Bad Boy

by Olivia Goldsmith

  But he couldn’t seem to snap out of the pain he was in. One night, in total desperation, he picked up the phone. But he didn’t call Tracie. He called Allison.

  She seemed delighted to hear from him when he called. He’d tried not to‌—for both of their sakes‌—but in the end, he couldn’t face another long night alone. By the time he picked up the phone, it was too late even to pretend to meet for dinner, so Jon asked if she wanted to join him for a drink, which he guessed was Bad Boy Talk for wanting to fuck. Or maybe Bad Boy Talk for wanting to fuck was asking her if she wanted to fuck. He wasn’t sure. But he knew he needed a drink or two, or six, and some company.

  He met her at Rico’s, and he had already had a couple of shots of Southern Comfort before she got there. First, he’d asked for Dewar’s and it was harsh, but now he was drinking in memory of his father‌—even if his father wasn’t dead yet. Jon couldn’t understand how anyone could like the taste, but after three drinks, he had to admit there was a certain logic to his father’s drug of choice. It tasted like paint remover, but it was effective. He wasn’t drunk, though. Tracie’s betrayal and the bet she’d made with Phil would take at least a bottle of Southern Comfort‌—or paint remover itself‌—to erase.

  He stared into his glass and wondered if he’d ever known her. He couldn’t believe the Tracie he knew would make love to him the way she had when all along she was angling to get Phil to move in with her.

  Phil! Jon ordered another drink, and the bartender was only too happy to oblige. Jon wanted to put the cold glass up against his forehead, but he took a sip instead. Maybe if Tracie’s choice hadn’t been Phil, he could have lived with it. Maybe. But Phil was a true idiot, pretentious and self-involved and‌—Hey, let’s face it, he thought‌—not too smart. Jon had already vowed that he’d never see Tracie again, but earlier that day, he could swear he’d seen Phil walking across the Micro/Con campus. It couldn’t have been true, but if he did see him anytime soon, Jon promised himself he’d do everything he could to beat the living crap out of the stupid bastard.

  Just when he felt drunk enough to want to get drunker, he looked up from the bottom of his Southern Comfort glass and saw Allison walking along the bar toward him. All of the men turned their heads to follow her progress. She was beautiful; he knew that. Prettier than Tracie. Definitely prettier than Tracie, he repeated to himself. Taller, and her breasts were bigger.

  Every man at the bar wanted a chance to touch those breasts, but he was the only one who would be able to tonight. That is, if he didn’t drink too much more Southern Comfort.

  “Hi,” she said, draping one arm around his shoulder. Every other guy, all the Phils and all the losers, tasted disappointment along with their booze. He knew what that felt like. The problem was, he didn’t care that he’d triumphed over all of them.

  “What’s your poison?” he asked her, just the way his dad did. She ordered an Absolut on the rocks, and Jon hoped she wouldn’t drink too much, because she had to drive them both to his place, manage to get up the stairs with him, take off her clothes and then his. Sorry, boys, he almost said aloud. He’d take this one home. Fuck Tracie.

  For a minute, he thought about fucking Tracie. He closed his eyes, not because he wanted to make the memory more vivid but because he wanted to push it away. He would sleep with Allison; he would rub his body against hers and it would feel good to both of them, and he hoped that on the other side of Seattle, where Phil and Tracie were rubbing their bodies together, she’d be thinking of him.

  Allison moaned and Jon moved his hand to her shoulders, lifting himself up so that he could improve his thrust into her. “Oh, Jonny,” she moaned again. He stopped, and then after a moment, when he didn’t continue, she opened her eyes.

  “Not Jonny,” he said. “My name is Jon,” but he’d already lost his erection and his desire to pump himself into her a second time. The first one had been enough, anyway: It had been an anger fuck, a fuck for the boys at the bar, all sound and fury, signifying nothing. In his bitterness and anger, it was pleasurable in a sickening way. The worst part was that she seemed to have liked it, too. He rolled off of her.

  He was ashamed of himself. He was worse than his father‌—his father didn’t, as far as he knew, sleep with women to punish them. He couldn’t move from the bed, and it wasn’t sexual exhaustion that kept him there.

