped again, this time at her bangs.

  “Not too short,” she repeated. “And I’m not obsessed,” she told Laura.

  “Yeah. And Marcus is a nice guy. Look, I live and breathe on Obsession Street. I own a place there. You just rent. And I got to tell you, Tracie, you are obsessed.”

  “No. I’m . . . annoyed. I’m . . . regretful,” she protested. “The piece is really coming along, but Jon’s . . . changed. He’s not behaving like a good friend. He’s hurt Beth and he’s probably hurting other women. I just hate that.”

  “Maybe he needs someone to give him his comeuppance,” Laura said.

  “Can you believe it?” Tracie asked Laura.

  Laura shrugged. “You have tampered with the rules of the universe. Now prepare to meet the consequences of your karma,” she said in her most annoying Buddha tone.

  Tracie moaned. “Oh God! I have to destroy this man’s confidence.”

  “Yes,” Laura agreed. “Return balance to the universe.”

  “Leave him alone. He is like cook in a candy store,” Stefan said.

  “A cook?” Laura asked, but Tracie raised her brows in warning. Never correct a hairdresser with scissors in his hand was the basic belief in her universe.

  “I have to have him taken down by a real man-killer,” Tracie said. “Have the hunter become the prey.”

  “Too bad you don’t know a man-killer,” Laura said. “Except for me, of course, but now I have a job. Maybe Sharon Stone is available.”

  “Laura, you’re a genius!” Tracie exclaimed.

  “I know, but do you think these streaks are going to suit me?” Laura asked.

  Stefan took one last snip at Tracie’s hair and spun the chair around. “Finished!” he said, pulling out a mirror.

  “Oh my God!” Tracie moaned as she looked at her reflection. Her hair was way too short.

/>   Tracie lay on the sofa, her shorn head wrapped in a towel turban, while Phil and Laura, who were cleaning up the lunch dishes, bickered, as usual.

  “Oh, come on,” Phil was saying. “Next you’ll be telling me there’s a special order for washing dishes.”

  “There is,” Laura told him. “Don’t you know that?”

  “I know when you’re pulling my chain,” Phil responded.

  “I wouldn’t touch your chain with a dish brush,” Laura said, brandishing the dish brush and tossing her beautifully highlighted mane of hair. “But I can’t believe you don’t know the order in which you’re supposed to wash dishes.”

  “Bullshit. There’s no order. You wash them when you run out of clean dishes, right, Baldy?”

  Tracie murmured something from her fog of short-hair blues. But they didn’t need a response.

  “It’s not arbitrary,” Laura was saying. “It’s based on what goes in your mouth first.”

  “What are you talking about? Is this some kind of dirty joke?” Phil asked.

  “Get your mind into the detergent, where it belongs,” Laura said with a scowl. “Mrs. Ogg always taught us that we have to begin with silverware, because we put silverware into our mouths. You wash them first, when the water is cleanest. Right, Tracie?” Tracie murmured again. “See. Then you put them aside and wash glasses, because you put glasses up to your lips.”

  “You’re not fuckin’ with me!” Phil said, and his face had a look of amazement, as if she was revealing the secrets of getting published or how he could actually play his bass guitar. “I’m going to write a poem about this,” he announced. “Wouldn’t that be a great piece, ‘Chrome Dome’? Come play in the water with me,” Phil said.

  Tracie rolled over and groaned. Laura just shook her head. “Just let her be, would you? Look, pay attention. Next come the plates, because they don’t get touched by your mouth.”

  “Well, my plate does when you do the cooking, because I usually lick it.”

  “Well, isn’t that cute?” Laura said in her toughest voice. “Like that’s going to get me to cook more often for you.” But she blushed a little. “Anyway, the last thing you wash are the pots and pans, which even you don’t lick.” She handed him the pad of steel wool.

  Tracie wished they’d just disappear. She wanted Phil to go home and leave her to dwell in her own misery. At least Laura was trying to help out by keeping him busy. Tracie had been on the sofa for a few days. She’d even called in sick at work. She tried to work on her next article for Marcus, but all she could think about was getting Allison to take Jon down a peg. But just how could she get Allison to agree to a blind date?

  “I might not lick pans, but my roommates do,” he said, and began scrubbing the pot without any protest.

  “Aren’t you too old for roommates?” Laura asked.

  “Look who’s talking,” he taunted. “Hey, Tracie, come out from under those blankets.” Tracie moaned as a response.

  “Hey, I’m looking for a place,” Laura said.

  “You are?” he asked. “You going back to that dipshit in Sacramento?”

  “No,” she said as she peeled off her rubber gloves. She began to rub some cream over her hands, concentrating on the knuckles and cuticles.

  “Why do you do that?” Phil asked.

  “To keep my hands soft.”

  He reached out and took her right hand. “Yeah,” he said. “They are soft.” He paused for a moment. Then he looked back at the pot and began to scrub harder, looking away from Laura. “So, you really trying to move out? You found a place and everything?”

  “You know,” Laura told him, “I think Tracie might pay a little more attention to you if she could take you a bit more seriously. If you had your own place, and a real job and some kind of game plan.”

  “I have a game plan,” Phil said, and scowled into the Farberware.

  “And that would be living off the six dollars a year you make from your writing?” Laura asked. “Or would it be living off the free beers you make at your gigs?”

  “It would be none of your business,” Phil told her.

  Laura shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said. “But you know nobody’s adolescence lasts forever. Except Warren Beatty’s.”

  “Who’s that?” Phil asked.

