Well, it was easier to join her than to lick her. “Molly, could you help out here?” Tracie asked. “Pretend you’re a waitress.”
“Sure, luv. If you’ll stop pretending to tip.” Molly stood up even taller, straightened her shoulders, and pushed out her sizable chest. In a tiny voice, she said, “My name is Molly. I’ll be your waitperson this evening. Our specials are vegetable lasagna and veal Parmesan and our water is tap. Can I get you a beverage to start?”
Jon laughed. That irritated Tracie. After all, she was taking this on as a serious project. And why did Molly always flirt with Jon? And why did he seem to enjoy it so much? She was way too old and—men! Tracie just dismissed the whole unworthy thing. “I’ll have a mochaccino, please,” Jon said.
Tracie gave him a thumbs-down. “No. From now on, you drink only beer, bourbon, or coffee—black.”
Molly’s brows went up again.
“I hate black coffee!” Jon protested.
“Not as much as you hate being dateless,” Tracie reminded him.
“Check and mate,” Jon agreed, and he turned to look up at Molly, shrugged, and made a face. “I’ll have a beer.”
“Can we see your ID?” Molly asked, to Tracie’s horror. Jon actually began to reach for his wallet when Molly added, “Just joking!”
Tracie felt ready to cry. Or laugh. Jon getting carded on a date, oh God! She looked at him. You know, it’s possible. She sighed. “I’ll have one, too. Need my ID?” she asked Molly.
“Dream on, darling. So would these be pretend beers or real ones?”
“I’ll spring for real,” Jon told her.
“As you like it,” Molly said, and moved off toward the bar, to Tracie’s relief. But she kept eyeing the menu.
“Now, on to menu etiquette,” Tracie began. “You’re at the table, looking over the menu.” She demonstrated. “She orders veal Parmesan. What do you do?”
“Tell her how they actually raise veal?”
“No! None of your political rants,” Tracie warned.
“Okay. Okay. That was a pop quiz, right? I failed,” Jon admitted. “Let me try again.” He paused, thought it over, and started by lowering his voice to a basso profundo. “I say, ‘Sounds good. I’ll have that, too.’ ”
Tracie looked at him, clearly frustrated. She shook her head. “No, you don’t. You look at her hard, raise your eyebrows, and say, ‘Geez, are you really going to get that? Isn’t that a little . . . rich for you?’ ”
Jon stared at her blankly for a moment, as if waiting for a bell to ring. “Why would I say that?” he asked.
“To set the tone. To put her at the disadvantage. To tell her you’ve already thought of her thighs. To make her begin to think her thighs might not be good enough for you.”
“All that happens when I say veal is ‘rich’?” Jon asked, his voice almost a squeak.
“Sure,” Tracie told him. “Women—all women in this country anyway—think they’re too fat. Every mouthful they take is accompanied by guilt. Use it.”
Molly arrived with two beers and two empty plates. “I’ve been listening to you two. Let me try to get this straight. Right now, I’m a real waitress bringing real beers, but I’m also pretending to be a waitress and I’m bringing pretend food, but not veal Parmesan.” Molly put two empty plates in front of them. She looked at Tracie. “Kafka didn’t ’ave a patch on you.”
“Ignore her,” Tracie commanded. “Now, what do you say to the waitress?”
Jon hesitated. “Nothing. You just told me to ignore her.”
“I meant ignore Molly,” Tracie said, totally frustrated. She wished Molly would stop with those flying eyebrows and go away. “This is what you do with the pretend waitress: You say, ‘Wait a minute. Stand right there.’ Then you say to your date, ‘Doesn’t she have the most beautiful eyes you’ve ever seen?’ ”
“It’s ’igh time you noticed them,” Molly agreed.
Jon stared at Tracie as if she’d just told him to go down on a duck or something. “Wait a minute. You’re telling me to compliment my date’s eyes to the waitress?”
Impatiently, Tracie shook her head. “No. No! I’m telling you to compliment the waitress’s eyes to your date. This will either really irritate the shit out of her or fascinate her. Or both.” She paused in her tutelage and thought about it for a moment. “Anyway, women often can’t tell the difference between the two.”
