Bad Boy

“Right on time!” his mother said. She took the flowers and patted his cheek with obvious deep affection. “Oh, honey. Peonies! God, they’re way before season. They must have cost you a fortune.”

“It’s okay, Mom. My allowance is bigger than it used to be.”

She laughed. “But how’s your appendix?” she asked.

“It’s still missing—but I’m good,” he said. He’d had an emergency appendectomy three years ago and it had frightened the hell out of her. She still asked about it, but it had come to mean his health in general.

“Did you see Rainier today?” she asked.

“Yes. And Mount Baker,” he told her.

They went through the living room and into the kitchen. “You came alone?” she asked.

“Yes. Why?” Jon asked.

“I thought maybe you’d bring Tracie.”

Jon smiled. Though he and Tracie had been close friends from the time they met, his mother still hinted or hoped they were more. Or that he’d bring some other girl—a real girlfriend—home. While all of Chuck’s ex-wives focused on who Chuck’s new girlfriend was, his mom focused on who Jon’s girlfriend was. He knew she wanted him to be happy, and that she wanted grandchildren for herself and for him. It wasn’t that Jon wouldn’t love to meet a woman and settle down, it was just that women he met seemed to want to settle down with someone other than him. In his social life he was a disappointment to himself and others. He sighed. He’d have liked to oblige, but …

“… This holiday’s always hard on her,” his mother was saying as she put the flowers in a vase.

Jon didn’t bother to tell his mom that he’d thought of Tracie—sometimes he thought he thought of Tracie too much—but that she was booked up with the latest loser and her old friend from San Bernadino or somewhere.

“She was busy. But I’ll see her tonight. You know, our midnight brunch.”

“Well, give her my love,” she told him.

“Sure,” he agreed as he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small wrapped box. He put it on the counter between them.

“Oh. A present? Jon. It’s not necessary.”

“I know that traditionally on Mother’s Day you’re supposed to steal your mom’s bank card and go on a spree. I just thought this once we’d be untraditional.”

Jon made a lot of money. Well, it was not a lot of money compared to what the four initial founders of his firm made, but it was a lot of money for a guy his age. And he didn’t spend it on much, since he was usually too busy working to have time to shop. Plus, he didn’t want anything. He had all the toys—stereos and laptops and video equipment—he could possibly want and very little time to listen, play with, or watch them. When he wasn’t working, he was thinking about work or sleeping. So, for him to spend some bucks on his mother was no big deal. It was deciding what she might like that was difficult. In the end, he had let Tracie pick something out. She was great at shopping.

“You’re so thoughtful. You sure didn’t get that from your father.” There was an uncomfortable pause, just for the tiniest moment. His father was the one subject Jon had asked that they not speak about. His mother laughed and unwrapped the gift. She held up the jade earrings. “Oh, Jonathan! I love them!” And it was clear she really did. Tracie always knew stuff like that. His mother went to the hall mirror and held them up, then preened for a moment. It made Jon happy. “So, are we going to Babbette’s for lunch?” she asked as she at last put the earrings on.

“Don’t we always?” Jonathan responded without hesitation, despite the protests that Barbara’s breakfast and Janet’s brunch were making in his stomach.

“Let’s capture the moment,” his mother said as she grabbed her Polaroid and led Jon outside to the wisteria bush. “All I have to do is figure out the automatic timer and we’re all set.” She took about half an hour doing it, while he waited as patiently as he could. Then she scurried from the camera to him before the timer went off.

And, with a flash, the moment was over.

Jon was exhausted. He was only twenty-eight, but he wondered how many more Mother’s Days he could survive before they killed him. He had three more stepmothers to get through, despite the three meals distending his gut. But tea, an early dinner, and a late supper were all on the agenda before he could meet Tracie at midnight. Grimly, Jon climbed on his bike and pedaled off into the Seattle rain.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_c4f3c5ea-3029-56e2-9bd0-4bd52ad6f068)

Tracie raised her head, trying to see the clock. She could, but that didn’t help, as it clearly had been unplugged so that Phil could use the one overburdened outlet to plug in his guitar. No wonder he was always late.

Phil’s apartment was a typical poet/musician’s hellhole. He shared the space with two other guys, and it seemed that none of the three of them had heard of power strips, extension cords, vacuums, or the advent of dish-washing liquid. Tracie closed her eyes, turned away from the squalor, and cuddled up against Phil’s warm side. She knew she had to get up, get dressed, and go meet Jon—as she did every Sunday night—but this felt so good. And today was Mother’s Day. A quick wave of self-pity washed over her. She told herself she only wanted a few more moments in the gray zone between sexual exhaustion and sleep. She dozed there for a while, then slept again, and when she next awoke, the streetlights had gone on and she knew it was getting late.

She began to untangle herself from the wrinkled sheets, trying not to wake Phil. But as she stood up, Phil, only half-awake, grabbed at her with his long, long legs and pulled her back to the bed. “Come here, you,” he said, and kissed her. He smelled so good—like sleep and sex and bread dough—and she responded; then her mouth guiltily pulled away. “I’ll be right back,” she promised, and Phil mumbled and turned over.

Tracie crept out of bed, slipped into her clothes, and snuck out to get the Sunday paper. It was already quarter past nine! God! No wonder she was ravenous. She’d better pick up some coffee, eggs, and bread for toast. Then she thought of the state of Phil’s kitchen and gave up that idea. Maybe just a couple of cheese Danishes. She’d leave the cooking to Laura. Tracie felt in her jacket pocket for money. She’d only need a few dollars. Most importantly; she wanted to get the Sunday paper and see what the Mother’s Day article looked like in print.

