Bad Boy (33 page)

“Oh,” he said. “Are you talking about that technotransformation, ‘Mild One into Wild One’ by the inversion of a single letter?” Tracie craned her neck, but each time he came into view, he turned and walked in the other direction. She decided to ignore his pacing and stared out the window instead. She kept quiet. “Maybe I was a little bit premature,” he said. “I’d like to take another look at it.”

Tracie knew that she should say no, that what she needed was an article to run somewhere
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else and without his butchering, but she wasn’t sure if she could stand up to him. “It’s just in draft form,” she informed him, listening to his restless footsteps.

“I don’t mind,” he said and, from behind her, he put his hands lightly on her shoulders. She jumped in her seat and he took them away.

“Okay,” she said, sounding to herself like the old Mary Tyler Moore character when she was startled by Mr. Grant. “I’ll give you a draft right away.” Then she was up and out of his office in a heartbeat.

“Tracie, can I talk to you a moment?” Marcus asked her again late that afternoon. Do I have a choice? she wondered. He stepped into her cubicle. “I read the draft of the dweeb makeover. I’m deeply surprised. It’s actually pretty good. You’re wasted on these stupid holiday pieces. There are some other assignments I’d like to see you working on.”

Is he serious? What’s going on? she thought.

“Come on with me,” he said. She thought that he’d leered, but with Marcus, almost every expression was that unpleasant.

“Really?” she asked, and then wanted to bite her tongue. She had to learn not to react to either his praise or his criticism. What am I? His puppy? She followed him down the long hall that ran in the back of the building. Her thoughts kept her from noticing that Marcus had stopped, and she almost bumped into
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his back. He turned to face her. The hall was momentarily deserted, and he leaned against the wall, crossing his arms in that gesture of self-sufficiency she had come to know and dislike.

“Do we have a release from this guy?” Marcus asked.

“Uh. Sort of.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means not yet, but I can get one. He’s a friend.”

“Not after this piece comes out.” He laughed, then looked around. Tracie couldn’t help it
‌
—she, too, turned her head, as if the enemy were listening. That was why she was so surprised when she turned back and saw he was leaning in, inches from her. He pushed Tracie against the wall and stretched both arms to either side so that she was backed against the wall, penned in by his arms and only inches from his smirking face. She could feel his breath on her forehead. “How about we edit it tonight . . . together?”

She couldn’t believe it. He was actually putting a move on
her.
She thought of bringing her knee up between his legs, but she needed the job. “Marcus . . .” she began. He leaned closer, his mouth almost on hers. She squirmed down the wall. “I don’t think so.”

“Come on. Don’t play shy with me. I know how you look at me in those editorial meetings.” He was about to try to kiss her, when Tracie gave him a really big push, big enough to throw him off balance. He stumbled, and
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she couldn’t help it
‌
—she pushed him again. Then she saw Tim and Beth standing just behind him. How much had they witnessed? Marcus fell to the floor. Beth stopped and stared at him. Tim, reluctantly it seemed, bent to give him a hand up. Embarrassed, Marcus slapped it away and stood.

“By the way, I’ll need that Father’s Day piece by the end of the day.”

“But you said
‌
—”

“Your mistake,” Marcus told her, and turned and left her alone in the hall.

Later on in the afternoon, when Tracie was finishing the Father’s Day piece, the Radiohead tickets arrived. Wow! Molly had come through for her. She’d have to leave bigger tips. She had to get this article turned in. She’d called Jon over and over. She had to reach him, or she’d be stuck giving these tickets to Allison for nothing. Just then, the phone rang. It rang a second time, then a third. She needed a distraction, so she took the call. “Hello, Tracie Higgins here,” she whispered into the receiver.

“Hello there, alchemist. What’s up?” Jon asked her.

“Hey, I’m glad you called. Boy, have I got a girl for you tonight!”

“I can’t tonight. I’m going out with Ruth.”

“Well, cancel Ruth, because this girl is
really
something.”

“I guess it won’t hurt Ruth to be on hold a
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little longer, right?” Jon asked. “She’s a climber. She likes to hang around.” He paused and then laughed. “If I blow her off for tonight, I’d be Ruthless.”

