“It’s not fair; I try so hard.”
“To be a prick?”
“No. Not to—”
“I know. That was a joke. But see, maybe that’s the point: You try too hard and you’re . . . too nice.”
“How can you be too nice?”
“Jon, you’re already too nice. You’re too considerate. I mean, look at the data. Today, you visited your mom and all wicked stepmothers. You’re too nice.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jon told her.
“I know it doesn’t make sense to you,” Tracie agreed. “It doesn’t even make sense to us. And I don’t think we like to suffer. But I know we hate to be bored. Take Phil, for example: He fascinates me. He keeps my life so interesting.”
“He’s a bass player, for God’s sake,” Jon said, totally exasperated. “Dumber than dirt. And self-involved. And selfish. You call that interesting?” he asked, then realized he’d probably gone too far and maybe hurt her feelings.
Tracie only smiled. “You have something against guys who play four-stringed instruments or something?”
Jon calmed himself. “Not all. Just him. He’s not worthy.”
“But he’s so cute. And the sex!” She blushed.
Jon looked away. That was his punishment for going too far. There were some things he didn’t need to know. He sighed. “I’d give anything to be able to land chicks the way guys like Phil do. If I could just learn to get dumb. Or pretend to be selfish . . .” He paused. “Hey, Tracie, I’m getting an idea.”
“You always have ideas,” she said, getting up. “That’s why you’re the Intergalactic Alchemist of Cosmology Development and Systems Conception Worldwide, or whatever it is you are over there in Micro Land.”
“No. Not an idea like that,” Jon said, getting up to join her. She couldn’t leave yet. “I mean an idea about my life.”
“Great. Can we discuss this next week? I need to go to the supermarket.”
“For what? Panty hose?” Tracie hadn’t been inside a supermarket in years.
“No. For baking soda. And flour.”
“Are you doing a science project? Or is it something for your hair?”
“It’s to bake,” Tracie said, attempting a dignity she couldn’t quite achieve with him.
“Since when do you bake? And why do you need to at midnight?” Jon knew Tracie well enough to know that she thought the black thing in her kitchen with the door in the front was where you stored extra shoes. And he hoped to God she didn’t have buns in her oven. “Is this some trick to try to get Phil to turn over and play dead? Because your baking will kill him . . . not that that’s a bad thing.”
“I’m not going to dignify any of that with a response,” Tracie said, rising.
Jon got up, too. He didn’t want to show how desperate for company he was. And also he was interested in the mystery of Tracie’s new domesticity. Then it came to him. “It’s your friend, your friend Laura from San Antonio. Isn’t Laura a chef?”
“So what?” Tracie said as she shrugged into her jacket. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t know how to do things, too.”
“You know how to do a lot of things,” Jon agreed. “You’re a really good writer, a good friend, and you know how to dress. You’re great at picking out gifts for mothers. But baking . . .”
Tracie gave him a look. “She’s from Sacramento,” she corrected him, which was her way of acknowledging he was right.
Jon smiled. “I’ll help you grocery shop,” he offered.
“What? Don’t you have to work, or sleep? You always need to do one or the other. Anyway, it’s the most boring thing in the world.”
“Not to a man who offered to fold laundry and was turned down,” Jon pointed out. “I can push the cart for you.”
“If that’s what you want.” Tracie shrugged and started to walk away from the booth as Jon went through his pockets and hurriedly threw a twenty onto the table. Without turning around, Tracie spoke: “You’re overtipping again. See, your problem is that you’re just too nice.” Tracie shook her head as she wound her way through the deserted tables. “Women don’t want nice guys.”
Jon’s excitement was mounting. Exactly. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? It was perfect, a conception that came to him complete from beginning to end, as the Parsifal project had. He had to get Tracie to understand, to agree, and to make his vision a reality. But he was good at that. “See you next week,” Jon shouted to Molly, then caught up with Tracie as she walked through the door.
“So what’s your idea?” Tracie asked as she pulled a shopping cart from the corral. “If you’re planning another fake, on-line Girls of the Silicon Forest calendar, I’m out.”
