His other messages were from George and some of his own staff members. All the news was bad. Jon was almost finished with the lot when there was a new woman’s voice on the phone. “Hi, this is Ruth. We met at REI. Remember?”
Jon’s eyes widened as he stared at the machine. How could I forget? he thought. “I hope you’re okay,” she was saying. “You know, I panicked on a climb myself. Anyway, if you’d like to get together and have a cup of coffee or something, I’d like to see you. I hope you don’t mind if I don’t leave my number. I’ll just call you back later.”
Holy shit! Jon was too shocked to listen to the rest of his messages. He couldn’t believe it. Tracie wasn’t just smart; she was the Goddess of Love. He would have to call her, despite his embarrassment, and he’d have to ask her what to do about Beth and Ruth. Maybe he didn’t have to see Beth again. He could just move on to Ruth. After all, she’d called him. That might make it even easier. Of course, he didn’t want to hurt Beth, but he figured he didn’t have much in common with a Seattle club girl. Not that there was going to be much in common between him and an REI mountain climber girl. But who knew?
Jon dialed Tracie, but her line was busy and he didn’t want to leave a message. What would he say? Mission accomplished? Lafayette, I was there? Best to see her in person, but when the beep sounded, he panicked and started rambling. “Tracie, I need to cancel our Sunday brunch. I’m swamped at work but I do have a progress report to turn in. Can you see me Monday night after work?”
He hung up the phone and went over to his terminal, trying to pull the Parsifal project together. He was whipping up E-mails in a frenzy when Samantha appeared in the doorway behind him. He saw her reflection in the terminal.
“Jon, do you have a minute?”
Jon allowed himself to look up at her, but only for a moment. “Actually, not right now,” he said. “I’m kind of busy.” He bowed his head, trying to hide a little smile. Did a man’s luck just change completely with the roll of dice or a roll in the hay? It couldn’t be, could it?
“I . . . I just wanted to apologize again for that mix-up.”
“What mix-up would that be?” he asked. The phone rang. Yes! “Excuse me for a second, Sam.” He picked up the phone. When he heard the voice again, he felt it was too good to be true. “Oh, hi, Ruth. Sure. I remember you.” Unbelievable! How could he be so lucky? He could talk to Ruth while Sam watched. There was a God. “Well, actually, I haven’t been climbing since,” he told Ruth while he watched Sam’s reflection. “No. I’d like to. With you. That’d be great. See you then, Ruth.” He hung up the phone.
“Sorry,” he said, turning to Sam, but then remembered he wasn’t supposed to apologize for anything.
“That’s okay,” she said, and took a tentative step into his office. “Anyway, you know that Saturday we were supposed to get together?”
“When was that?” he asked, vividly remembering the night he’d stood in the rain.
“Oh, it’s not important.” He thought she blushed. Was it possible? Had he made the beautiful Samantha, homecoming queen of the marketing group, blush? “Well, what I mean,” she continued, “is maybe we could get together tonight.”
Jon looked up cheerfully, then gave her a slight frown. “Hey, I’d really like to. Maybe some other time. I’ve just made a climbing date.” He paused. He was loving this. “You’re not a rock climber, are you?”
“No. Not really.” Now Sam paused. “But I’d like to try it.”
“Well, maybe sometime,” he said vaguely.
“Great, Jon. Are you going to have lunch in the cafeteria?”
“I think so,” he told her. Then he said nothing. Absolutely nothing. He watched as she tried to leave. Just as she began to move, he spoke again. “Oh, and Samantha . . . my friends call me Jonny.”
“Great, Jonny,” she said. “Uh, do you still have my number?”
He nodded, but just barely. Then Jon watched Samantha walk out the door and down the hall. He got up, calmly closed his office door, and then did a huge freakin’ victory dance around his desk.
It wasn’t until late afternoon—after the Parsifal meeting and long overdue phone calls—that Jon got a chance to gobble a quick sandwich, leave his mother a message, and get to the toilet. He was in a stall, just finishing, when he heard Ron and Donald.
“I don’t know,” Ron was saying. “I mean, it seemed like he was totally in the dark.”
