a worse-than-usual display of neurosis and bad taste in men, not to mention career suicide, Beth had started up an office affair with Marcus. Now she tortured herself over it daily. Tracie thought Beth might be right about the Allison-Marcus thing, but there was no sense admitting it. “Well, you should give him to her on a silver platter.”
“Noooo,” Beth keened. “I mean, I admit he’s troubled. But I love him.” She blotted her lips and stood up to go. “Anyway, he’s not mine to give.”
“So let her have him. They deserve each other.”
“But I 26;”
Tracie couldn’t believe that Beth was still hung up on the jerk. “Oh, Beth, he dated and dumped you! You should have him up on harassment charges.” Tracie began to throw her makeup in her purse. “Why are guys like that? My girlfriend Laura with Peter? Me with Phil? And you with that bastard Marcus? How come they’re so immature and selfish?”
“They’re a challenge.” Beth sniffed as they walked down the hall. “I mean, if Phil and Marcus did what we wanted all the time, it would get boring.”
Beth was, of course, insane, but Tracie had to admit she recognized what Beth meant.
“Let’s face it. The difficult ones make us feel special. You know, with Marcus it was like if I got him to love me, I was really something.”
Tracie thought of Phil and how difficult he was. Then she remembered Jon and his request. Maybe he was right. Could she do it? Would it work? She sighed. “Sometimes I think we’re just masochists. But Marcus is definitely a sadist.”
“Never mind Marcus,” Beth told her. “Look at Phil! He’s not good enough for you, Tracie. I admit he’s cute, but he’s no good. And he’ll never make a commitment.” She grabbed the pick swinging around Tracie’s neck. “That is just pathetic,” she added.
“I don’t know,” Tracie said, feeling the glimmer of an idea. “I may have a way to force him to. And simultaneously get a good feature out of it.” They got to the corner where they had to part.
“Don’t bet on it,” Beth said.
Tracie smiled. “I just might,” she told her friend.
Just outside of Jon’s office, there were dozens of carpeted cubicles filling a space almost the size of an airplane hangar. The noise of beeping phones, copiers, printers, and fingers tapping keyboards made a low but constant thrum. Jon was tired from having to deal with his mothers, working on Parsifal, being out late last night with Tracie while she shopped. But now, sitting here, he had to muster up enough strength to pay attention. After all, this was his department, his kingdom. A bunch of Micro/Con guys were deep in tech-development talk while he, the enlightened despot, listened, trying to keep his eyes open.
Jon looked up from the discussion group he was in and saw Samantha walking toward his office. His kingdom crashed around him faster than the “I love you” virus crashed the Filipino E-mail system. He remembered he was the Winner of the Losers. Humiliation was walking right up to him. There was something about Sam that Jon, or any other guy, for that matter, couldn’t resist. She was one of those tiny freckled redheads, tough in her job, but she had a sweetness—no, an innocence—that was a total magnet. He wanted to catalogue every one of her freckles as if they were constellations in the night sky. And that wasn’t taking her legs into consideration—so long, so lean, so perfectly proportioned.
Sam was in marketing at Micro/Con. Most marketing folk were empty suits, but she was a smart woman with a sense of humor, a lot like Tracie. He had first met her at last year’s sales conference, when the Crypton-2 had been completed and was ready for public release. The auditorium was filled with three hundred people—most of whom were uptight salesmen—but Jon couldn’t get over Sam as she stepped up to the podium and began her pitch with an insanely off-color joke about a midget and a washing machine. Not only had she made the guys roar, but she’d managed to be very ladylike at the same time. Even now, Jon chuckled at the memory. She had gusto. She had a certain aura about her that was magical. She was incredible. No one that Jon knew—not even Tracie—would be able to pull something like that off and get away with it. For months, he’d had her on his radar, always aware of where she was. At last, he’d gotten up the courage to sit next to her at a couple of meetings. He’d passed her funny notes; she’d laughed. He sat next to her in the cafeteria one day, and then he’d asked her out. She’d agreed, then stood him up.
Now, seeing her in the hallway, he wished he could get away with not having to speak to her. She was involved in a discussion of her own with some marketing gunslinger. They were all so damn slick. All style, no substance. Jon froze, then became visibly uncomfortable. He hoped the guys around him didn’t notice. She couldn’t pretend not to see him. He wished he could disappear or just push his head through the 100 percent natural fiber industrial carpeting beneath his feet and pull an ostrich, but there was no chance.
“Oh. Hi, Jon,” Samantha said calmly. She continued down the hall without missing a beat, her long legs a receding dream.
“Hi, Sam,” Jon responded in a voice about an octave too high. God, her casualness was worse than being ignored! Now he could tell he’d been totally forgotten.
Then Samantha stopped. “Oh, hey. Sorry about Saturday,” she said over her shoulder, as if she’d just remembered it. Well, maybe she just had.
“Saturday?” Jon asked, his voice under control. Hey, he could get amnesia, too.
“I wasn’t sure if it was on or not, and then I got tied up and I was—”
“No problem,” Jon said cutting her off. Then he separated from the group and entered his office. He could hear the staff murmuring outside his door. Dennis said, “Man, what did she do with Jon that made her sorry?” Someone else made another wisecrack, one he couldn’t hear, and everyone laughed. He jumped when the phone began to ring. For a moment, he was tempted to ignore it, but he couldn’t. It might be Bella, his boss, with new info on the Parsifal funding. He picked up the receiver.
“Do you like surprises?” Tracie’s voice asked.
“Hit me with one.” He sighed. Anything would be a good distraction from his current modality.
“What if I said this isn’t Tracie? That it’s Merlin and I’ve considered your proposal?”
Marlon? Brando or Perkins? He was so tired, he felt fuzzy-headed. What was she talking about? Had he been so desperate Sunday night that he’d gotten drunk and asked her to marry him? He was confused. Then it hit him. The tutoring. Jon flung the papers he was holding onto a chair and sat down. “Tracie, I’ll do anything. Anything.”
“First of all, we’d have to buy you some decent clothes,” she said.
Jon couldn’t help thinking of Emerson—“Never trust an endeavor that requires new clothes.”
“My credit card is yours,” is what he said to Tracie.
“You’ll have to change your hair.”
Hey, I’d like to change my whole head, he thought. But he just said, “Transplants,