“Come on, Tracie. I’m serious. I gotta make a change before I need Viagra.”
“Oh, don’t be so overly dramatic,” Tracie told him as they walked up the paper-goods and health-care products aisle. She looked him over with her peripheral vision as they panned the dairy counter. “Your sell-by date hasn’t expired. You’re good for another two or three years yet.”
“I’m not being dramatic. I’m being realistic.” He took a deep breath. He had to get her cooperation. “I want you to teach me to be a bad boy,” he said.
Tracie was about to pass the hair-care products when she stopped and turned around to look directly at Jon. “Huh?”
He felt his heart actually thumping against his ribs. He gulped down a breath. “I want you to train me to be the kind of guy that girls always go for. You know, the kind of guy you’re always going with. Phil. Before him, Jimmy. And you remember Roger? The skin-popper. He was really bad. And you were nuts about Roger.”
“You’re nuts,” Tracie said, and pushed the cart forward, leaving him behind her. She grabbed a bottle of Pert—a shampoo she’d never select if she wasn’t flustered—and Jon quickly caught up to her in the almost-deserted baking-supplies aisle.
“Please, Tracie. I really mean it.” He had to both calm her and create a wave of enthusiasm. He reminded himself that he knew how to build project teams.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would you want to be a bum? Anyway, it’s impossible. You could never act—”
“Yes, I could. I could if you would teach me.” Overcome objections, he told himself. Then enlist her talent. “Remember what a good student I was in school? Come on, Tracie. Look at it as a challenge, a way to use all the research you’ve gathered from those tattooed boyfriends of yours.” He observed her interest. Now, create desirable opposition. “Otherwise,” he said, as casually as he could, “Molly is right.”
At the mention of the waitress’s name, Tracie stopped again and turned to face him. “Right about what?” she asked, brusquely. Then she turned away to examine the flour.
“Repetition compulsion,” he explained, his heart beating hard. He’d hooked her. “You’ve just been repeating yourself for no reason for the last seven years. Wasting time. But if you could become an alchemist . . .”
She crouched down, reading the label on one of the lower flour sacks. “Who would have thought there were so many different kinds of flour?” she asked, a mere distraction technique he’d simply wait out. “Do you think she wants sifted bleached or sifted unbleached or unsifted unbleached or unsifted bleached?”
Jon remembered Barbara’s biscuits of fifteen hours earlier and grabbed the presifted bleached. “This kind,” he said, handing her the package. She stood up and accepted the bag. “So how ’bout it? Will you teach me?”
She shrugged, placed the flour in the cart, and began to move down the aisle. “Okay,” she admitted. “Maybe I can write a pretty good feature and blow-dry my hair on a rainy day in Seattle without getting frizz. But I can’t bake, and no one could teach you to be bad. You can’t be bad, so this can’t be serious.” She turned away.
Jon suddenly felt desperate. He imagined seeing Samantha at work the next morning and could hardly bear it. Plus, Tracie was right: It was much worse that he had called. What made him so unutte
rably stupid at times?
But despite her disclaimer, Tracie could help him, if only she would. She held the key, but she wouldn’t give it up. What kind of friend was that? He told himself he had to go for a strong close. He’d succeeded in getting million-dollar project allocations. He could do this. He grabbed her by the arm and spun her around, looking directly in her eyes. “I’ve never been more serious in my life. And you’re the only one who can help. You know all my dirty little habits and you’ve got your Ph.BB. You majored in Bad Boys all through college and you’re doing your graduate work at the Seattle Times.”
“Well, it would be a challenge, that’s for sure,” Tracie said, smiling at him. With affection. Yes! he cried to himself, though he didn’t let his victory show. Tracie raised her eyebrows and with them her last objection. “But why would any alchemist want to turn gold into lead?” she asked, and took his hand warmly.
“Because the gold really wanted to change,” Jon told her. “What if the gold begged the alchemist?” He knew, right away, he’d gone too far.
She let go of his hand. “I don’t think so, Jon. I love you just the way you are,” Tracie said, sounding just like his mother.