“In the dark? It was Helen Keller night in the black hole of Calcutta,” Donald answered.
Ron and Donald were probably two of his smartest staff members, but Ron had a head of unfortunate red hair—the kind that looked pink and thinned early—while Donald might have been five foot two if he stood up straight. Both of them were brilliant, but neither one was what Miss Manners might call “a social success.” They constantly hung together, and everyone at Micro/Con called them “RonDon.” Now Jon had a sinking feeling in his stomach that they were talking about him.
“Hey, George,” Donald said. Someone else had joined them. “What was with Jon in the meeting today?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think he had all his burners going. He didn’t know anything about the database project,” George said. “And it wasn’t my fault about the time line.”
Jon gulped. It was true. He’d missed all of George’s calls.
There was flushing, and Jon almost thought they had left, then realized their conversation was continuing. “Something about Jon has definitely changed,” Ron—or Don—said.
“You mean like he’s not as supportive of offloading to the database as he used to be?” George inquired.
“No. Not about work,” Don—or Ron—said. “I noticed it, too. He looks different.”
“Yeah. And . . . and I think the pets are noticing him,” Ron—or Don—said. “Jennifer smiled when she gave him that FedEx this morning.”
“Jenny Pet smiled at a lowly mortal?” George asked. “Inconceivable!”
Jennifer was undeniably cute, but probably only eighteen. She worked in the mail room, and when she made her rounds, all business activity stopped.
“You know, I think you’re right. When he left the meeting to get the marketing data, the women followed him with their eyes,” Don—or Ron—said.
“You mean like in those holograms of Jesus?” Ron asked, his voice cracking.
“Kind of like that, but with sex,” Don said. There was a pause, and for a moment Jon again thought they might have left. Then Don continued. He’d obviously been reflecting, because when he spoke, it was slowly, with great deliberation. “I think Jon is . . . hot.”
“Homo! Homo!” the other two chanted.
In his stall, Jon shook his head. They were worse than Potsie and Ralph. He couldn’t believe they made six figures a year.
“Shut up, shut up,” Don yelled at them. “Don’t you see the important implications here?”
“What implications?” George asked.
“Jon’s done something to change himself. Something that works with the pets.”
“Yeah?” George said. “So?”
“Well, if Jon can do it, we can do it,” Don declared triumphantly. Then someone entered the stall next to Jon, water ran at one of the sinks, and Jon figured it was time to sneak out.
Chapter 25
When Tracie finally fell asleep, she had troubling dreams. At twenty-two after six, one of them made her wake up in an anxiety sweat. She was with her old dog Tippy and she was surprised and happy to realize he was alive again. Then for some dream reason, she started painting him blue. The little cocker spaniel stood there patiently as she rolled paint on with a fluffy roller, blue, all blue, until only his eyes remained, looking up at her in a sad but unsure way. At last, she finished, and taking the last bit of paint from the can, she upturned it on his head, covering his eyes as well. Tippy began to run in circles, yapping the way he did, and then he began to attack her ankles. He was biting her over and over again,
and her red blood was mixing with the blue paint when she screamed and awoke. It was a horrible dream and she didn’t want to go back to sleep after it. Maybe it was anxiety from not seeing Jon Sunday night. God, the waiting around for his so-called progress report was driving her crazy. So, she took a long shower and extra time to blow-dry her hair—it was too long and she needed a cut. On her way out the door, she snagged two more of the brownies she and Laura had baked on the weekend, ate one, and put the other in her bag for later. After all, it was a Monday.
Mondays were always a bitch because Marcus met with the brass in the morning. Then he passed the joy along at the afternoon editorial meeting. But this Monday, Tracie didn’t have the regular knot in her belly. She was eager to get the scoop from Beth. Jon’s social life was going to be good for her career in several ways, she realized as Marcus walked by her cubicle and raised his brows in surprise when he saw her. She smiled at him as obnoxiously as she knew how and sang out, “Good morning.”