“I can,” Molly volunteered.
Tracie slapped her forehead. “Okay. Molly can. But you’re not dating Molly.” Tracie wished Molly would go away once and for all. She wasn’t as self-conscious about her advice when she was alone with Jon. But in front of Molly, it seemed absurd. “So,” she continued, “I’m talking about normal women. Now we’re going to cover the fine art of complimenting.” Tracie stopped for a moment to jot “Compliments” on her Post-it.
“Why can’t I take notes on this?” Jon whined.
“Because only hosers take notes,” Tracie snapped. She ought to tell him about her idea for a feature, but . . . well, maybe later.
“But you’re—”
“Look, just concentrate.”
“But there’s so much.”
Tracie had to agree with that. Oh, I’ll never win this bet, she thought. “Okay, to begin, it’s actually easier for us to cover what you don’t say. So, for a starter, never tell a girl she has pretty eyes.”
“Why?” Molly asked, and, to Tracie’s dismay, she sat down in a booth behind them, preparing to stay.
“Everyone tells girls they have pretty eyes,” Tracie told Jon. “Who doesn’t have pretty eyes? Calves have pretty eyes.”
“Yeah, well you don’t think about that when you eat veal, do you?” Jon demanded.
“Would you give the veal a rest?” Tracie fumed. “The point is, pick out something small, a tiny detail. That’s what gets them.”
Jon thought for a moment or two. She watched him, holding her breath, hoping for a good one. But his face remained confused. “Like what?” he finally asked.
Tracie exhaled with exasperation. “Be creative. You do it all day at work. It’s what you’re good at.”
“Yeah,” Molly interjected. “And didn’t you take Creative Complimenting at university?”
Thank goodness Jon ignored Molly and focused on Tracie. She stared right back into his eyes, which were actually a really pretty light brown—and his lashes were so long. Tracie wondered, not for the first time, why long lashes were so often wasted on men. Her boyfriend in high school had had lashes just like Jon’s. The first time they necked, he had given her butterfly kisses all over her face with them. Funny. She hadn’t thought of Gregg or that in years. He’d been so sweet, not at all like Phil.
“Just help me with this a little. Nudge me in a direction,” Jon was saying. “Like, should I say, ‘Mighty nice pair of incisors you’ve got there’?”
“And they’ll bite the ’and that feeds, them, luv.” Molly warned.
“That’s the general idea, but . . . I don’t know.” She sighed. “Look, you have to develop a feeling for it. Pick out a single feature. Her eyebrows, her cuticles.”
“Cuticles? What’s up with that?” he asked.
He watched as Tracie got a kind of dreamy look on her face. “This guy back in high school—my boyfriend Gregg—once told me I had beautiful cuticles. I had no idea what he was talking about. But that he noticed was so . . . so attentive.” She sort of shook her head, then looked at Jon. “It was hot.”
Molly extended her own hands, examined them, and then looked at Tracie’s. “You know, I ’ate to admit it,” Molly said, “but you do ’ave beautiful cuticles.” She looked at Jon. “She’s good,” she admitted. “Sick as a parrot, but good.”
Tracie smiled. “That’s it. It’s time for video.”
“At this hour? Tracie, I can’t watch movies. I’ve got a world of work to do.”
“It’s part of your training,” Tracie told him. And she was up and out, leav
ing him to pay the bill and to follow once again.
Chapter 15
After midnight, the Seattle night was soft. The air felt heavy with moisture, as it so often did, but the mild temperature left it Skin-So-Soft. It was the time of night where you either gave in to fatigue or got a second wind and went out to party. But work loomed. “Come on,” she said, and quickened her pace.
“Come on, you,” Jon said. In the light that spilled out from the big windows of Java, The Hut, he already looked much improved. She couldn’t help but be proud of her handiwork. If you believed the Bible literally, it had taken God six days to make the world. He must have been a man, because look at what a single woman could remake in just a few evening hours: Jon stood, his feet widely spread on the damp pavement, his arms thrust down and out from his body. He might still have the posture of a dork, but not the look of one. Tracie knew Jon was five eleven—and probably the only man in America who was five eleven and didn’t cheat and say six feet—but now he looked tall. Her decision on the clothes had made him all vertical lines. His jeans, his chest-hugging T-shirt, the length of his jacket—all moved your eye up as if he were a long dark column. The only horizontal was the line of his shoulders. Thank God he had shoulders. And the jacket’s subtle padding gave him a little more shoulder than what he had.
