Bad Boy (17 page)

The buzzer sounded, indicating the taxi was waiting. He grabbed a Huey, Louie, and Dewey Pez dispenser for good luck, picked up the duffel bag, locked the apartment behind him, and rapped down the stairs to the dark street below.

The airport wasn’t too crowded, which Jon figured was a good thing. And no one accosted him; plus, today there were no chanting Krishnas. He took those as good signs and
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immediately rode the escalator down to the baggage claim. He checked out the arriving flights, though he’d already targeted his. Of course, instead of the gambit, he could get an actual ticket and just choose to stand in line behind a pretty woman and chat her up. But he figured people were often nervous before flights. He really would be better off trying to get someone who was getting off a flight. But this was not without risks.

To be less conspicuous, he’d asked the driver to drop him off at the arrivals area, but the driver had said, “No can do. You got to check in and go through security upstairs.” Jon considered explaining his mission, then changed his mind. From what he could see from the back of the haircut and the part of the driver’s face reflected in the rearview mirror, the guy wasn’t quite a Phil, but he could have been a Phil at an earlier time, before he lost a few of those teeth. Jon wasn’t telling him anything.

So, walking across the wide baggage claim area, he surreptitiously eyed the group of passengers who’d just arrived on Flight 611 from Tacoma. Tacoma was nice. His uncle and aunt lived there. If a woman had been to Tacoma for business or even to visit her family, he figured she might be very pleasant. Of course, if she lived in Tacoma with her husband and was here to visit her mother, this was not a good thing. He began to scan the crowd. How could you tell? The DC 10 held about 280 people. He told himself that at least one had
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to be female, attractive, and single. But how to tell she was available was another problem. He noticed a blonde, but she was a little too thin, too tall, and too pretty. There was something about the way she swung her head that made her hair move like ten thousand silky strings, and it gave him the feeling she was doing it to be looked at. She was probably considering a move to L.A. Way upmarket for him.

Next, he spotted a redhead with curly hair that seemed so alive, it looked professionally snarled. For all he knew, maybe it was. People probably paid to have that done. Anyway, the woman was cute, and that was enough. Okay. Here I go, he told himself. Instead of throwing his hat into the ring, he threw his bag on the carousel, walked around it as casually as he could, and tried to think of something to say to a total stranger.

It was only when he got right up to her side and saw her in three-quarter view that he realized she was very, very pregnant. Clearly, someone else had thought she was adorable, too. Well, there goes that plan.

With the blonde as too much of a stretch and the redhead about to drop a baby . . . Well, there wasn’t a lot left. He eyed the crowd. The usual grandmothers with a toy under their arms didn’t excite him, and the harried mothers with children in tow
‌
—children wild from the confines of the flight
‌
—were also a real stretch. It looked like everyone else was male, except for the person who was far taller than he, wearing silk pajama trousers and a Brooks Brothers-type
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oxford cloth shirt. It might have been a man or it might have been a woman. Or perhaps someone in the process of changing from one to the other. But since Jon had never had the faintest desire to reenact the famous
Crying Game
scene, he figured he had enough issues of his own to deal with and began to despair.

It was then, as his eyes moved away from the baggage carousel, that he began to fold, the state that for him preceded a complete rout. Then he noticed the young woman standing at the next carousel. He caught his breath. Maybe he wouldn’t leave in defeat. A shaft of sunlight
‌
—rare in gray Seattle
‌
—illuminated her as if she were part of a medieval manuscript. She was perfect. In fact, she reminded him of someone. It wasn’t the fine light brown hair cut just below the ears or her profile, which he could see was deserving of the very best cameo maker. It was something in the set of her shoulders and the way she stood that immediately attracted him. Tracie would stand just like that if she was waiting for her luggage. His heart leapt but then fell.

Because the woman
‌
—she might have been a year or two older than he, but not more than that
‌
—was obviously arriving on the flight from San Francisco. That was a whole different kettle of passenger. If she was
from
San Francisco and just here for a visit, she was probably going to be way too cool for him. If, on the other hand, she was from Seattle and had only
visited
San Francisco for a vacation, there might be a chance. However, if she
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lived in Seattle now but had originally been raised in San Francisco and had been visiting her family, she would . . .

