Bad Boy

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Tracie nodded. “This is not a negotiation, Laura. I’ve taken myself hostage and nobody gets out of this place alive.”

  Laura nodded and shrugged. “Then it won’t bother you that something else really bad has happened. Something worse than your fight with Jon.”

  “What? What could possibly be worse than this?” Tracie asked.

  “The article ran.”

  Tracie jumped up as if hit with an electrical current. “Get out! It didn’t!” she said. “Marcus fired me, but he wouldn’t‌—”

  Laura took the newspaper out of the paper bag and threw it on the bed. “It did. And he would.” She grabbed the paper and began riffling through it. “Page one of the Living section,” Laura told her.

  Tracie got to it, surveyed the damage, and moaned. The article took up the whole front page, and it continued on the third and fourth pages. It also carried the ridiculous makeovers of the hacker and the high-tech CEOs. Tracie moaned again. “Oh God. I’ll never make up with Jon now. He’ll never speak to me. Fuck Marcus! That lying scumball.” She began to scan the piece. “Oh no. The best man on the planet, and I’ve made a laughingstock of him.”

  Just then, Tracie heard the door locks as they started to be released one by one. For a minute, she thought it was Jon, then realized who it had to be. “Oh God! Phil’s here.” Tracie heard the last lock release; then the door opened and Phil’s footsteps crossed the living room.

  He entered the bedroom. But he was a different Phil. He looked like the subject of some makeover from hell. He’d had his hair cut and his act was cleaned up significantly, but in all the wrong ways. He still wore jeans, but he had a lamé sports jacket on. He carried a briefcase, as well. He approached the bed, yet he didn’t notice Tracie’s condition or the junk all over. He just swept a spot clear and sat down next to her. Tracie was too exhausted to comment. Laura, however, did a double take. “Phil, is that you?” she asked.

  “Hi, Laura,” he said cheerfully. “Hey, Trace, notice anything different?”

  “You got a haircut?” she asked. “Yours is too short, too.”

  He smiled. “You’ll get used to it. And that’s not the only change. I got a job.”

  Laura stood up. “Hey, guys. I’d better go. I’ve got the evening shift at Java, The Hut. Trace, call me later.” She reached down and rubbed Tracie’s foot, then left the room.

  Alone in a dirty bed with Phil, Tracie felt unbelievably claustrophobic.

  Phil smiled at her, as if she looked as pretty as a picture with her butchered, greasy hair, her oldest nightgown, and the dirty coverlet. “Tracie, you won the bet,” he said. “I saw the article. And I’m ready to be committed.”

  “We look like we both are,” was all Tracie could manage to say.

  “Great. You got me. Fair and square. I got my stuff packed to come here.”

  Tracie groaned and rolled over in bed. “That’s all right, Phil. The bet idea was stupid. You shouldn’t play with people’s lives to win a bet.”

  “Well, stupid or not, I’m ready to move in,” Phil said.

  Tracie didn’t respond. Her life was a nightmare. She just lay under the covers, promising herself she would never move or speak again.

  “Hey. You sick or something?” Phil asked. Tracie knew he was self-involved, but she’d never thought he was an imbecile until now. Phil pulled the blankets down from her head, and though she tried to catch at them, he was too fast for her. He reached into his briefcase and took out a paper bag and a black velvet jewelry box. He handed it to Tracie. “This will make you feel better.”

  Tracie rolled her eyes. “Phil, I gave up farm cakes and I don’t need another guitar pick right now.”

  “It’s not a guitar pick,” he promised. “Open the box.” Tracie did. There was a tiny diamond in a traditional engagement setting. She tried not to let her jaw drop. No wonder Phil had never been able to succeed as a bass player. He had the worst timing in the world.

  “Marry me, Tracie,” Phil said. “I love you.”

  Tracie looked at the ring, then back at Phil, and burst into tears. She was so frustrated with her own stupidity that if she could have, she would have torn her own head off.