Too bad about the head. Not that he was ugly, but the haircut, the glasses, even the way he sort of hunched his head forward, as if he wanted his face to get somewhere before the rest of his body, spoiled her work. He needed swoopy hair as well as the pants thing. Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day, she told herself, giving God a little more credit and herself a little more time. Jon, of course, didn’t have a clue that she was admiring him. She’d have to change that about him, too. The man seemed to have no radar receptors at all. What did he think she was doing while she stood on the damp sidewalk staring at him? Meditating? Mentally reviewing a recipe for quiche?
“Come on, you,” he repeated. “I’m going home.”
“No, no,” Tracie said, slightly raising her voice. “Just one more thing.”
Jon shook his head. “Tracie, I appreciate all your efforts and I’m really grateful, but I just don’t think I can take one more bit of criticism tonight,” he told her.
She had to laugh. “Don’t worry. We’re just going to take a walk, and I’m going to give you your homework assignment.”
“More homework?” Jon asked, his voice almost breaking. “Tracie, I left work before seven. I don’t think I’ve done that since I joined Micro/Con. That’s considered a half day there. Plus, I usually work for a couple of hours at home. Which I obviously haven’t done, but it’s waiting for me. A few days ago, in the kindest possible way, you and every salesgirl in the greater Seattle area laughed at my shoes, my hair, my eyeglasses, and my underwear. I spent more money in three hours than I’ve spent in the last three years, and that includes when I bought my condo. And now . . .” There was a quiver in his voice that Tracie couldn’t quite figure. Either it was real fatigue, real pique, or a really good put-on. “And now you tell me there’s going to be homework?”
Instead of answering him, Tracie began walking down the sidewalk. She figured that before she got to the corner, he’d join up with her, and, sure as death and taxes, he was there—unlike Phil, who was always looking for any opportunity to cut and run, and who probably wouldn’t even be home when she called him. In fact, she reflected as Jon somewhat sulkily matched her stride, Phil could absolutely be counted on not to be counted on.
All at once, she was flooded with affection for Jon and his dependability, his doglike devotion. She took his leather-clad arm, squeezed it, and they walked in silence for a few moments. “Are you taking me to be pierced?” he asked in a very small voice. “Please say no.”
Tracie laughed and turned them toward the doorway of Downtown Video. “Here we are,” she said. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
“Yeah. When I was a kid, that’s what my dentist used to say just before he hit the soft, pulpy nerve. Speaking of which, why are we going in here? Did you just realize Phil can’t live without yet another viewing of Pulp Fiction?”
“Yeah. I want to freeze-frame poor Marvin’s brain splat, like before The Bonnie Situation, the way your nerdy pals do.” She disdainfully walked past the usual browsers gathered around the new releases.
Jon, newly energized, caught up with her in front of the suspense section. “Hey, that’s not fair. My nerds have just gotten into My Dinner with Andre. Victor is trying to create a My Dinner with Andre video game.”
Tracie laughed again and headed to the classics. Downtown Video was no Blockbuster: Here, the classics did not include Rocky or even the original Die Hard. The collection was as quirky as Mr. Bill, the legend who owned the place. Occasionally, he refused to rent videos to the undeserving. He also prescribed them like medicine, or—in extreme cases—performed interventions. “These are good movies but bad life lessons,” he’d said once. “In the book, Holly ends up in the middle of Africa. And the George Peppard character is gay.” He’d made her read the novel, and told her she could take out the video only once a year. He also cut her off from her favorite—Love with the Proper Stranger. “She should have had the abortion,” he’d said. “Anyway, the Steve McQueen character will abandon her in about eight months and she’ll have to raise the kid alone.” “How do you know?” she’d asked, angry. “Because I was the Steve McQueen character,” Mr. Bill had said more angrily than Tracie was ready for. “Look at me now. A lonely fuck without a family, a son I never met, and a video store.” She’d never rented the movie again.
