Bad Boy (36 page)

It was a short ride on empty streets, but it felt as if it took a week to get home. She was exhausted, as if she had run all the way. When she finally reached her house, she parked quickly and got out of the car, slammed the door, and ran through the rain to her building entrance.

Jon had gotten back to his place after he left his father waiting for the bus. He had hardly been able to climb the stairs to his loft, his knees had been so weak. If he had never liked the image of his father as a carefree womanizer, the image of him as a pathetic, regretful, sick man was no better. Jon had managed to walk in the door without crying, only to find Allison still lying on his sofa in nothing but his one remaining Micro/Con T-shirt. She was watching TV. He had to cover his shock,
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because he had completely forgotten she’d still be at his place.

“Where have you been?” she asked unreproachfully. And he had to endure chitchat and a bunch of questions about his job, how long he’d been at Micro/Con, whether he had stock options, and what his relationship with the founders was. He wasn’t even able to lie, based on Tracie’s rules. He just tried his best to be civil until she moved toward the bedroom. Then, when she bent over to pick up a shoe, he felt himself rising to the occasion, and he went to her for the only comfort she knew how to offer.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Allison said with a smirk.

Well, maybe once for the road, Jon thought, and looked at his wrist. He still didn’t have a watch, so he glanced at the clock on the other side of the bed. Shamefully, the reality of his father was erased by the drug of Allison’s body and he used it hard, losing himself in an exhausting encounter. It blanked out everything, and for that, he was grateful. Shakespeare had gotten it wrong: It wasn’t music that had the charms to soothe the savage breast. It was the horizontal two-step. But once he awoke from the postcoital drowse, the image of his father lifting his hat to scratch his bristled scalp came right back. Some Father’s Day. And then he remembered that it was Sunday night and tomorrow he had Parsifal and the progress meeting to
‌
—My God! Tracie! He sat up as if powered by a 1K-megahertz chip. He was almost forty minutes late already.

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He jumped from the bed and began to dress in a frenzy.

“Where are you going?” Allison asked in a sleepy voice.

“I . . . uh . . . I just remembered,” he began. What could he say? I just remembered I forgot my friend? I just remembered I have to meet another woman? I just remembered I don’t want to make love to you? “I . . . uh . . . left my clothes in the dryer,” he told her lamely as he slid his right foot into his shoe and grabbed his sweater. He ran for the door.

“Wait!” Allison called out. “When will . . .”

He was jiggling with the lock and the chain that was across the door, so he couldn’t hear what she’d said. Tracie would be enraged! He couldn’t believe it. In seven years, he hadn’t missed one time . . . nor had she. Well, except for his emergency appendectomy. He threw the dead bolt, turned the knob the other way, and finally got the door open.

“When will I see you again?” Allison asked from the bedroom door. She had the sheet wrapped loosely around her, one pink nipple just peeking over the top, her hair a tumbled blond sheet over her shoulders. Allison stopped and put her hands on her waist. “You’re such a dick,” she said.

Jon blinked, once, twice, then three full times as he let the words sink in. “I am?” he asked, his voice delighted with enthusiasm. She looked like a goddess. A goddess he had worshiped with his body. Jon shook his head. Amazing! Amazing!

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“I’ll call you,” he said. Tracie was waiting; he really had to go. He was out the door, down the stairs, and out in the wet in a moment.

He was lucky. Unbelievably, a cab was passing. He hailed it. He was already damp, but he settled into the backseat. “Java, The Hut, on Canal,” he told the driver. “Hurry!”

There was a clock on the dashboard. It was even later than he thought. What would he do if Tracie had already left? Well, he had left his bike in the alley back at Java, The Hut. He’d take it, bike over to her apartment, or, failing that, bike up and down the streets until he found her and apologized.

Somehow, he thought that might not work. Not because he wouldn’t be able to find her, but because she wouldn’t accept the apology. She’d probably been subjected to forty-six solid minutes of taunting from Molly, the Manchester Menace. He cringed, thinking of what Molly might say to Tracie if she had the opportunity to get her alone.