  Allison walked around his apartment as he lay there. Now he understood the wisdom of Tracie’s rule to go to the woman’s place. Could he ask her to leave? It seemed very harsh indeed. “So you’ve been with Micro/Con almost since the beginning,” she was saying.

  “Not really,” he said. “I mean, I wasn’t a founder or anything. I came in after the first IPO.”

  “But you must have a lot of stock by now,” Allison said. “And a lot of options.”

  “Yeah,” he answered, and wondered if he could tell her he was feeling sick. It wouldn’t be a lie. But would it be enough to make her leave?

  “You know, Marcus isn’t even vested yet,” Allison told him. “And he’s not an officer of the company.”

  Was she talking about the slimeball at Tracie’s office? “Really?” he asked, as if he cared. “The guy who harasses Tracie?”

  Allison shot him a look. “Does he harass her, too?” she asked. “I swear, I’m ready to put in a grievance. But I figure now that Marcus knows Tracie’s engaged, he’ll probably lay off her. He doesn’t seem to go for married women.”

  “Engaged?” Jon asked. He could swear he felt his heart stop. Maybe it was just his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. “Tracie’s engaged?”

  “Oh, didn’t you know?” Allison said casually. “I thought the two of you were such good friends.”

  Allison came back to the bed and put her hand gently over his crotch. Nothing happened. “I don’t mind about that,” she said gently. “You know, I don’t think sex is the most important thing.” She lay down next to him and put an arm across his chest. He could feel her perfect left breast against his shoulder, but it could just as well have been a throw cushion or a rubber duck. When she moved her hand between his legs again, he lay limp under her hand.

  Tracie was engaged to Phil. The bass player wasn’t just an idiot she’d outgrow. He was going to be, at the very least, her bad first marriage, and possibly the father of her children. With that thought, Jon could no longer control himself. He rolled away from Allison, out from under her hand, over to the side of his bed, and vomited onto the floor.

  Chapter 40

  Tracie stared out the window at the Seattle sky. As almost always, there was a gray cloud cover, but just now, as she looked, a hole had appeared and silvery light was shining through in that pattern that made the sky look magical. There must have been a lot of turbulence, because as she watched, the torn clouds began to come together again, first in shreds of mist and then, like a tissue over a healing wound, they covered the brightness and closed out the sun.

  Tracie didn’t allow herself to sigh‌—Laura noticed those and commented on every one she made‌—so she just took her eyes from the window, crouched down again, and dipped her roller in the pan of paint that she and Laura were slapping on the wall.

  Laura’s new apartment was going to be nice, but Tracie thought the mauve paint was hideous. She’d been too pleased at Laura’s enthusiasm to comment on her paint selection‌—Laura had really gotten into DIY decorating. Home Depot was now her preferred singles’ meet market. She’d already dated a cop she’d met there, as well as a sales rep and the supervisor of the paint department. She’d kissed him in the Jacuzzi department. “You just love him for his discount,” Tracie had joked, until Laura found out the guy wasn’t divorced but only separated. She had dropped him like a hot portable grill. Tracie rolled the paint across the wall in the letter X that Laura had instructed her to do, then wrinkled her nose when she noticed the ten thousand tiny freckles of mauve paint that had sprung up on her arm.

  “Too much paint on the roller,” Laura told her as she
rolled the adjoining wall. Laura looked at her and shook her head. “You’ll never be a Kandinsky,” Laura told her.

  “So what?” Tracie responded. “I never wanted to play the violin.” She rolled her eyes as well as more of the paint, and this time most of it stayed on the wall. The light that filtered in through the window reflected the mauve color on both of them and made Laura’s complexion hideously sallow. This is not a color to paint a bedroom, Tracie thought, unless the next man Laura finds at Home Depot is not only legally single but also color-blind. It would make both of them look like hepatitis sufferers.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking about it, and you’re going to have to get a job,” Laura said. She kept her back to Tracie and kept staring at the wall as she rolled up and down, up and down.

