Bad Boy

Tracie moved the menu away from her face. “Oh God! I was so wrapped up in my article and … everything. I completely forgot! Did you see all the steps? And how did you squeeze in your actual mom?”

“I saw mine for lunch.”

“Did she like the earrings?” Tracie’s face lit up with hope.

“She loved them!” Jon assured her. “And I took all the credit. But she sends her love. I saw stepmoms one through five before or after.”

“You actually visited the toad who wouldn’t let your dad come to your high school graduation?”

“Oh, Janet’s not so bad.”

Tracie snorted. “You have way too much compassion and too many mothers. I’ve got neither.”

Jon had to smile. “That’s probably why we’re such good friends—opposites attract. Did you miss your real mom this Mother’s Day?” Jon asked gently.

“You can’t really miss what you don’t remember.” Tracie repositioned the menu to avoid looking at him. In all the years they’d been friends, she’d never spoken of her mother’s death. Jon felt awkward, and there was a momentary silence between them. “Anyway,” Tracie said, “Laura’s at my house baking enough empty carbohydrates to stock a kindergarten bake sale.”

Just then Molly rejoined him. “So, luv. Poached eggs on toast?” she asked Jon.

“Yeah. Gotta have ’em.”

“And for you?” Molly asked Tracie, arching her brows with what seemed to Jon a bit too much attitude.

Tracie looked searchingly at the menu. “I’ll have … the waffles, with a side of bacon.” Molly didn’t write it down. Instead, she just stood there. Tracie closed the menu decisively. Molly still didn’t move. Tracie looked pointedly over at Jonathan. Molly remained standing there.

“You shouldn’t eat pigs,” Jon told Tracie. “You know, they’re more intelligent than dogs.”

“Don’t start,” Tracie warned. “Next, you’ll begin imitating the singing mice in Babe. So, you had the whole Mother’s Day trial while I had the Mother’s Day article fiasco. But that wasn’t all. Get ready to end your winning streak, because I had the worst weekend of my entire life.” She looked up at Molly, who was still standing there, looking as permanent as the red London phone booths. Tracie waited her out. “I’ll have my coffee now, if you don’t mind.”

Molly finally started to walk away, but Tracie reached out and took hold of Molly’s arm, as she always did. Jon restrained a laugh. “Wait. I think I’ll have the pancakes. The pancakes and a side order of ham.” She stared at Jon. “The hell with the pigs.” She turned back to Molly. “I mean it this time.”

Molly heaved a big sigh, obviously bored, and pulled up a chair and sat down.

“Excuse me?” Tracie said rudely. “I don’t remember asking you to join us. And I think I placed my order.”

“Admit it to yourself,” Molly said. “You want scrambled eggs and you want them dry.”

“I told you pancakes …” But Tracie wavered and then gave in to herself. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll have the eggs.”

“No chips, slices of tomato on the side.” Triumphantly, Molly showed Tracie the order was already written down, then sashayed off to the kitchen.

Tracie waited a minute to regain her dignity. Jon just looked at her. For years now, they’d been meeting every Sunday to discuss their romantic lives, such as they were. And Molly’s eavesdropping meant she probably knew the facts as well as they did. “So, my weekend has to make me the winner,” Tracie told him. “It was a social nightmare.”

“Let me guess: On Friday, Swollen Glands never got to play and Phil was pissed off and got drunk. On Saturday, the Glands did get to play, but they didn’t invite Phil, so he was pissed off and got drunk. Then he flirted with some girl; you walked out of the club and hoped he’d follow. He didn’t, so you went home. But he came back very late to your place, where he passed out in the foyer.”

“You think you know everything, don’t you?” Tracie asked, sounding half-amused and half-annoyed. “You aren’t always right.” She paused, but Jon waited her out. “Well, he didn’t pass out in my foyer,” she protested at last. “But you got the rest right.”

Jon sighed and shook his head. “Trace, why don’t you give this guy the keys to the street?”

Just then, Molly returned and placed Jon’s plate carefully on the table in front of him. She slung Tracie’s across the table.

Tracie looked down at the scrambled eggs quivering on her plate. “I know it’s stupid … but I really love him.”

“It’s not love; it’s obsession,” Molly told her as she refilled Tracie’s coffee mug. “It’s not even an interesting obsession.”

Tracie tilted her head toward Molly but looked at Jon. “She doesn’t like me,” Tracie announced.

“That’s not true,” Jon said in what he hoped was a consoling voice.

“Yes it is, rather. I’ve been listening to your ’istory of bad boyfriends for dog’s years. You ’ave one of these wankers after another. Frankly, you bore me.” She walked to the next booth.

Jonathan called after her, “Molly! Don’t be mean.”

And then came the moment he was dreading. “So how was your weekend?” Tracie asked.

Chapter 7 (#ulink_441d472c-3d6d-5db9-ba16-acaf3bfce92b)

Jon had a problem. He told Tracie everything, or almost everything, which was good. But looking like an idiot and a goofball and a pathetic excuse for a man was not so good. He needed her empathy and advice, but he was afraid of her pity. So, usually, he made a joke of his pain. Now Jon raised his hands and clasped them over his head. “The undefeated world champion with the worst social life in America …”

“Well, with Mother’s Day, it would be—”

“No. It was the disasters previous to Mother’s Day that hurt.”

Tracie raised her eyebrows and scrunched up her eyes in an exaggerated move of remembrance. She was really cute when she did it. “Oh God! I’m so sorry! I forgot! The look-see didn’t work out?” Tracie sighed. “What about the big date?”

Molly returned with coffee and poured it out for Tracie, then shook her head and left. Tracie leaned across the booth and lowered her voice. “What happened? What went wrong with the look-see?” Her face assumed a look of horror. “You didn’t wear that plaid jacket, did you?”

“No,” he assured her. “I wore my blue blazer.”

Tracie, her mouth by now full of coffee, almost did a spit take. “You wore a blazer for a look-see?”

“Yeah, I—”

“Never get dressed up for a look-see. The whole point is to appear casual.” Tracie sighed with frustration at him, not for the first time. “So … what happened?”

“Well, I walked into the bar; she waved. She was attractive in a skinny, redheaded way. So I went over to her and gave her the flowers …”

“You brought flowers?” Tracie cried, her hands flapping in exasperation. “God, that stinks of desperation.”

“Maybe that’s why it lasted eleven minutes. We’d hardly begun to talk when she said she’d left clothes in the dryer and didn’t want them to wrinkle.”

“That’s a new wrinkle in lame excuses,” Tracie told him. They both let the horror of it sink in for a few moments. Then, as always, Tracie brightened. Jon was certain her optimism was genetic. “Oh, forget about it. I’m sure she wasn’t a natural redhead anyway. The drapes never match the rug.” Jon managed a grin and Tracie grinned back. “So what about Saturday night? You know, the date with that woman you work with? The one you yearn for with the lust of a thousand pubescent boys. What’s-her-name?”

“Sam. Samantha,” Jon reminded her. For a moment, he wondered why he always knew every friend and boyfriend of hers by given, middle, and nicknames but she … He sighed. “Actually, it was worse,” he admitted.

“How could it possibly be worse than an eleven-minute look-see?”

“Well, for one thing, I was meeting her outside. For another, it was raining. And for a third, she never showed.”