“Yeah, but no one else does,” he reminded her, but it was too late. She shrugged and again moved down the aisle.
“I couldn’t do it. Hey, did I say baking soda or baking powder?” she asked, looking at dozens of each stacked neatly on the shelf.
“You said soda,” he told her. “And you could make me over if you wanted to.”
Tracie paused. He hoped she was considering the project, but after another minute she shook her head. “I think I have to get baking soda. But maybe it was baking powder.”
Jon sighed. “What’s the difference?” he asked, dispirited.
“You use them for different things.”
“Duh. And what would those things be?” he asked. He was angry with her and he wasn’t going to let her get away with anything. “And how are they different?”
“Baking powder makes cakes rise.”
“I can read cans, too, Tracie,” he told her. “So what about baking soda?”
“Well, you can brush your teeth with it and you put it in your refrigerator to deodorize it.”
“And your friend from Santa Barbara forgot her Crest or was knocked over by the odor of your Frigidaire?”
Tracie gave him a look, then shrugged and threw both products into the cart. She turned toward the front of the store and marched away. Jon followed her. He wouldn’t give up on this brainstorm. He hadn’t gotten where he was at Micro/Con without persistence. Maybe humor would work. He crouched down, holding on to the cart handle, and began begging, the way kids beg their mothers for stuff in all stores. “Please? Please will you? Please? Come on. I’ll do anything. I promise.”
Tracie glanced around, clearly embarrassed. “Get up!” she hissed. He knew she hated public scenes and was counting on it. “Jon, you have a great apartment, a terrific job, and you’re going to be rich—as soon as you cash in your Micro stock options.” She tried to ignore the old woman with a basket over her arm and the tall young man with a cart full of beer. “Get up,” she repeated. “There have been plenty of girls who liked you.”
He didn’t get up. “But not that way,” he whined. “It’s never that way. Women want me as a friend, or a mentor, or a brother.” He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Bitterness didn’t sell projects. Anyway, Tracie was one of those girls, foremost among them, but he didn’t need to say so.
“Come on. Stand up,” she begged again. “People are looking.” Actually, the two had wandered off and now there was only a clerk, who wasn’t looking, because he was too busy affixing price labels directly onto grapefruits. Tracie left him. Fine. He’d use her embarrassment against her. He could make it work for him. Tracie pushed the cart to the checkout line at the front of the store. Good—there were lots of people around. Jon helped Tracie put the groceries on the conveyor belt. Still on his knees, he whined loudly, “I want interesting girls. The hot girls. But they all want bad boys.”
“Get up,” she hissed. “You’re exaggerating.” Unfortunately, it was too late for a crowd to gather. He’d have to use his trump card: her innate honesty.
“Come on, Tracie. You know it’s true.”
“Well . . .”
The cashier finally stared at the two of them. Then she shrugged and totaled the purchases. Tracie fished in her bag for the money. Jon sighed, stood up, and looked blankly at the rack of tabloids and women’s magazines. His knees were hurting. Begging was hard work. Then he noticed a GQ magazine. Some young movie star was on the cover, one who had recently dumped his girlfriend, publicly, on TV, right before the Oscars. Jon looked back at Tracie and pointed at the magazine cover. “I want to look like one of those kind of guys,” he said.
“It’s not just about looks,” Tracie told him, picking up her bag. “You’re good-looking . . . in a nice-guy kinda way.”
He took the bag from her and the two of them began to walk out. “Right. And that guy doesn’t look nice. He looks hot. He didn’t take his stepmoms out on Mother’s Day.” He turned back around and pointed to the guy on the cover. “What did he just do? You know.”
Tracie glanced at the magazine and shrugged. “He just told his new girlfriend that he’d like to see other people,” she told him, and walked out the exit.
Jon followed her. “I could do that! If I had a girlfriend. And if you’d help me,” he pleaded. “Look at it as your dissertation.” He ran back, grabbed the magazine as a reference point, threw a five-dollar bill on the counter, and raced after Tracie. “You’re an expert,” he told her. “Only you could distill all the rotten behavior that you found so adorable and inject me with it.”