He had a feeling she might be enraged, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d torched Java, The Hut as well as anything else that annoyed her right now. When the cab slowed down near the coffee shop, Jon didn’t wait for the car to come to a complete stop. He threw money on the front seat and thanked the driver as he jumped from the moving vehicle. He ran around the back of the taxi and flung open the door. He looked toward the table that he and Tracie always sat at. As he glanced
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around the room, he saw Laura in the kitchen doorway and Molly sitting down at a booth.

What was Laura doing here? Was Tracie so angry at him that she’d refused to come? Maybe he wasn’t late; maybe he was being stood up by Tracie. Or, a best-case scenario, she was in the bathroom or checking up on Phil on the phone. He approached Molly, who was picking at a plate of scrambled eggs. He grabbed her arm. She looked up at him, her face expressionless, but he knew immediately what had happened.

“She was here, right?” he asked Molly, his heart dropping.

“Right,” Molly said, and went back to her plate of scrambled eggs.

He couldn’t believe it. He’d broken years of tradition. He felt sick to his stomach and more than a little frantic. “Molly, I’m a jerk and I know it,” he admitted. “You know it. But please, do you know if she went to my house or back to hers?”

Molly shrugged. “Actually, I don’t know,” she told him. “She doesn’t really confide in me.”

Laura had ambled over from the kitchen. He turned to her. “Please, Laura,” was all he said.

“I didn’t see her go, but I’d guess she headed toward your place,” Laura offered. “And she borrowed a knife,” she added.

Jon didn’t know if she was joking or not, but he didn’t care. “I’m getting my bike,” he told Molly, and turned and ran through the restaurant, literally jumping over backs of empty booths. He ran through the kitchen, almost
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upsetting a tray of scones. Outside the back door, his bike was leaning against the railing, where he had locked it up. He dropped the key in his haste and then fumbled with the padlock. When he finally got it off, he turned the bike around and pedaled down the wet cobblestones of the alley and out into the street. The rain hit him full then and he hunched his head against it as he turned toward his building.

It was a long, cold ride, and without his poncho, he was drenched to the skin long before he got home. But he wasn’t cold. He was actually sweating, both from fear and exertion. He
had
to catch her before she left. When he pulled up to the front of his building, he was short of breath, but he had to manage the fucking stairs. So he galloped up them two at a time to get to Tracie faster. He was gasping as he opened the fire door to his hallway and his heart was thumping hard against his chest wall. It felt as if it skipped a beat when he saw the hallway was empty. She was gone, and if he could find her, she’d be even more furious. As he approached his door, he realized she was furious already. He saw the Post-it spectacular and, without reading it, spun around and ran down the stairs.

At the foot of the staircase, he grabbed his bicycle, cursed himself for not having a car, and maneuvered it through the doorway and back out into the rain.

He began hating everything about himself and his life. Why did he have to be born in
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Seattle and still live there, a place where it always rained? And why was he so stubborn? How come he had never bought a car? Adults have cars. And how could he be so stupid as to have forgotten his appointment with Tracie?

He always felt as if Tracie were an orphan. He was her family. Her mother was dead and her father was as good as. She had been waiting for him while he had been lying beside a naked stranger. In all the years and with all the boyfriends that Tracie had had, she had never
‌
—not once
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—skipped their Sunday appointment. What would he do if she hadn’t gone home? Would she have gone to Phil’s? Did he know Phil’s exact address? He couldn’t remember it, if he had ever known it.

The rain was dripping down his face, falling off his chin and onto his chest. The downpour had gotten more intense, and the visibility had worsened. He was only a block from her house. He pedaled harder and then saw the brake lights of a car only a few feet in front of him. He swerved to avoid it, realizing that it had pulled over to the curb because of the downpour. That was close, he thought. I’d better be more careful. He couldn’t afford not to make it to Tracie’s.

Just as he came around the corner of Tracie’s street, he saw her car pulling into the parking space and he watched her get out. He threw his bike down. It splashed into a puddle, but he didn’t care. He began to run toward her. “Tracie! Tracie!” he shouted, but either she didn’t hear or she was purposely ignoring him.