Jon forced himself to stop the madness. It only proved there was bound to be some way or other that he could think himself out of doing what he feared most. He looked at the woman again. She was lovely. A Lovely Girl. “This is it,” he murmured aloud. “Go for it.”

He tried to slouch the way James Dean might and, unemcumbered by any packages and without a fanny pack, he stealthily moved toward The Lovely Girl. Completely unaware of him, she was standing with her weight all on her left hip. With her right foot, she was tapping a small tattoo. It wasn’t an impatient tap exactly. It was more of a stretching exercise that she was executing with her adorable foot. In fact, as he looked more closely, he realized that all of her was adorable, from the peripatetic toes to the top of her head. Jon simultaneously felt a lustful pull in his loins and a lurch of fear in his stomach. This is dangerous physical work, he told himself, and, before he broke a sweat and ruined the Armani T-shirt Tracie had made him buy, he placed himself directly behind The Lovely Girl. Using all his willpower, he forced himself not to look at her but to stare blankly at the empty conveyor belt, just the way everyone else was.

He tried to count slowly to one hundred, but he only got to sixty-seven. After all, what if her bag came now? He cleared his throat. “Is
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it just my misperception, or does it take longer to get your luggage than to fly from San Francisco to Seattle?” he asked aloud. Okay, it wasn’t a great opening, but at least he hadn’t asked for the time. The Lovely Girl turned her head and he had a look at her profile. Her nose was long and slightly irregular, which, in his opinion, made her cuter. Her skin was luminously pale. This close, Jon could see very fine freckles strewn just across her cheekbones and over the bridge of her aquiline nose. There was something very tender about the tiny constellation. Meanwhile, she looked in his direction for a moment. Then she smiled.

“It does seem to take a long time,” she said.

Her voice was water splashing over stones, champagne flutes clinking. Jon allowed himself another brief look at her and then tore his eyes away, remembering not to smile. He shifted his body, pulling in his stomach, thrusting out his pelvis, and crossing his arms over his chest. But then he didn’t have a clue what to do or say next. The James Dean pose was a start, but The Lovely Girl had looked at him, was looking at him, with an expectant
‌
—or perhaps tolerant
‌
—half smile and was clearly becoming restive with the wait.

What came next? He could offer her a ride into town. If only he had a motorcycle. He sighed. Tracie had been right, as always. Oh well. He racked his brain. What could he say?

Just then, a bell rang, and in another moment, the conveyor belt began to move. A
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young boy, three or four, by the looks of him, began to move, too. He’d been crawling about on the dirty floor and then he’d crawled onto the carousel. For a moment after it began and the horns went off, the little kid was transported
‌
—not in a literal sense
‌
—but then as the belt lurched him forward and away from his mother, his mood quickly changed. He opened his mouth and a roar of anguish, much louder than a mouth that small seemed to be able to utter, streamed out. Poor kid.

“That’s the one from the plane,” The Lovely Girl said. Just before the toddler rolled by, Jon swung into action. He bent over and picked the little boy up, swinging him back to his mom’s feet. Unfortunately, getting off the wagon train didn’t stop the scout from screaming. The little kid’s yell got even louder and his face was turning red. The Lovely Girl, as well as Jon’s other neighbors, actually backed off. Jon didn’t know what to do. He supposed picking the tyke up again was a good idea, but the boy was filthy, and
‌
—“Cut the crap, Josh,” the boy’s mother said, and took the poor kid by the left hand, gave him a yank, and
‌
—without thanks to Jon
‌
—led the boy away.

The Lovely Girl and the other passengers returned like the tide and she looked up at him. She had gray eyes, Jon’s favorite color, and although they were a tiny bit more deep-set than might be considered absolutely perfect, they were more than good enough. But Tracie had told him not to compliment eyes, so he was out of luck there.