“Right.” Tracie half-chuckled at the lame joke just for him. He’d be punished for it all tonight. “Come by here at six-thirty. I’ve got tickets to the Radiohead concert. Come to my office and I’ll brief you.”

“Okay. See you later, then.”

Jon had felt so bad after Tracie walked out on him at Java, The Hut that he couldn’t concentrate on anything and so he had gone to visit his mother. He told himself that he owed her a visit, but it was for him, not her, that he’d gone. She’d made him chicken and noodles, one of his favorite comfort dinners, without even being asked. “Honey,” she’d said, running her hands through his new haircut, “you look so tired. Working hard?” He hadn’t said “hardly working,” though that was closer to the truth. He’d only nodded. “Jonathan dear, why don’t you get yourself a dog?” she had asked. It was the kind of crazy question only mothers would ask. But there was something
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sweet and even right about the question. All at once, Jon felt a yearning for something true and loyal and warm. He almost told his mother about the fight with Tracie, but he was too ashamed of the rest of his behavior.

So, expecting not to hear from Tracie at all, he’d called her, needing to apologize. He’d been delighted that she seemed happy to hear from him, and even more delighted about the date she’d set him up with. He had thought Tracie was really mad at him, and he’d been ready to do whatever it took to make peace. Although he’d loved this whirl of sexual activity, and had no intention of giving it up, he knew that he needed Tracie as a friend. In fact, she was his only close friend. She was also the only one who knew who he really was right now. And this Chick of the Universe sounded too good to be true, but Jon wasn’t even nervous. He had the concert tickets in his pocket, one of his new Armani shirts on, and the magic jacket, which seemed to do the trick. He hadn’t shaved since Monday, and he knew he looked good, because, although he still didn’t have the confidence to sit at the bar, he’d walked past it and several women had turned their heads to check him out.

Anyway, with Tracie back on board, he had his confidence back. She’d seemed so angry at Java, The Hut, but, though he still wasn’t sure exactly why, seeing her at her office had reassured him. She hadn’t apologized or anything, but maybe setting up this date was her way of making peace. Tracie wasn’t good at being
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wrong. And he didn’t need her to say “Sorry about that PMS episode” or “Too bad I took out my anger at Marcus on you” to make up. She’d acted normal
‌
—no, even nicer than normal
‌
—when he picked up the tickets. She’d even approved of his outfit and straightened his collar before she sent him on his way. So that was all right.

He didn’t have much interest in Radiohead
‌
—in fact, aside from
Karma Police,
he couldn’t remember ever listening to anything they’d recorded. But Tracie had briefed him on the Chick of the Universe’s passion for Thom Yorke, and Jon’s only regret was that he hadn’t had a chance to watch MTV to get a few of Yorke’s moves down. If he could copy James Dean, he could surely imitate Thom Yorke. This girl
‌
—for a frightening moment he couldn’t remember if she was Alexandra or Allison, but then he figured he’d call her Ali and be safe
‌
—would just have to settle for James Dean, the way the other ones had. He smiled slyly and shook his head. In a way, it was lucky he hadn’t known it was this easy; if he had, he probably would have flunked out of high school.

He sat at a bistro table, ordered a beer, and when it arrived, he began swigging it and waiting. He didn’t have a watch to check, but he was sure he was late. How late was she going to be? He wondered for a moment if he had the wrong restaurant, or if he’d been given the wrong information by Tracie. But no, this was the place, and what the hell: If Ali
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didn’t show up, he’d just call Ruth, or even Beth, and tell her he’d copped a couple of great tickets and ask her to go with him. And if he couldn’t reach one of them, he might actually approach the bar. There might be other girls there in love with Thom Yorke.

Bored, he picked up the menu. It was the usual bistro fare: fancy burgers,
pommes frites,
chicken paillard. He was just putting the menu down when he saw her. She was standing across the room, looking around. She wasn’t the Chick of the Universe. She was much more: She was an angel. Jon knew immediately that this was the woman Tracie had set him up with, and he blessed her in his heart. Every man and woman in the dining room paused to look at her. And then, as if in a dream, but also as inexorably as his own death, she moved slowly toward him. She was tall, and aside from her shoulders, she was very wispy. Her legs began at the floor and went on forever. Her hair was an indescribable silvery blond, and he would give his life to stroke it.

