Bad Boy (12 page)

Then she went back to the rack. Now, what jacket will tell people who Jon is
‌
—or, more to the point, who he wants to be? Tracie kept making the hangers squeal as she shoved them along the rack, past bowling jackets, polyester sports coats, and the tops of leisure suits. Nothing. Nothing. Then she stopped.
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A possibility. A long black frock coat with narrow lapels. She told him to hold it. Then she noticed the expression of horror on his face.

“This?” he asked, his voice almost matching the pitch of the hangers. “You want me to try it?”

“It’s a start,” she told him grimly, and began again to tear through the rack. A guy up ahead was also working it, and it looked as if he knew what he was doing. He was dressed well, cool, and was probably rich. He’d get all the good stuff.

Her nervousness made her hurry, and she almost missed a gem: a tight little black leather shirt hanging inside out. She looked at it and then eyed Jon, who was standing beside her, useless. He was watching her as if she had suddenly sprung a leak or something.

She searched and searched. At last, despite the guy ahead of them and the lack of decent material on the rails, she had accumulated a small pile of possibilities, which Jon was holding as if he was afraid of infestation. She’d even found a cool pair of trousers from a morning suit that might work. She took Jon to the corner where the dressing rooms were clustered and pointed to one. “Go ahead,” she said. “Try these on.” He stood there motionless.

“Did these come off dead people?” he asked.

“Who knows?” she asked. “Just put them on. The pants and long jackets first.”

“Did you know the bubonic plaque was
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caused by fleas in people’s clothes?” Jon asked her.

She ignored him and pushed him into a cubicle. “Put them on,” she insisted. She waited. And waited. “What’s taking so long?” Tracie called in to him.

The dressing room door opened very slowly. Jon stepped out wearing an outfit that looked a lot like the one Lincoln might have been shot in. The black frock coat was to his knees, and the long striped pants
‌
—well, he’d never be a Goth. Tracie snapped a photo, then gave him a thumbs-down. “Thank God,” Jon muttered, obviously relieved, and disappeared back into the dressing room.

In a few minutes, the door opened again. This time, Jon was in an Austin Powers jumpsuit with a puff-sleeved shirt. Had she picked
that
out? Tracie was horrified. He looked like a gay space clown.

“That isn’t for you,” she said. “Where did you find it?”

“It was here on the rack,” Jon said, shrugging.

She looked into the dressing room. There was also an orange overall and an aqua calf-length skirt. “Were you going to try
that
on?” she asked, hearing the same voice her stepmother had used when she inquired if Tracie would jump off the roof if her Encino friends did. God, there was something about shopping that brought out the bully in her.

She took the extra stuff out of the room and pointed to the garments she’d selected. “Only
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those,” she told him. “This other junk must have been left behind by some circus carnies.” Couldn’t he tell the difference? If he couldn’t, then he really
was
hopeless.

He tried on two more garments and she gave him another couple of thumbs-down. Jon shrugged each time and, in return, gave Tracie a grateful look. At least he went back into the dressing room. It was starting to look like a waste of time, until the door opened and Jon walked out in a pair of torn blue jeans and the supple black leather shirt. Now Tracie paid attention.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was moving in the right direction. She walked around Jon appraisingly. She added the loden coat.
[“???”]
Yes! He actually looked interesting. Maybe even good. She gave a high school cheer but then stopped in midjump. Now one of those sports jackets, the one near the end of the rack. She ran off and returned with a battered but stylish tweed sports jacket that she made him exchange the loden coat for. She regarded her living science project. Unbelievable. Now he actually looked hot.

Now that they were at the shoe store, Jon could at last sit down. He flopped back into the chair as if he’d been pushed. He’d never been so tired. Who knew shopping could be as exhausting as the Olympic decathlon? No wonder young women were so buff. Even Tracie
‌
—who once had held the Ms. Young
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Encino Shopper title
‌
—was tired from their bout with the stores. Jon, with none of her battle experience, must be absolutely dead, she thought. But there was one item still not crossed out on her Post-it list, and she was nothing if not thorough.

And who would have suspected that Tracie was such a shopping maniac? She was relentless. Some primal passion glinted in her eyes as she pounced on what looked to Jon like more useless and boring textiles. They’d been at it for hours, it seemed, and he’d spent more on clothes today than he had in the last two decades.