  Lovingly, Phil took Tracie in his arms. “Oh, baby. I know. I love you, too,” he told her. “I’m sorry I put you through such hell. I guess I just had to grow up a little. You know, start thinking of other people.” Tracie sobbed louder. He held her tighter. “It’s okay,” he said. But of course it wasn’t. “Thanks for putting up with me and going the distance.” He patted her back. Tracie hated to be patted.

  “You know, Laura helped me think this through. I’ve set new priorities, Tracie, and you’re my number one.” She sobbed harder, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Your article was really good. You’re better than Emma Quindlen.”

  “Anna,” Tracie sobbed, dangerously out of control.

  Phil looked at her with concern. “Honey, calm down. You got to try on the ring.”

  She couldn’t. She’d rather cut off her hand. The man that she’d thought she desired for so long, the man that she’d tricked herself into thinking she cared about was not only ridiculous but also a stranger to her. “I . . . I . . .” She tried to stop crying, wiped her eyes and her nose with her fingers, and looked at him. “Phil, do you think my earlobes are adorable?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I never noticed.”

  Tracie began to wail again. Phil stood up, reached over to her bureau, and handed her a Kleenex. Then he turned his back to the bed and took off his sports jacket. He laid it carefully on the chair beside the bed, then patted it as if it were a good dog. “I got to take care of this baby,” he said. “I think it was the jacket that got me the job.”

  “What job?” Tracie managed to ask.

  Phil turned back to her, and for the first time, she saw the T-shirt he’d been wearing under the jacket. It had a huge Micro/Con logo on it. Wordlessly, she pointed at it and began to scramble off the bed in horror. “What? How?” she managed to say. “Why . . . are you . . .”

  Phil looked proudly down at his chest. “Oh, yeah,” he told her. “They didn’t just give me the job. They gave me the T-shirt and a thousand dollars’ worth of stock. Isn’t that neat?”

  Chapter 38

  Jon was sweating. He was moving as fast as he possibly could. The last time he’d felt this kind of panic was when he was being chased by the neighborhood dog, notorious for biting anyone that got within fifty yards of his owner’s yard. But this time, Jon was trying to escape himself. He had managed to get into the Micro/Con building undetected early enough that morning and get himself set up on the treadmill in the workout room. Now, however, people were starting to come in, and he knew it wasn’t his imagination‌—he was the focus of everyone in the room. Usually, people would stare blankly while they pedaled a bike, pulled on the weight bars of the bench press equipment, and walked on the treadmills. But this morning, it was the stare of wonderment, of recognition, of celebrity. That’s what happens when your best friend splashes you all over a section of the local newspaper, he thought.

  He couldn’t believe that Tracie had been so spiteful as to publish the article because of their fight. But he guessed he’d just never really known her. He’d been so upset, he’d had to spend the night at his mother’s, and that hadn’t been easy, either. She hadn’t approved of the article, but she’d kept urging Jon, “Call Tracie. I don’t know why this all happened, but I do know that a friendship like yours and Tracie’s shouldn’t end like this. Call her.” Then she’d talked a lot about forgiveness, and visiting his dad in the hospital. Jon had been upset enough to think‌—but not say‌—that it was a lot easier to forgive someone who had ruined her life than it was to forgive someone who had ruined his.

  He still hadn’t actually taken in his visit with his father. After he’d gotten over his pity, he thought he was angry at Chuck, too. What was this Mother’s Day and Father’s Day about anyway? Why wasn’t there a chil
dren’s day? Chuck had just used the holiday as a wedge, as a way to get Jon to see him without having to actually apologize directly for all of his childishness and thoughtlessness over the years. It was easy enough for his mother to preach forgiveness: Grandpa had been a really good father and a really nice guy. He’d filled in for Chuck more times than Jon liked to remember. Next Father’s Day, Jon decided, he was going to go to his grandpa’s grave and thank him. Maybe, that is, if he didn’t die of embarrassment between now and then.

  Jon tried to avert his eyes from the other employees who had come in to work out‌—or to gawk at him‌—but it wasn’t an easy thing to do. What he wanted so desperately to do was to hit the stop button, jump off the rubber track, and tell them exactly what Tracie had done to him. How she had violated him. How she had exposed him as the town clown. How she had made him the Micro/Con mascot. But Jon opted for jogging on the treadmill. His head was pounding with every step he took. How could she do this to me? he thought. He couldn’t remember having this feeling of pain in his chest since his father left him and his mother so long ago. Sure he had felt badly for all the other women his father had been with and dumped, but this hurt was something that Jon couldn’t get past.