“Tracie, if you rent GQ’s Guide to Debonair Sophisticates, I’m going to shoot myself right here,” Jon said.
“You’d need a gun to do that,” she reminded him, then swiftly selected three videos and marched over to the counter. Jon followed her. She reached for his video card. This might be a long rental. He handed it to her as meekly as he had handed over his other charges and she passed it on to the clerk.
Mr. Bill, busy with restocking, looked up. “Oh. Someone is having a James Dean retrospective,” he said. He looked over at Tracie and Jon. “And it looks like Natalie and James themselves.” Tracie smiled. It wasn’t a bad thing to be compared to Natalie Wood. Mr. Bill then opened the boxes suspiciously.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “Love with the Proper Stranger is still on the shelf.”
“You’re not doing Out of Africa again, are you?” Mr. Bill asked sternly. He shook his head and looked over at Jon. “Looks like you found Mr. Trouble anyway,” he said disapprovingly.
Tracie looked over at Jon and then couldn’t restrain the widest of smiles. What success! Mr. Bill—aging bad boy, font of all wisdom, the purveyor of movies, truths, and practical cosmologies—actually thought that Jon was a troublemaker! “Don’t worry about a thing,” she said to Mr. Bill as she picked up the bag and led Jon out by the arm.
She was really pleased with her work so far. As they walked back toward Tracie’s car and Jon’s bicycle, she swung the bag full of the videos. “What was all that about?” Jon asked her.
“Not important,” she said, suddenly stopping to survey him. “Okay, stand against that light pole and lean on the bench. Let me take a picture.” She pulled out her little camera and peered through the lens. Wow! This would be great in the paper. Was she crazy to think of it as a book cover? “You look pretty good,” she told him.
“I do?”
Tracie didn’t respond. All of this would be great material for the article. She’d have to remember to jot it all down. “Okay,” she said. “Look like you have attitude.”
“Any specific attitude?” he asked. “Or is arrogant condescension the entire library?”
“Give it your best shot,” she said. Jon posed, his foot up on the bench. Tracie snapped a picture. Just to be safe, she took another. Seen through the viewfinder, he looked even better. You couldn’t observe the uncertainty in his eyes,
or the irony he wore the clothes with. But, she reminded herself, this project wasn’t all for her. He had to figure out how to get himself a girl. All he needed was a little confidence. She threw the camera into her purse and moved closer to him. “Now we’re going to practice the look.” Tracie indicated the seat. Jon took it and she sat beside him. She stared into his face. “Now, you have nice eyes.”
“Really? You never told me that.”
“Well, you do,” she assured him. “But you’ve got to use them.” She waited for a minute, trying to think how to tell him in a way that wouldn’t embarrass her but would be effective. “You have to learn how to make them smolder. Remember Al Pacino?”
“I always confuse him and De Niro,” Jon admitted. “Look, growing up, my mom and I would watch stuff like Steel Magnolias. I missed a lot of the mob films.” He paused. “Was Pacino Sonny or the young Don?”
“He was Michael, who had to kill Fredo. God! You are weird. All guys know that!” She sighed. “Roger used to watch The Godfather every night before he went to sleep. It’s kind of a guy’s bedtime story.” She thought of those nights with Roger while she lay beside him, lonely because he was more involved with the Corleones than he would ever be with her. “Anyway, remember how Pacino used to stare at the Sicilian girl?” Jon probably didn’t, but she figured he was afraid to admit it. “You have to look at me, or any woman you want, with a single stare that conveys your entire proposal.”
“Didn’t we already practice that?”
“Yeah, this may be the most important thing you’ll learn. So . . .”
“What do you mean? Right here? Right now?”
“Right here, right now. On a greater Seattle transit bench. Just focus and look at me.”
Jon stared up at the streetlight. She followed his glance and watched the mist that wavered across its luminous surface, creating a watermark in the very air. I might get old here, she reflected, but I’ll never wrinkle. Jon continued staring at the misty light. “I’m asking you to direct this staring at me,” she finally reminded him.
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