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Tracie had run into her building, but she’d still gotten drenched. Now she shivered as she stood in front of her door, fumbling with her keys. She had to hurry. She’d heard Jon call out to her and she’d seen him out of the corner of her eye as she’d run into the lobby, but she didn’t want to see him like this
‌
—or maybe ever. She just wanted to get into her place, lock the door behind her, crawl into bed, and never get out. But her hands were shaking, and Jon stepped off the elevator and came up behind her before she could get in.

“Tracie . . .” he said, but she ignored him and continued to try to get the door unlocked. Jon moved closer to her. He was even wetter than she was, but she would not turn around, even when she felt his chest pushing against her back. He reached out for her hand, but she slapped him away. How dare he touch her?

She got the door open and tried to push herself in, leaving him out in the hall, but he was too fast for her and managed to get his shoulder into the doorway. “Go away,” Tracie said, still keeping her puffy red face averted. “Get out!”

“Tracie, you have every right to be angry, but you have to
‌
—”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Tracie said.

“But l
‌
—”

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She turned to face him. What did she care? Let him see how bad she looked. He meant nothing to her. “Did you have your appendix out again?” she asked him as viciously as she could. “That would be the only acceptable excuse.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?” he asked.

“No,” she said, and tried to close the door on his shoulder.

“Ouch!” He sucked air in through his teeth and pushed the door open.

“Don’t come in here,” she warned him. “You’re not welcome.” She looked around behind her. Where were Laura and Phil when she needed them? “You hurt me. Really hurt me,” Tracie said.

“I’m sorry. I never meant to,” Jon said, trying to console her.

“Who was with you?” she asked. “Beth? Was it another pity fuck? Or was it Ruth? If you were Ruthless, it must have been Carole in from San Francisco.” She turned her back on him and walked toward the sink. She was still hiccuping. A woman had no dignity when she was hiccuping. “Oh, or maybe you were doing Enid. I’m sure it was very aerobic.” She hiccuped again, filled a glass with water at the sink, and was about to gulp it down, when he answered her.

“It was Allison, actually,” he said, “but I saw my
‌
—” Before she could even think about it, she had thrown the water across the kitchen and into his already-drenched face. Jon choked and
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put a hand up as if warding off a blow. They both stood there, frozen for a moment. “I deserve that,” he said. “I know I’ve behaved badly. But don’t act as if you have no part in it.”

“Oh, go ahead and blame me,” she said. “Next, you’ll rape someone and tell them that they asked for it.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Let go of me,” she said as she tried to pull away.

“Not until you talk to me. Not until you calm down and listen and talk to me.”

“Go talk to Allison,” Tracie spat out at him. She tried to pull away, but his hands were too strong. She just couldn’t bear it. She was so disappointed, and so angry, and so ashamed that she turned her head away, covered her face, and began to cry.

Then Jon softened his grip and cradled her in his arms and
‌
—at last
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—as if he had been waiting for years to do it, he kissed her gently and then wildly, passionately. At first, momentarily shocked, Tracie struggled, but then she kissed him back. It was heaven. It was . . . everything. She began to shiver. Jon left her mouth and kissed her face, then licked the tears that still clung to her lashes. His own lashes were wet with rain, and at last she felt them against her cheek and brushing her lips and her brow. Then he found her mouth again with his own.

Her shivering increased and she couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or the heat. His wet clothes were pressed against hers, but she could feel the heat of his body through them.
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She couldn’t think, only feel, and this felt so natural, and at the same time so extraordinary, so unexpected. Then anything resembling thought was completely gone. “You’re cold,” he said, holding her face in both his hands. “Don’t you know enough to come in out of the rain?”

“I don’t know anything,” she whispered, and nestled her head against his chest. She was surprised but grateful when he picked her up, carried her to the bedroom, and took off her wet jacket and shirt. Tenderly, he wrapped the coverlet around her shoulders. “You’re shaking, too,” she said.