  “It’s irrelevant. His job’s taken,” Laura told him. “Anyway, Seattle is full of jobs. All kinds of them. There’s no reason why you couldn’t find something you’d like to do that actually pays. It’s not like you do anything during the day except sleep and mooch.”

  Phil put down the pot. “Well, fuck you, too,” he said. “And fuck the horse you rode in on.”

  “Oh, leave Trigger out of this,” Laura said in a good-natured voice.

  “I need the free time to create,” Phil said, sounding like a petulant child. “I need empty days to write.”

  “Oh, come on. You might be able to get Tracie to buy that crap, but not me, buddy. My dad was a writer. You know what he did?”

  Phil shook his head.

  “He wrote. That’s what writers do.” She stopped a moment and then patted his arm in a sisterly way. “Look, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that I think you’re not really happy.”

  “Who said you’re supposed to be happy?” Phil asked as he slipped into his jacket. “Who said life is about being happy?”

  “Nobody in Encino,” Laura agreed. “But that’s why I got the hell out. And I don’t think it’s about being happy, but I don’t think it’s about being stuck, either. I think you‌—I mean everyone‌—just moves toward what they enjoy and away from what they don’t enjoy. That’s all that you can do. And I don’t think you enjoy sitting around all day and being fairly useless. Not to mention getting humiliated by rejections from pretentious magazines and imbeciles like Bob.” She shrugged her big shoulders. “I just think the scene’s gotten old for you. But hey, call me an optimist.”

  For a heart-stopping moment, the room was very still. Tracie winced, expecting Phil’s screams to begin at any second. She heard him clear his throat. Then there was silence again. Maybe he’d hit Laura, or break something before he stormed out of the apartment. Instead, he cleared his throat again. “You know,” he said in a very gentle voice, “I’ve been starting to think the same thing.”

  Chapter 29

  Tracie sat in their usual spot at Java, The Hut, waiting impatiently for Jon. She fiddled with the tiny ends of her hair. She’d never had a cut this short. She really hated it, and hated Stefan, who’d cut it; Phil, who made fun of it; and Laura, who had just told her not to worry about it, that hair grew back. At least she could count on Jon for support. She looked at her wristwatch. She’d been here almost twenty minutes late, but he still hadn’t shown up. It was unlike him.

  Molly strolled over, and Tracie winced in advance. This wouldn’t be pretty. “Bloody ’ell! You’ve joined a nunnery? I didn’t even know you were Catholic. Plus, you’re ’ere on time and ’e’s late. It’s the end of the world.”

  “I’m not always late.”

  Molly leaned against the chair. “Not if fifty-one weeks a year three years running doesn’t mean ‘always.’ ” Molly took out her order pad. “Shall we go through the usual pantheon until you settle for your scrambled eggs?” she asked. “Or are you just going to sit there pulling on the ends of your ’air as if that will ’elp them grow?”

  Tracie dropped her hands to her lap. “Molly, underneath that nasty English exterior, you really don’t like me, do you?” Tracie asked.

  “No, actually, I don’t,” Molly agreed cheerfully.

  Tracie was taken aback. She hadn’t actually expected to hear that Molly hated her. For a minute, she didn’t know what to say. “But why? I’ve never hurt you.”

  “I guess I just don’t like fools,” Molly said. “I’m the daughter of one and an ex-wife of another. Call me oversensitive, but it’s given me an aversion to them.” She shrugged.

  “I’m not a fool,” Tracie pr
otested.

  “Yeah, and I’m not a waitress.” Molly pointed to the plastic name tag pinned on her chest. “Read the card.” Then she pointed at Tracie. “Yours says ‘Tracie ’iggins‌—part-time journalist, full-time fool’!”

  “What did I do?” Tracie asked, and, for some reason, she thought of the dream she’d had where she was painting her cocker spaniel blue.

  “What ’aven’t you done?” Molly asked angrily. “You date jerks. One useless git after another, and you don’t know enough to get over it.” Molly slid into the seat across from Tracie. “And, since you asked, mind you, if that isn’t enough, you’re turning the only nice guy in the great Northwest into a jerk.”

  “Jon! He’s not a jerk. He’s just . . . a little more stylish,” Tracie said. “And he feels better about himself,” she added.

  “At the expense of others?” Molly asked. “I know what’s going on. ’e brings them ’ere for coffee before going ’ome. It’s like my Moggy bringing ’is mousies to me before ’e finishes them off. Three different women last week! And ’e bragged to me ’e ’ad two dates on Saturday.” Molly leaned closer to Tracie. “You took a warm, sensitive guy, a guy who knows ’ow to listen to a woman, a guy who knows ’ow to please‌—who actually wants to please‌—and gave ’im all the tricks of the trade that the cold bastards use on us. ’e’s a full member of the Guild of Guys now. Do you know what you’ve done?”

  Tracie stopped protesting, sat there a moment, and thought about it. “Something very, very, bad?” she asked tentatively. Molly stared at her, and everything the waitress had said came together in Tracie’s mind with her dream, Phil’s jealousy, and Laura’s warning. She’d need a little help and a little luck, but she thought she could undo the damage she’d done. “Molly, you’re right,” she said. The waitress nodded. Tracie swallowed her pride. “Will you help me stop him being a jerk?”

  “ ’ow?” Molly demanded.

  “Get me two tickets to Radiohead. You’ve got the connections.” Though Molly had stopped traveling with the rock-and-roll bands, they still called and visited when they were playing Seattle. She knew‌—and had probably slept with‌—every roadie, not to mention most rhythm guitarists in the business.