After he was safely gone, she took out the brownie and coffee that she had brought and put it down on her desk. At least it wasn’t a farm cake. Between Laura’s cooking and Jon’s love life, she was eating a lot more than usual. The sessions at the gym weren’t going to be enough to keep up with these calories. But she was ravenous.
She was also more concerned and curious than she could bear. Where was Beth? She jumped up on her chair and scanned the floor to see if Beth was around. She wasn’t, so Tracie jumped down just in time to miss Marcus as he doubled back for something or other. This time, she ducked so that he wouldn’t pick on her too much later. No sense making it worse at the editorial meeting than it had to be.
Without Beth to debrief, she dialed Jon’s work number. She didn’t get him, so she tried Beth’s extension. No answer. She drank her coffee, nibbling guiltily at the brownie until the coffee got too cold to drink and there was nothing left but crumbs. It was only then that she saw Beth’s curls bobbing two aisles away.
Tracie was out of her chair in a minute and at Beth’s cubicle before Beth even sat down. When Beth made the turn, she smiled at Tracie. Tracie followed Beth into her work space. “Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked. She couldn’t tell if Beth was angry at her for the fix-up or if she had to be angry at Beth for blowing Jon off.
“Oh, I knew you were going to do this,” Beth said. “I thought about it this morning, showering. Okay, okay,” she agreed, then sat down and ran a brush through her hair.
“Okay, what?” Tracie asked.
“Okay, okay, you were right. About everything.”
Tracie paused, really confused now. “Which everything would that be?” she asked.
“Everything about Marcus,” Beth said. “He’s boring and fat and way too old. Plus, he’s selfish in bed. You’ve been right all along.”
“You spent the night with Marcus?” Tracie asked, her heart sinking. “I can’t believe it.”
“Not with Marcus. With Jonny,” Beth said. She took out a compact and looked into the mirror.
“With Jonny?” Tracie echoed. “You slept with Jon—Jonny?”
“Ohmigod,” Beth said. “He is so good. And he’s so great-looking. I mean, I didn’t really like him, not like him like him, but then I just figured it would be a good thing to do to get over Marcus. Jon was sweet, you know. But then he kissed me, and it became a lot more than distraction sex. I mean, the way he touched me. He’s got the most incredible hands.”
“You’re talking about Jonny?” Tracie asked. She was stunned. “Jon Delano? You slept with him?” Tracie felt dizzy. Somehow, the idea of Beth and Jon . . . This was more information than she required. She realized then that she’d never thought about Jon as a sexual partner. She’d even failed to talk to him about it. Tracie, Beth, Sara, and Laura talked about sex frequently. Laura once described how Peter’s peter took a decided turn toward the left and the benefits and problems that presented. When Sara slept with the guy who wasn’t circumcised, she had rushed in the next morning to describe the whole thing— as it were—in complete detail. She called it a shar-pei. But this was different. This was far too personal.
Beth was hanging up her coat. “You know, I guess I was getting used to Marcus. He’s smart and everything. I mean, you can’t deny that, but he’s kinda”—she paused and Tracie realized she had no idea what was coming next—“kinda tired, I guess. Or maybe just so experienced that he’s not so into it, you know what I mean?”
“Maybe selfish is the word you’re looking for,” Tracie suggested. And for a fraction of a moment, she thought of Phil.
“Yeah,” Beth agreed. “Selfish.”
Tracie didn’t need to be told that Jon was anything but. For some reason, she had never really considered how that aspect of his personality would manifest itself in his sexuality. Silly of her. Of course he was generous and considerate in bed, as in all things. He had a great relationship with a warm and considerate mother.
“I had a hard time figuring out what type of guy he is,” Beth said. “I mean, at first he looked like a tough guy—you know, a kind of Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. But then he was more like an eccentric, kinda like Johnny Depp in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Once we got talking, I saw he had this really sensitive, sweet side, like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic . . .”
“Is there any movie star he doesn’t resemble?” Tracie burst out.