Now Tracie was holding up shoes for Jon’s approval. These were suede, and awful. He contorted his face in an expression of distaste. Tracie pointed to another pair. Well, they weren’t bad, if you liked pimp shoes. Jon sat up, trying to show some interest. Tracie handed him the left shoe. He picked it up gingerly.

“Not bad,” he admitted, trying to muster some enthusiasm. Then he turned it over and looked at the price on the bottom of the shoe. He nearly fainted. You could support a Moldavian family for a decade on that amount.

“That’s what good shoes cost,” Tracie told him as if she could read his mind. He knew he better keep still if he wanted her help. He did as he was told, trying them on. Tracie flashed his credit card and forced Jon to buy them. At the counter, the owner smiled. Behind the head of the owner, written in
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Roman-style type, was a sign that proclaimed

THE SOLES ARE THE SOUL OF THE BODY
. Tracie

pointed to it, nodded at Jon, and nudged him, as if to say, You see? Jon hunched his shoulders in defeat and put his feet into “de shoes.”

Tracie stood beside Jon outside the shoe store. He was wearing the cool shoes, as well as the great jacket she’d found, but he’d begun to show his fatigue. Poor guy. Just another couple of stops.

“You’re doing great,” she said, and took his hand, leading him across the street toward a toiletries store. As they passed a young woman in the crosswalk, she turned to look back at Jon. Yes! Although Tracie noticed, Jon didn’t even realize the girl was interested. What’s wrong with his radar? Maybe he hasn’t used it in so long, it’s permanently broken, she thought.

She nudged him. “You’re being checked out,” she whispered.

Like a dork, he began to crane his head in every direction. Finally, he saw the girl. He returned her glance and then, to Tracie’s horror, spun in a slow circle to show himself off.

“Are you nuts?” Tracie hissed, grabbing his arm and pulling him into the store. “Don’t you know how to behave?” she asked him, as stern as a mom reprimanding a nine-year-old. “Never let them know you’re looking back.”

“But then how will they know I’m interested?”

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“You’re not supposed to be interested in them. They’re supposed to be interested in
you
.”

“But then how will we get together?” Jon asked. It was a reasonable-enough question, but somehow Tracie hadn’t actually imagined that part. She’d thought of renovating him and about the before and after, but not about seeing him walk off with the girl in the crosswalk. But, of course, that was the whole point.

“We get to that later,” she said, and took him to the men’s cologne and aftershave counter. A group of bored saleswomen at the counter tried to glom on to them, but Tracie dismissed all but one
‌
—the oldest, most motherly one. The sales clerk proceeded to spray thirty different scents on various areas of Jon’s body: his wrist, lower arm, upper arm, elbow, and neck. Tracie watched Jon twist with each spray and thought that ever since she’d met him back in college, he’d been dorky but kinda cute. Now, she noticed. Maybe he’d grown out of his dorky stage. When had that happened? Was it only now, with some cool clothes on, or was it earlier and she’d never seen it? “What do you think?” the saleswoman kept asking, and it wasn’t in a motherly way at all.

In fact, a small crowd of saleswomen were gathering. Tracie looked at Jon. Once she had stripped off the ugly veneer of lameness, he was kind of cute, and there was something so sweet about the way he took the saleswoman and her advice seriously that it attracted the others. He was too inexperienced to know that fragrances were about
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hype more than anything else and that saleswomen would tell a size-fourteen customer in a size-ten skirt that she “really looks great.” As her mean but shrewd stepmother used to say, “They lie like they breathe.” Now the coterie consisted of two younger women, one blonde and one a horrible fake red, who began to flirt and bat their lashes at Jon.

“I think he’s an Aramis man,” the blonde who repped that line said.

“What’s an Aramis man like?” Jon asked.

“Handsome. Important. And single.” The blonde looked at Tracie. “Is she your sister?”

“No. I’m his mother,” Tracie snapped, then looked at Jon, who appeared to be blushing. “We’re looking for something a lot more subtle than you have to offer,” she declared, and turned back to the older woman.