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“She didn’t even thank you,” The Lovely Girl said. Surprise more than outrage was outlined on her pretty face.

“No, but later she’s going to nominate me for a MacArthur grant,” Jon quipped, hoping that those gray eyes wouldn’t give him the blank look he usually got back from people when he made those kinds of jokes. Instead, she laughed. She actually laughed! Maybe this was all easier than he’d thought. Maybe it was only a question of showing up at the right place wearing the right kind of used jacket.

Now bags of every description began to slide down the chute and come around the carousel. It was only then that the implications of the fact that his luggage was on the wrong conveyor dawned on Jon. Well, he’d just pretend he’d lost his luggage. That happened all the time. It might make The Lovely Girl sympathetic, although it also might make him look like a schmuck.

Quickly, he thought about what James Dean might do if his luggage was lost, but none of the films gave him a clue whether that would happen or what James would do if it did. For a moment, Jon felt deep bitterness. What good was tutelage if you knew how to react when your lettuces rotted but not when the airline lost your luggage?

Desperate, he tried to think of something else to say to The Lovely Girl. It was certainly too soon to ask for her name. The luggage coming out of the hatch seemed to be the only thing of interest to anyone. It came in two
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types
‌
—black and indistinguishable from every other piece or one of a motley collection of every kind of bag imaginable, all of which displayed neon yarn, glow-in-the-dark stick-ons, or duct tape so that the owners could distinguish the piece from the myriad others. As if that would be necessary.

So, what to do? Help her with her bag! He looked at The Lovely Girl out of the corner of his eye and tried to imagine her luggage. She would never have a tatty hard-sided avocado green suitcase with pink pearlized nail polish
Xs
along the side. He shook his head as that bag rolled past, and then a miracle happened:
She
spoke. “Isn’t it hideous?” she asked. “What people use as luggage, I mean.”

In his amazement, he forgot to answer her. He was too busy thinking that she might actually
‌
—as Molly might say
‌
—“fancy” him. She’d spoken. And she’d spoken a thought he’d had. Maybe there was real possibility here. Well, no sense sending out the wedding invitations if he didn’t respond.

“Their bags are as ugly as their travel togs,” he said. God! Togs? Who used the word
togs
? Men in smoking jackets. Guys who wore ascots and used cigarette holders. He’d better explain that . . .

“Oh, I know. My mother said air travel used to be glamorous. That people dressed up for it. Can you imagine? Did you see that getup the mother with the spit-up baby was in?” she asked, then paused. “Oh, probably not. You were in first or business, weren’t you?”

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It was unbelievable! Here she was, telling him he looked like quality and actually leading him on. Had it always been this easy, even though he hadn’t known it and didn’t have the tools? Could a leather jacket and the heel blisters make all the difference? Blisters were worth it.

Newly confident, Jon changed his position to what he considered a cooler stance. “I didn’t see it, but I smelled something sour,” he told her. He reached into his pocket and pulled out Huey, Louie, and Dewey. “Care for a Pez?” he asked.

She chuckled but shook her head. “You’re funny. Do you live here, or are you in town on business?”

It was his dream come true, but just how should he answer the question? He’d expected her to ask that. Should he lie and make her believe he was a traveler? Tell her the truth and let her know he was a local? And what should he do about his bag on the other carousel? “I’m here scouting for talent,” he said, then thought, What a lame thing to say.

But she didn’t seem to think it was odd, or a lie. “You’re kidding? I’m just here for a magazine shoot for Micro/Con,” she told him. “They want to make their new motherboards look like a mother lode, if you get my meaning.”

Holy mackerel! “Do you have any photos you can show me? Maybe I could help you out,” he said.

“Let me have your number so that once I unpack I can get you a portfolio.”

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“Sure.” Jon couldn’t believe how easy this was. She wanted his number! Okay, so it was under false pretenses, but what the heck. “Do you have a pen and paper?”

The Lovely Girl rummaged through her bag but could only find a pen. “Here,” she said, and thrust her hand, palm up, at him. “Write it here.”