It was funny: She’d been working at the Times now for four years, but she still got a thrill seeing her byline. Maybe that’s what kept her a journalist. She knew she could probably earn a lot more money hiring on as a technical writer at Micro/Con or any of the other hightech companies in Seattle. But she didn’t have an interest in writing manuals or ad copy. There was something magical to her about the immediacy of newspaper work. The gratification of working on an article and seeing it—with her name at the top—just a day or two later kept her hooked.

She walked to the deli closest to Phil’s place. It wasn’t clean, and the food wasn’t good, but, as they said about Everest, it was there. Across the door was a hand-lettered sign that said HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY. She ordered a couple of coffees, bought a pint of Tropicana juice, but couldn’t manage to sink to the level of the stale-looking pastries in the smudged case in front of her. She just went for a paper and called it a day. Then, even before she could leave the store, she had to look at the feature. She opened to her section. It wasn’t on the front page. She began to look through it. And kept looking. Not on page two or three. Not even on the following two. Then she found it. On the bottom of six. Truncated. Overedited. Sliced and diced. Trepanned. The thing had been cut up and then stitched back together as badly as Frankenstein’s monster. She actually felt sick to her stomach. Goddamn it! Tracie scanned it again. It couldn’t be as bad as she thought, but it was. It really was.

She threw the rest of the paper on the counter, turned, and walked out with the Sunday section still in her hands. She almost stuffed it into the first garbage pail she saw and did go as far as crumpling it up, but her outrage was so strong, she needed to hold on to it, just to share it with Phil and look at it again. She walked through the spring night, back toward the apartment. Why did Marcus do this to her? Why did he even bother giving her an assignment if he was going to rewrite it? She could swear he did it out of spite. What was the point? She could never use this as a clip. Potential employers would think she was a moron. What was wrong with Marcus? What was wrong with her for putting up with Marcus? Or why did she even bother to struggle over her work? Why not just hand in bad stuff and let him revise it as much as he wanted?

She was to Phil’s door when she realized she’d forgotten both the coffee and the juice, but now she didn’t care. She just wanted to crawl into bed and blot out everything. It was too bad that she had to see Jon later. Usually, she looked forward to their midnight meetings. But now she felt like being alone, crawling into a hole somewhere. She couldn’t go home to her apartment because Laura was there and would be cheery and busy. Of course, when she showed her the paper, Laura would get even more upset then she was, and then she’d have to spend her time calming Laura down. Laura would tell her to quit, to get a new job, one where they appreciated her. But it wasn’t so easy to get a job as a journalist writing features for what the Superman show used to call “a large metropolitan daily.” Without a nice portfolio of well-written articles, her value had actually gone down since she had left school with her masters in journalism.

Tracie sighed as she walked up the dirty stairway to Phil’s apartment. She wanted to be held like an infant. She walked in the door, then through the living room, trying to ignore the month’s worth of accumulated dirty dishes, the piles of clothes, CD cases, and the assorted sordid detritus of three pathetically dirty man-boys. She walked into Phil’s bedroom.

“Hey, where you been?” he asked. “You took so long that my feet are getting cold. And where’s my coffee?”

She sighed. Sometimes, Phil was incredibly self-involved. “‘Hello, Tracie. How did you sleep? What’s wrong? Mother’s Day a little tough on you?’” she began, imitating his voice. “‘Oh! Marcus, your bully editor, cut your Mother’s Day feature to shit? I’m so sorry. And you worked so hard on that story.’”

He didn’t show any remorse, but he sat up in bed and opened his arms. “Hey, come over here, baby.”

Tracie hesitated, but the newspaper crumpled under her arm made her feel so bad that she needed comfort more than pride just at that moment. When Phil gave her that look, everything seemed better. He needed her, and Tracie felt so desired that work seemed instantly unimportant. She crawled in beside him. He gave her a deep, hot kiss. Tracie melted into his arms.

“Life is always hard for the artist, baby,” he said, holding her tighter and starting to rub her back. “You know, I just finished another story.”

“Really?” Tracie knew Phil could write only if he was inspired. He didn’t believe in deadlines. “They kill your creativity,” he’d said. “That’s why they call them deadlines.”

“What’s the story about?” Tracie asked shyly. Secretly, she’d always hoped he’d write something about her. But so far, he hadn’t.

“I’ll show it to you sometime,” he said, and pressed both of his hands on either side of her spine. It was soothing. He was so much bigger than she was. It felt great to be held against his wide chest, encircled by his arms. This was what she wanted. Not sex, not words, just dumb comfort. She nuzzled against him. Then he turned her to him. “Nobody kisses like you do. You love me?”

Tracie nodded and hugged him back. “And my ironing isn’t bad, either,” she said. “But I have to go. I’m meeting Jon.”

“Fuck Jon,” he said, then lowered his voice. “No, fuck me.” He nuzzled her ear. “I want you,” he whispered.

“Phil, I have to go or I’m going to be late. I have to meet—”

“The computer weenie.” Phil shifted his weight so that his whole length was against her. “Why don’t you stay here with my weenie instead?” he asked.

“Phil, I mean it. I have to—”

He grabbed her again and pulled her to him. “You look so sexy right now …”

“You only say that when you’re horny.”

“I’m horny all the time, so you always look sexy to me.”

They struggled with each other until Phil was on top of her. She gave him a deep kiss. Oh, she liked him to touch her so much. When he began to unbutton her shirt, she stopped struggling. He wasn’t always hot for her. Tracie was smart enough to notice that Phil withheld sex sometimes. She thought it was one of his power plays: make her want it and then pretend to be bored.