  He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead before they could roll into his eyes and sting. Though that wouldn’t be so bad, he thought. Then my vision would be impaired and I couldn’t see everyone looking at me. He wondered if the hurt he felt was what he had inflicted on all the women he had slept with since this whole transformation started. Especially Beth‌—she was the most persistent of all of them. Well, he was definitely his father’s son, thanks to Miss Higgins.

  Why had Tracie decided to sleep with him only after he had been with all the others? Was she jealous of them? Had she wanted him all this time? Or did she want to see if he was doing the sex thing right and take notes on that, too? Jon couldn’t take the pressure of the room any longer, so he stepped off the treadmill and left the gym. He used his towel as a shield, pretending to wipe down his wet face and neck.

  At least the changing room was empty and he was given a moment to gain his composure before having to step out into the hallway. He had managed to get halfway down the hall on his way to his office, when he was met by Samantha. Jon almost wished for the time when it was only a daydream to have her come up to him. But what she did to him was beyond even his own wildest dreams. “You rotten little bastard!” Sam spat in his face, and before Jon could respond, she had slapped him across the face.

  Great, if all the other women at Micro/Con had this reaction, he would be black and blue by noon. He put his hand up to his face and continued down the hall. He couldn’t help but look into the doorways of the offices along the way. Luckily, most were empty, so he was fortunate enough to get down to the main room, where all the cubicles were located in his department. All that came to his mind was the possibility of a reenactment of the scene in Jerry Maguire when Tom Cruise goes to leave his job and everyone stands up and watches him go to the elevator. If only he were leaving, Jon thought. He thought that he could stand up to them and say that the article Tracie had written for the paper was not his mission statement, that he’d had nothing to do with it. Then everyone would go back to what they were doing and never give any of it another thought. He stopped at the entrance to the big room. Everyone was working away and no one really looked up at him; they were doing what they usually did every morning when he came into his office. Could be worse, he thought as he entered his office.

  He decided he’d shut the door on the rest of his staff today. That way, anyone wanting entry would have to be announced first. As he turned from the door to head to his desk, he was taken aback by Carole, who had perched herself on a beanbag chair.

  “Good morning, Mr. Bad Boy,” she said with a sheepish grin on her face. “You’re the talk of the commissary today.”

  Jesus! He didn’t need this, not after all he’d been through already. “Good morning,” he said quietly, and went to sit in his chair. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I’m going home today and I wanted to say it’s been a pleasure having met the ‘Sexless Savant’ of Seattle.” She grinned again.

  “I didn’t have‌—” he began, but she got up from the chair and put her finger up to her mouth to signal him to be quiet.

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Jonny,” she said in a snotty voice. “A boy’s gotta do what a boy’s gotta do. You’ll manage.” Then she stepped closer to his desk and pointed to a memo. “Based on what this says, you should have spent a lot more time on Parsifal than on me and all the others.”

  Jon looked down at the paper. Shit! It was from Dave, his division supervisor. He scanned the words and the word failed was in bold capitals in the second paragraph. He pushed his chair back from the desk and Carole went to the door. “Good luck,” she said. “Maybe we’ll meet at Carousel B again sometime.”

  Finally, his day was over. Jon walked out of the office building and headed toward his bike. Tracie stood beside it, her hand on the seat. When he saw her, he stopped for a moment, then turned back toward the Micro/Con entrance and began to walk away. “Jon, please,” Tracie called, and came up beside him. “Just let me explain and apologize.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t know you were a liar.”

  “Jon, I swear. I was going to ask your permission before I‌—”

  “Permission to humiliate me?” he asked, interrupting her. “I don’t think I would have granted that, even for you.”

  “Listen! Marcus had rejected the idea months ago. I was‌—”

  “But when he changed his mind, you stepped up to the plate, huh?”