Tracie was at the door of her car, fumbling with the keys. She took the bag from him, opened her door, and got in. “Forget this, would you?” she requested. “You’re just having a larger dose of your weekly Sunday self-hate than usual. You’ll be fine tomorrow.”
“Yeah. When I see Samantha,” he agreed glumly. “That will make me feel real fine.”
“Oh, Jon, just get on your bicycle and go home,” Tracie told him, so he did.
Chapter 8
Tracie’s one-bedroom apartment was sunny, long, and narrow. It wasn’t exactly small, but the kitchen consisted only of a sink, a half-size refrigerator, and an old black gas oven—which she did keep her extra shoes in. Now, for privacy, a temporary screen concealed one end of the place, a “guest room,” so that Laura could have some privacy. Other than the cot, screen, and sofa, the only other real piece of furniture Tracie had in the living room was a desk covered with notes and photos and Post-its for article ideas. In fact, the whole apartment was covered with Post-it notes stuck on various surfaces.
Now at almost 2:00 A.M., after her day of sex with Phil and weird late-night breakfast with Jon, she was exhausted. She entered the place as quietly as she could. But Laura was up, busy with mixing bowls and cookie sheets. And—to Tracie’s complete surprise—Phil was there, too, lying on the sofa and strumming his bass guitar. He looked over at Tracie. “What took you so long? I blew off a rehearsal to be here. Plus, Bobby would have bought me free drinks because he just got his tax refund.”
Before she could answer, Laura responded, protective as usual. “It sucks to be you,” she told Phil cheerfully.
Tracie tried to ignore Phil. Phil was odd, and in some ways adorable. He showed his affection like this, by turning up because he missed her but not being able to admit it. Every time it happened Tracie got a kick out of it. He looked sexy, stretched out there, but he knew it, so she’d act cool. “What are you doing?” she asked Laura, who was cracking two eggs at a time into a bowl.
“Welding a crankshaft.”
‘You’re cooking something, aren’t you?” Phil said, as if he’d just discovered DNA.
“Not cooking. I’m baking,” Laura told him. She smiled at Tracie. “Did you get th
e baking soda?” Tracie nodded. Back in Encino, a weekend had never gone by without both brownies and sugar cookies. Laura baked from scratch, even back then. Tracie’s only contribution had been licking the bowl.
“My mother used to bake,” Phil offered. “Chickens, hams.”
Laura rolled her eyes, then took a tray of cookies out of the oven. She lifted up one and gestured toward Phil. “Stupid want a cookie?” she asked with a cheery smile.
Tracie couldn’t believe it. She waited for Phil’s scowl, but instead he merely held out his hand. Tracie watched, amazed. Maybe the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach.
“Wow!” Phil said as he sucked down the sugar cookie. “These are amazing!”
“Yeah. Fat and sugar can be a really powerful mood elevator,” Laura said. “I’m hooked.” She patted her hip.
Tracie hated the way she put herself down. “Laura, what’s the difference between baking soda and baking powder?” Tracie asked.
“I know that,” Phil offered. “One’s a liquid and one’s not. Easy.”
Laura snorted. “Oddly enough, baking soda is not fizzy and you do not drink it through a straw,” Laura told him. She turned back to Tracie. “You know, baking soda is like cream of tartar. You don’t have to use them often, but when you need them nothing else will do. Boy, at Easter, I could have sold my supply of cream of tartar for more than you’d get for crack cocaine. The housewives of Sacramento were frantic.”
Tracie smiled. She’d forgotten how odd, how unique Laura’s humor was. Who else but Laura would be able to create a sentence combining crack and cream of tartar together.
“Cleanup time!” Laura announced, but Phil just picked up another cookie. Tracie shrugged. Phil didn’t clean up his own place. Laura began to wash dishes, so Tracie covered and finished putting away the last of the ingredients.
“What took you so long?” Phil asked her, wiping crumbs from his mouth.
Tracie moved Laura over by hitting her gently with her hip and washed her hands. “It was the weirdest night. Jon asked if I could do a makeover on him.”
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