Meanwhile, the redhead had picked up Jon’s left arm and was nibbling on it the way you might pick at corn on the cob. Jon smiled at the redhead with a kind of goofy look. Tracie yanked his arm away.

But by this time, the saleswoman had run out of available skin on Jon’s wrists and arms. She picked up a crystal vial and smiled at him. “You might like this,” she said. “It’s very expensive, but I think it would suit you.” She sprayed it on his neck and turned to the blonde. “What do you think, Margie?”

Margie immediately moved close to Jon and put her face up against his chest, nuzzling his neck. Tracie couldn’t believe it! These women were without shame.

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“It’s got patchouli in it,” Tracie said. “Nobody has worn that since 1974.”

“It’s coming back,” Margie said, and then she looked at Jon. “I hope you do, too.” Jon blushed again.

Tracie felt as if she was losing control of the situation, and she didn’t like it. When the older saleswoman picked up another bottle and started to open Jon’s shirt to spray some cologne onto his chest, Tracie slapped her hand away. “We’ve already got plenty to choose from,” she told the woman. Jon kept sniffing like a beagle, while all three of the women gave him the eye but kept their hands off. Jon seemed to be enjoying the attention, until all at once he began to sneeze.

And it wasn’t just one sneeze. It became three and then a dozen. In no time, he was spraying them all with bodily fluids. Even the blonde backed off. Tracie handed him a tissue. Freed of the fan club, she finally selected Lagerfeld. The saleswomen cheered and, despite his sneezing, Jon held the purchase over his head like a trophy. He grinned and, without being told, reached for his credit card.

Out on the street, Jon struggled with most of the bags. “I’m exhausted,” he said.

“Yeah, shopping can wear a person out,” Tracie agreed, but she was exhilarated. And when they passed a car stopped at the light, an older blond woman lifted her sunglasses to give Jon a better once-over. “You’re ready,” Tracie said.

“Ready for what? A couple of anti-inflammatories and a day of bed rest?”

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In the safety of Java, The Hut, Jon, in some of his new regalia, and Tracie were seated at their regular table, packages piled around them. Molly approached, but Jon was too tired to raise his head to say hello. He pulled his feet out of his new boots. They already hurt.

“What are you doing ’ere? And where’s Jon?” Molly asked Tracie. For a moment, Jon thought he might have disappeared from fatigue. But Tracie smiled, as if she knew what was happening.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” she told Molly, doing another Encino imitation.

Molly handed a menu to Tracie and then handed one to Jon. When Jon reached up to take the menu, she stopped, squinted at him, and did a double take. “Bugger all! That is you, isn’t it?” She looked at Tracie with renewed respect. “You go, girl! Brilliant!” Then she turned to Jon. “Stand up, Cinderella.” Molly took his hand, pulled him into the aisle, and then walked around him slowly. “My God! You look bloody marvelous. And you ’ave trouble written all over you.”

“I do?”

“Big-time! Where did you get that fab jacket? And the excellent jumper?” Molly asked.

Since he had no idea what a jumper was, he only shrugged. “Tracie helped me,” he said.

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“Bloody marvelous! I love everything but the glasses. You going to get ’im some Elvis Costello ones?” she asked Tracie and gave her a look of something close to respect. “I take it all back. You’re not useless,” she told Tracie. She looked back at Jon with concern. “ ’e looks tired.”

Tracie shook her head. “No. His eyes are too good. He’s going to get contacts.”

Jon felt as if he had really disappeared from the table. Is this what women meant when they said men “objectified” them? Jon wasn’t sure if he disliked it, but it felt odd.

“Tracie, I can’t wear those things.” Jon took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Wow!” Both Molly and Tracie exclaimed simultaneously.

“Is it because ’e can’t focus ’is eyes?” Molly asked Tracie. “Or is it ’is eyes themselves that ’it you?”

“I don’t know, but it works for me,” Tracie cooed. “You’ve got to give them up,” she told him.

“I’ll be hitting walls and doors if I can’t wear my glasses,” Jon whined.

“Great! Scars are a real turn-on,” Tracie said as she stood up, stepped back, and looked at him from a different angle.

“Why not? Did you ever try?”

“Call me crazy, but I can’t stand the idea of pushing tiny bits of glass into my eyes.”