  “Marcus promised he wouldn’t run it . . .”

  “Who do you think you are?” he asked. “Who? What gives you the right to play God?” He couldn’t believe how callous she had been, how she had used him as a pawn to get closer to Phil. For a moment, his anger rose so high, he could understand how men hit women. “Interfering with people’s lives. Changing them altogether.”

  “But you asked me to,” she reminded him.

  That was true. What had he been thinking of? Jon thought of his father and all that he had put his mother and stepmothers through, as well as the pain he had caused. Jon shook his head to snap himself out of his reverie.

  “You know,” Jon said to Tracie, “maybe Molly is right. For a smart girl, you’re really dumb. Maybe I was asking you something different. Maybe I was asking you a more important question than why I got blown off by Samantha.”

  “What? What were you asking me?” she demanded.

  Jon turned his back on her and walked away. He wanted her to melt, to disappear. Instead, she followed him. Christ! He didn’t need anyone watching more drama in his life. But Jon couldn’t keep silent. “After being my best friend for more than seven years, maybe you should have known what I was asking. And why,” he spat out at her.

  “If you wanted me, why didn’t you say so? Why didn’t you tell me, or make a move on me?” she demanded. “I’m not a mind reader.”

  The unfairness of that stung him. “Why should I? So I could hear that you loved me but you just didn’t love me in ‘that way’?” He felt a pain and a rage he hadn’t known was there. “Do you know how insulting that is? Do you think I needed to hear that said aloud by you?” he asked. “You were smart enough to pull off this charade so that women would fall for me. You were smart enough to turn me into a newer, better version of my dad. You were smart enough to write an article that makes me look like the jerk I am. But you’re not smart enough to know about subtext? What kind of writer are you?”

  Now tears were actually rolling down her cheeks, the cheeks he’d covered with kisses. “Jon, I love you. I made love to you . . .”

  “But not until you changed me. Not until half of the women in Seattle had slept with me first.” He finally got his fucking bike chain. Tracie came up beside Jon and gently touched his arm. He pulled away from her so v
iolently that she stepped back. “I wasn’t good enough for you before. You didn’t notice me, or you took me for granted or . . . something. Anyway, you didn’t want to make love to me then.”

  Tracie put her head down and her hands up to her head. He wouldn’t let himself care how pathetic she looked. He’d seen her look this sad over morons she’d dated once. When she did answer, it was a whisper. “I think I always did want to make love to you. You were the only one who really knew me, Jon. But I was stupid. And I think I was afraid. Jon, do you know how much our night together meant to me? Do you know how much I loved it, how much I love you?” she asked.

  Jon turned to her. “And you weren’t afraid of Phil?” he asked. Tracie raised her head and gave him a guilty look. And then his hope was smashed, because he knew her well enough to know she’d done something very wrong. Despite his accusation, she wasn’t a liar. Maybe the article had been a mistake. So what was it that she had now disclosed with that look? What had she done in the last twenty-four hours that she shouldn’t have? . . . “Who did you sleep with last night, Tracie?” he asked.

  Tracie lowered her gaze, but not before he saw her blush. Now he knew he was right. “Phil, but I . . . but he had just . . . we didn’t . . .” she stammered.

  He didn’t want to hear another word. He actually got sick to his stomach and thought he might throw up right there on the macadam. “I was alone, Tracie. And that’s what I’d like to be now,” Jon said abruptly, then mounted his bike and rode off.

  Chapter 39

  Jon’s mother kept giving him two pieces of useless advice. “Call Tracie, Jonathan,” she said. “And get yourself a dog. A nice golden retriever maybe.”

  “I don’t want to call her. I want her to be struck by lightning,” he muttered, his mouth full.

  “Why, Jonathan Delano!” she exclaimed, but then she backed off.

  The problem was that he couldn’t find anything that assuaged the pain. He wasn’t so humiliated anymore‌—people were such jerks that having his picture in the paper had made him a celebrity on campus and some geeks had taken it seriously enough to try to emulate his “style.” He put an end to that by stopping at the Micro/Con shop on campus and going back to his usual T-shirts and khakis. The hell with the pants thing.