Bad Boy

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 the 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.”

Phil laughed. “A makeover on Techno-Nerd? What did he want to be made into?”

“Somebody more like you,” Tracie said as she sat down on the sofa and slipped out of her shoes.

“Mr. Micro T. Stock Option? Now, that is impossible,” Phil said. “The guy was born to wear glasses and work a day job. Day jobs were invented for people like him.” Tracie was about to jump to Jon’s defense, but then she noticed that Laura had left a bowl at the side of the tiny kitchen counter. She was about to bring it to be washed when she realized what it was. Gratefully, she picked it up and began to wipe the glass with her finger, then inserted the finger in her mouth.

“Just how many shares does he have, anyway?” Phil asked.

“Somewhere around thirty thousand, I think,” she said, shrugging as the sweetness hit her tongue.

“Wow! So he’s really rich. You’d think he’d never be lonely,” Laura said. “When do I meet him?”

“Forget it,” Phil told her. “You’re better off with Jeff, and his IQ is in the double digits. But at least he has rhythm. He’s still talking about you.”

“Jon just doesn’t get opportunities with the kind of women he likes,” Tracie said.

“Too much money and you can’t get a honey,” Phil said. “And the guy wanted to be like me?” He laughed.

“Maybe I’m his type,” Laura observed.

Tracie ignored her. “And what makes you think you’re so impossible to imitate?” she asked Phil.

“Nothing. But he’s so fuckin’ lame. Totally void.”

“Yeah,” Laura agreed. “Never like a guy under thirty with a day job and a fortune in stock. That’s my motto.”

Phil missed her sarcasm and nodded. “Well, anyway, it’s hopeless. You couldn’t do it,” he told Tracie.

“He thinks I could do it,” Tracie retorted. Why was Phil so cruel when he spoke of Jon?

“Oh, Techno-Nerd thinks you can do anything.”

“She could do it if she wanted to,” Laura snapped at Phil as she rinsed off the last cookie sheet and retrieved the now-clean bowl from Tracie.

“Yeah. He has more faith in me than you do,” Tracie told him. “What if I did change him, make him a hottie?”

“You should, and maybe write a feature on it,” Laura said. “You know, a kind of day-by-day diary. People love makeovers.”

It was a good idea. Plus it would really antagonize Phil, and she was in the mood to do that now. “Yeah!” Tracie agreed.

“Yeah? What, are you crazy?” Phil asked. “Why would you want to waste time writing about crap as ridiculous as that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tracie said. “Everyone is interested in transformations. It’s archetypal. You know, like Jung.” Phil worshipped Jung. “The old Cinderella story.”

“But I thought you weren’t interested in old stories,” he said. “You’re interested in new stories.”

“Yeah,” Laura said. “Phil showed me one of his new stories.” She caught Tracie’s eye. Her mouth curled into the W it made when she didn’t want to laugh.

“Really?” Tracie asked. Despite Laura’s contempt, she was hurt. Phil had rarely shown her any of his work. “What did you think?”

“I think it could have been improved by characters and a plot,” Laura opined. “Otherwise, it was great.”

“Thanks,” Phil said, as if he hadn’t just been insulted. “It’s a collective unconscious kind of thing.” Well, Tracie thought, he probably didn’t care about what Laura felt about writing. But why had he even shown her anything? “Anyway, even if you wanted to write crap like that, you couldn’t make it happen,” Phil added. “Making him cool would be like trying to refrigerate the Amazon. Too big a job. Impossible.”

“Wanna bet I could?” Tracie asked.

“Bet what?” He reached out a finger to wipe the edge of her mouth, but Tracie dodged away. None of that stuff now, and certainly not in front of lonely Laura.

But there was a wager here. A legitimate way to address her gripes, teach Phil a lesson, and maybe move their relationship forward—or end it. “Bet you household money,” Tracie said, inspired.

“Whoa. I don’t pay household money.” He almost dropped the latest cookie he was conveying to his mouth.

“Exactly my point, Phil. You eat here and sleep here most of the time, but you don’t pay rent, or even chip in on the groceries.”

“You know I can’t, baby.” He looked over at Laura then put his arm around Tracie and walked her over to the screen. He lowered his voice. “I’m still paying off the amplifier, and right now I’m even behind on my share of the apartment rent,” he told her, gently pushing her toward Laura’s bed.