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He’s not worthy.”

      “But he’s so cute. And the sex!” She blushed.

      Jon looked away. That was his punishment for going too far. There were some things he didn’t need to know. He sighed. “I’d give anything to be able to land chicks the way guys like Phil do. If I could just learn to get dumb. Or pretend to be selfish …” He paused. “Hey, Tracie, I’m getting an idea.”

      “You always have ideas,” she said, getting up. “That’s why you’re the Intergalactic Alchemist of Cosmology Development and Systems Conception Worldwide, or whatever it is you are over there in Micro Land.”

      “No. Not an idea like that,” Jon said, getting up to join her. She couldn’t leave yet. “I mean an idea about my life.”

      “Great. Can we discuss this next week? I need to go to the supermarket.”

      “For what? Panty hose?” Tracie hadn’t been inside a supermarket in years.

      “No. For baking soda. And flour.”

      “Are you doing a science project? Or is it something for your hair?”

      “It’s to bake,” Tracie said, attempting a dignity she couldn’t quite achieve with him.

      “Since when do you bake? And why do you need to at midnight?” Jon knew Tracie well enough to know that she thought the black thing in her kitchen with the door in the front was where you stored extra shoes. And he hoped to God she didn’t have buns in her oven. “Is this some trick to try to get Phil to turn over and play dead? Because your baking will kill him … not that that’s a bad thing.”

      “I’m not going to dignify any of that with a response,” Tracie said, rising.

      Jon got up, too. He didn’t want to show how desperate for company he was. And also he was interested in the mystery of Tracie’s new domesticity. Then it came to him. “It’s your friend, your friend Laura from San Antonio. Isn’t Laura a chef?”

      “So what?” Tracie said as she shrugged into her jacket. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t know how to do things, too.”

      “You know how to do a lot of things,” Jon agreed. “You’re a really good writer, a good friend, and you know how to dress. You’re great at picking out gifts for mothers. But baking …”

      Tracie gave him a look. “She’s from Sacramento,” she corrected him, which was her way of acknowledging he was right.

      Jon smiled. “I’ll help you grocery shop,” he offered.

      “What? Don’t you have to work, or sleep? You always need to do one or the other. Anyway, it’s the most boring thing in the world.”

      “Not to a man who offered to fold laundry and was turned down,” Jon pointed out. “I can push the cart for you.”

      “If that’s what you want.” Tracie shrugged and started to walk away from the booth as Jon went through his pockets and hurriedly threw a twenty onto the table. Without turning around, Tracie spoke: “You’re overtipping again. See, your problem is that you’re just too nice.” Tracie shook her head as she wound her way through the deserted tables. “Women don’t want nice guys.”

      Jon’s excitement was mounting. Exactly. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? It was perfect, a conception that came to him complete from beginning to end, as the Parsifal project had. He had to get Tracie to understand, to agree, and to make his vision a reality. But he was good at that. “See you next week,” Jon shouted to Molly, then caught up with Tracie as she walked through the door.

      “So what’s your idea?” Tracie asked as she pulled a shopping cart from the corral. “If you’re planning another fake, on-line Girls of the Silicon Forest calendar, I’m out.”

      “Come on, Tracie. I’m serious. I gotta make a change before I need Viagra.”

      “Oh, don’t be so overly dramatic,” Tracie told him as they walked up the paper-goods and health-care products aisle. She looked him over with her peripheral vision as they panned the dairy counter. “Your sell-by date hasn’t expired. You’re good for another two or three years yet.”

      “I’m not being dramatic. I’m being realistic.” He took a deep breath. He had to get her cooperation. “I want you to teach me to be a bad boy,” he said.

      Tracie was about to pass the hair-care products when she stopped and turned around to look directly at Jon. “Huh?”

      He felt his heart actually thumping against his ribs. He gulped down a breath. “I want you to train me to be the kind of guy that girls always go for. You know, the kind of guy you’re always going with. Phil. Before him, Jimmy. And you remember Roger? The skinpopper. He was really bad. And you were nuts about Roger.”

      “You’re nuts,” Tracie said, and pushed the cart forward, leaving him behind her. She grabbed a bottle of Pert—a shampoo she’d never select if she wasn’t flustered—and Jon quickly caught up to her in the almost-deserted baking-supplies aisle.

      “Please, Tracie. I really mean it.” He had to both calm her and create a wave of enthusiasm. He reminded himself that he knew how to build project teams.

      “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would you want to be a bum? Anyway, it’s impossible. You could never act—”

      “Yes, I could. I could if you would teach me.” Overcome objections, he told himself. Then enlist her talent. “Remember what a good student I was in school? Come on, Tracie. Look at it as a challenge, a way to use all the research you’ve gathered from those tattooed boyfriends of yours.” He observed her interest. Now, create desirable opposition. “Otherwise,” he said, as casually as he could, “Molly is right.”

      At the mention of the waitress’s name, Tracie stopped again and turned to face him. “Right about what?” she asked, brusquely. Then she turned away to examine the flour.

      “Repetition compulsion,” he explained, his heart beating hard. He’d hooked her. “You’ve just been repeating yourself for no reason for the last seven years. Wasting time. But if you could become an alchemist …”

      She crouched down, reading the label on one of the lower flour sacks. “Who would have thought there were so many different kinds of flour?” she asked, a mere distraction technique he’d simply wait out. “Do you think she wants sifted bleached or sifted unbleached or unsifted unbleached or unsifted bleached?”

      Jon remembered Barbara’s biscuits of fifteen hours earlier and grabbed the presifted bleached. “This kind,” he said, handing her the package. She stood up and accepted the bag. “So how ’bout it? Will you teach me?”

      She shrugged, placed the flour in the cart, and began to move down the aisle. “Okay,” she admitted. “Maybe I can write a pretty good feature and blow-dry my hair on a rainy day in Seattle without getting frizz. But I can’t bake, and no one could teach you to be bad. You can’t be bad, so this can’t be serious.” She turned away.

      Jon suddenly felt desperate. He imagined seeing Samantha at work the next morning and could hardly bear it. Plus, Tracie was right: It was much worse that he had called. What made him so unutterably stupid at times?

      But despite her disclaimer, Tracie could help him, if only she would. She held the key, but she wouldn’t give it up. What kind of friend was that? He told himself he had to go for a strong close. He’d succeeded in getting million-dollar project allocations. He could do this. He grabbed her by the arm and spun her around, looking directly in her eyes. “I’ve never been more serious in my life. And you’re the only one who can help. You know all my dirty little habits and you’ve got your Ph.BB. You majored in Bad Boys all through college and you’re doing your graduate work at the Seattle Times.”

      “Well, it would be a challenge, that’s for sure,” Tracie said, smiling at him. With affection. Yes! he cried to himself,

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