  “I’m trying to write a novel,” Tracie reminded her. “Believe me, it’s work.” Like a baby writer taking tiny steps, Tracie was learning a new schedule of writing in the morning, editing in the afternoon. She was writing about a girl growing up in a place like Encino, overcoming the death of her mother. It wasn’t exactly autobiographical, but at least she could say the research came easily to her.

  “I know. And I’m proud of you. It’s not that I think you’re lazy,” her friend said. “It’s because you have to get out.”

  “Next, you’re going to tell me to run a personal ad,” Tracie snapped, and when she put the roller back into the pan, she used a little too much energy and splashed the mauve paint onto the woodwork. “Oops,” she said, and wiped up with one of the paper towels. Luckily, it was latex. It would take only an hour, instead of two days, to clean up.

  Laura turned to her, ignoring the spilled paint. “Look, I’ve left you alone to mourn,” she told Tracie. “Have I interfered? Have I told you you couldn’t lie alone in your apartment every night like a dead salmon after the spawning season?”

  Laura had been surprisingly good, or merely busy. Tracie had spent days, maybe even weeks, trying both to remember and forget every detail, every moment of the perfect time with Jon. When he’d told her he loved her, that he’d always loved her, it had been like a magical dance, the kind of thing that only happened in dreams‌—where you put on toe shoes and realize not only that you can effortlessly dance en pointe but that you also know every bit of choreography to the Swan Lake pas de deux. She and Jon had moved as one. Each touch had been so expected, yet so spontaneous, so new that Tracie had been able to hold the memory fresh for weeks.

  Somewhere, she had read that women couldn’t remember the pain of childbirth, because if they did, they would never go through it a second time. She didn’t know if that was true, but she couldn’t remember the joy, the perfection of her union with Jon because the pain of knowing that she would never have it again would be too much to bear. She had spent as much time as she needed berating herself, hating Marcus, blaming Phil, and every other wasteful, unfair emotion. But eventually, she had to give it up and more and more of her time became focused on the present, rather than the past. She didn’t regret losing her job at the Times. She didn’t regret her minuscule income. She didn’t even regret going into the capital of the tiny trust fund her mother had left her. In fact, it was the first time she’d appreciated this money.

  “I don’t need a job, and I can’t write if I take one,” Tracie reminded Laura. “Anyway, if I budget my money, I can manage to take off the rest of the year, and I ought to have it written by then.”

  “Yeah, but if you have a job that doesn’t require any mental energy, you’ll be able to write better and you’ll be able to hold out for two years,” Laura pointed out. “Just in case it takes you a little longer than you thought to produce this.” She grinned, picked up a brush, and began to cut a line along the ceiling. Tracie marveled at her steadiness. She was tall enough‌—or the ceilings were low enough‌—for her to do it without getting up on a ladder. “I think you better clean up now, anyway,” Laura said.

  “Why? My painting’s not that bad,” Tracie protested.

  “Yeah, but Phil’s coming over, and I don’t think either of you wants to see the other one.”

  “Good point.”

  Laura had been seeing a lot of Phil. At least it seemed that way to Tracie, who never saw anyone except Laura. Of course, Laura didn’t have too many other friends or even acquaintances in Seattle yet. But still, she seemed to be settling in. The apartment would be cute‌—aside from the mauve bedroom‌—and Laura seemed happy with her job at Java, The Hut. Tracie hadn’t been there since her breakup with Jon, but Laura gave her detailed reports about the denizens regularly. Apparently, Jon had quit going there, too. That, or he had been edited out of Laura’s running commentaries. Anyway, Tracie was glad about Phil, partly because she felt guilty about him and also because she was delighted to put down the mauve roller. “You know, if you want to date him, I don’t have any objection. It’s over.”

  “No, we’re just bad friends,” Laura wisecracked. “We meet once a week or so to bitch about our lives. It took him a little while, but he’s starting to get good at it.”

  “You know, Jon and I started out as friends.”

  For a moment, Tracie allowed herself to think about the bitch sessions she used to have with Jon, but she pushed him from her mind, as she now forced herself to do several dozen times a day.

