Bad Boy

Tracie’s lower lip dropped in real surprise. Then she exaggerated it, just to cover. “She totally stood you up? She wasn’t just late? I mean, you waited long enough?”

“Two hours.”

“Oh, Jon! You stood in the rain for two hours?”

“Yeah. I didn’t mind that as much as the fact that I have to see her tomorrow at work.”

“Ouch!” Tracie winced, his upcoming humiliation on her face, then tried to recover. “At least tell me she called and left a message with a plausible lie,” she begged.

“Neither. No message at home, work, not even an E-mail. And I’d left messages for her on all three.”

Tracie grimaced. Jon flushed, embarrassed again. “I wish you hadn’t done that,” she said.

Jon got defensive. “Well, what should I have done?”

Tracie narrowed her eyes. “It reminds me of the Dorothy Parker line: ‘“Shut up,” he explained.’”

“But how else could she know I was waiting?”

“Like she needed to? You weren’t humiliated enough already?”

Now she was irritated with him. Jon saw something in her face that looked too much like pity. “Well. What else could I do?”

Before Tracie could answer, Molly returned to their table, obviously drawn by bits of the conversation she’d overheard. “Find girls who want to date you? An older woman, perhaps,” Molly suggested as she batted her eyes at him. Tracie didn’t even look up but Jon managed a wan smile. “Oh, I guess that’s a dumb idea. But then I didn’t go to college.” She whisked their empty plates away and sashayed back to the kitchen.

Tracie sighed. “Okay, Jon, you win. Your weekend was worse. I think that’s eighty-three consecutive weeks. A new world record.” She scribbled on a Post-it pad she pulled from her purse and stuck it on Jon’s shirt. It had a blue ribbon drawn on it.

“Great. Winner of the Losers.”

Tracie stopped to consider him for a moment. “You know, it’s not all your fault. Women tend to gravitate to … trouble. Men who are … challenges. You know, on Friday, my friend Laura arrived …”

“Laura? She finally came? Will I at last get to meet Laura?” Jon had been hearing about Laura for years.

“Sure, but the point is, she’s come to stay with me since she broke up with Peter. She’s nuts about him, but Laura calls him an IPPy—”

“And that would be?”

“An Intimacy-Phobic Prick. So I think maybe women prefer pricks until they give up on them.”

“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.”