Be cool, he told himself. Neither Thom Yorke nor James Dean would even blink were she to join one of them. All of Tracie’s training flashed through his mind. He tightened his hand around his glass and forced himself to take another slow sip to steady himself.

“You must be Ali,” he said to her as she reached the table.

“Allison,” she said. Her eyes flicked up and down over him and he could feel her sizing him up. “You must be Jonny.”

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He nodded, because it was best not to talk again until he had control of his vocal chords. She was breathtaking, and there was something about her skin that reminded him of the perfectly smooth sheen of the screen on his new laptop. What do you talk about to a goddess? He found himself as tongue-tied as he’d ever been in the Micro/Con hallway with Samantha. God, he couldn’t afford a relapse now, not when the Chick of the Universe was sitting across from him. He was about to really fuck up and ask her how she liked working at the
Times,
or whether she’d majored in journalism, or what her horoscope sign was, when he remembered that he was not supposed to talk too much. He moved his jaw in the approved James Dean manner, picked up his beer, and sipped it again. He’d wait this one out.

And it was a good thing he did. Because although Allison must have been used to dozens
‌
—no, hundreds
‌
—of men trying to impress her and entertain her, she wasn’t used to silences except for those that she maintained. He was white-knuckled by the time she spoke, but that gave him time to slow his breathing and get himself back with the program.

“What do you do?” she asked.

“About what?” he responded, and her eyes blinked. Then she almost smiled. Her lips, which had been perfect in repose, were even more desirable when they opened. And her teeth! Ten thousand orthodontists dreamed
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of making a cast of teeth like that to show future clients.

They talked a little bit, and she wanted to know about his job, his family, what kind of car he drove, and a bunch of other desultory stuff. But while they talked, he realized he’d learned to play the stupid game so that he could graduate permanently to a woman like Allison. Why would you need any other woman if she wanted to wrap her arms around you, to put those lips against yours, to let you touch a square inch of her perfection?

As Jon sat across from Allison in the dim light of the bistro, he fielded her questions successfully but couldn’t get over how beautiful she was. This was the best score he’d had so far.

And then the waitress came over to get their dinner order. For a moment, Jon thought he’d just ignore the girl, who was only a dim shadow of Allison’s beauty. But something inside him spoke. He hadn’t planned it; it just happened. He was on automatic pilot! Jon found himself doing a double take and turning to Allison. “Doesn’t she have the most beautiful eyes you’ve ever seen?” he asked.

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The next morning, Tracie found herself humming as she walked down the corridor at the
Times.
She was early again, still in her coat and holding a paper bag with a cup of coffee and a muffin. Beth was in her cubicle, and she looked up. “Hi, Tracie,” she said as her friend breezed by, but Tracie knew she wouldn’t get off that easily. She stopped humming, aware that she was being followed down to her desk by Beth. She sighed. Well, soon all this would be over. Beth could become obsessed with someone else; soon she’d have her friend back, and things with Phil would go back to normal.

“Have you heard from him? Did she shoot him down?” Beth asked.

Tracie shrugged, though she knew that wouldn’t end the questioning.

“She shot him down, didn’t she? She’s such a fool!” Beth cried.

“Beth, I have more important things to do than track every blip in the love life of my friends,” Tracie told her. She took off her coat, hung it up, and sat down. Sara entered the room.

“Did you hear?” she asked.

“Hear what?” Tracie wanted to know.

“It’s about Allison. It’s something about Allison,” Beth said breathlessly.

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And then Sara smiled with the superior look of a person who has heard office gossip a minute before anyone else. Tracie shook her head and turned away, opening up her breakfast bag.

“Well, guess who just called in sick?” Sara asked.

“Marcus?” Tracie inquired. “Gee, I hope it isn’t hysticular cancer,” she said.