  “Anyway,” Laura said, “I really do think you should get a job as a waitress. They’re looking for one at the restaurant. It’s only part-time. It’ll get you out. It gives you more material. And the tips aren’t bad.”

  “Tips!” Tracie snorted. “What? Buy Micro/Con before it splits again? Plant my corn early? Come on, Laura, I’m not in college anymore. I’m not going to work for tips.”

  Laura pushed Tracie into the bathroom and handed her some soap. “Here’s a tip,” she said. “Wash those speckles off before they dry. And do everything else I tell you. I’m always right.”

  Tracie snorted again.

  Tracie, upset and disheveled, was pushed into Java, The Hut by Laura. She forced her to approach Molly. Tracie was clearly reluctant. “Do you need another waitress?” Tracie asked.

  “Yeah, like I need a wider arse,” Molly told her. Then she looked Tracie up and down. “Why? You need work?”

  “Well, I was sort of fired, but my boss says I quit, so I’m not sure if I’m getting unemployment. . . .”

  Molly put up her right hand as if she didn’t want to hear any more. With her left, she handed Tracie a Java, The Hut T-shirt. “At least you know the menu by ’eart,” she said.

  “See, I told you,” Laura said to Tracie.

  “See what?” Tracie asked.

  “Will you hire Tracie?” Laura asked.

  “I may do,” Molly answered; then she sighed. “This probably will end my dream of becoming the next Starbucks, but what the ’ey.”

  Molly could hire her? “Don’t I have to talk to the manager? Or someone?” Tracie asked. “I mean, I have no experience.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be punished for it, too, my lamb. I ’ope people tip you like you used to tip me,” Molly said with a bit of sarcasm. “Isn’t it obvious to you that this place ’as no manager?” she asked.

  “So you own this place? I didn’t know‌—”

  “ ’oney, there’s a world of things you didn’t know. But I think you’re starting to learn.” Molly paused. “It’s over with Jon, then?”

  Silently, Tracie nodded. “We kind of‌—”

  “Say no more.” Molly turned her attention to Laura. “You’re late. The kitchen calls. And we’re out of tomatoes.”

  “No problem.” Laura flashed Molly a smile, then gave Tracie a thumbs-up sign.

  Tracie looked toward the front window; the tree outside had gone from bud to full leaf and she had not even noticed. She was still working for Molly when the tree turned orange, dropped its leaves, and then spent close to a month covered with ice. It was the winter of her discontent.

  Chapter 41

  Jon walked with
Lucky through the Pike Place Market. It was the first springlike day. People were out, and Lucky sniffed the air as if there was something new in it. Jon didn’t even notice women who turned their heads to look at him. His last night with Allison had been his last night with anyone. He hadn’t responded to Sam or Ruth. Even Beth had finally stopped calling. He had thrown himself into his work, but it was too late to save Parsifal. Alone, he weathered his first professional failure. He tied Lucky’s leash to a railing beside some outdoor tables. Not that he had to: The dog would wait all day and night for him, leashed or not. He went into a shop to buy coffee.

  Standing in line, he saw that the labels beneath the buns and cookies were Post-it notes. He stroked one with his finger, then shook his head. He didn’t allow himself to think of Tracie at all. He had enough discipline now to enforce that rule. His loneliness at first had closed in on him as dense as a fog over Puget Sound. He didn’t like to admit how many nights he had spent at his mother’s trying to get himself through this little crisis. She hadn’t said anything about it, always greeting him cheerfully, never asking questions. The only thing she did do was make one suggestion: “Why don’t you go over to the pound?” He’d never thought of himself as a pet lover, but, at the same time, he felt like a dog at the pound: lonely, locked up‌—emotionally anyway‌—and seeking companionship. As he’d looked in the cages, there were all the canine losers in love’s game: puppies too exuberant, dogs that had grown too big or not been cute enough or smart enough or lucky enough.

  Jon got his coffee and a sticky bun he’d split with Lucky. The dog greeted him with exaggerated gestures of joy, waving her butt and tail. As he untied her leash and turned to go, he saw Beth sitting alone. He could duck her, but at that moment, despite Lucky, his loneliness was so great that he walked over to her. “May I?” Jon asked.