“He’s not like Ben Stiller,” Beth said, missing the sarcasm, as usual. “I slept with Jonny not because he seemed like trouble but because he was different. He really likes women.” Then she put her purse away, opened a drawer, and took out a flacon of perfume. “Thank you so much for setting us up. I like him. I mean I really like him,” she said. “And the sex was just so—”
“Please, please,” Tracie said, putting her hands up in surrender. “I don’t need to hear this.”
Beth looked up from the mirror at her friend. “You’re acting like you’re mad at me for having sex with him or something,” Beth said. “How come? We’re both adults. We took precautions.” She paused. “Did you ever sleep with him?” Beth asked. Tracie shook her head no. “He was just so unbelievable.”
It had been a hellish editorial meeting. But she couldn’t get over the bombshell that Beth had dropped. And after she’d reached Jon, the bombshell had been followed by a barrage. “It was great,” Jon had babbled. “So much fun. Beth’s a real good kid. Your advice worked liked a charm. God, it was great to have sex again. Tracie, I’ll always be grateful to you. It’s like giving me the words open sesame.”
“Fine, Aladdin,” she had snapped. “Just don’t expect a thousand and one nights.”
“Why not?” he had asked. “I think I’m on a roll. You know what happened?” She’d shaken her head, wordless at this turn of events. “Ruth from REI called this weekend. She called again this morning, and we’re going to see each other. I’ll tell you more when I see you.”
Tracie had been speechless. She’d gone to the editorial meeting in a state of suspended animation. All during the meeting, she couldn’t help but look at Beth and imagine her and Jon in bed. She didn’t know if she was disgusted with Beth, angry at Jon, or just mad at herself. She’d barely flinched when Marcus abused Tim and mocked Sara. She didn’t remember to shrink down in her chair. She didn’t need to look at either of them and wonder why they hadn’t quit. If they were self-respecting, they would have, but she supposed if that was the case, she wouldn’t be here, either. Allison was the only one who had escaped unscathed, and Tracie would almost swear that that meant Marcus was sleeping with her now. But that wasn’t certain reasoning, because when he had been sleeping with Beth, he had felt free to make mincemeat of her whenever it suited his fancy.
Mincemeat brought her back to what she had just finished: the article on the best meat loaf in Seattle. Stupid. She shook her head. “Now,” Marcus had said. “I have been truly pleased by the work done for this fine establishment by the late—no, make that
the lately early—Tracie Higgins. Putting on a little weight lately, Miss Higgins? Perhaps it was in the line of duty. Fine coverage of the meat loaf crisis.” He showed his teeth to the table. “So, onward and upward. I understand there is a new trend toward designer cupcakes. Little tiny things with really good frostings and new kinds of toppings. The days of the multicolored jimmies are dead and we at the Times will cover it.” He looked directly at Tracie. “A cupcake story, my little cupcake. And get in all the bakeries that advertise.”
“You are kidding,” she’d said.
“Afraid not. We’ll put it in a Wednesday food section.” Then he’d turned to Beth, who had done, Tracie had to note, an excellent job of getting through the meeting. “Are you listening?” Marcus asked her.
“No,” she said. “Is it my turn?” Tim laughed into his hand and disguised it as a cough. Allison tossed her perfect hair. Tracie decided once and for all that she would write her article for some other publication and do her best to get the hell out of Dodge.
Photos and Post-its were taped all over the inside of her desk. All of her ideas about nerds, cool guys, and the differences between the two were jotted on charts and graphs. Jon before and Jonny after were immortalized in photos. Each step of his progress was minutely detailed. But somehow, the date with Beth changed things.
She had called around to all of her journalistic contacts, verbally pitched the story to a couple of them, typed several query letters, and faxed them in a flurry of activity that made her look as if she was truly dedicated to the Seattle Times and Marcus. Too bad for the Times that all of it was motivated by her need to get away from him. It was too soon to tell, of course, but it seemed as if Seattle Magazine or a laptop publication in Olympia might bite.
But what was she going to do next? Add another Post-it that said “Jon fucks Beth”? Would Marcus like to have the article now? In fact, her wall looked like it was yellow, with a bad case of peeling. You could hardly see the green wall under all the Post-its. She sighed. Lots of notes, but no writing.
Bad Boy Page 21
