Bad Boy by Olivia Goldsmith

Author:Olivia Goldsmith [Goldsmith, Olivia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Dating (Social Customs), Fiction, Seattle, Chick Lit
Publisher: Wheeler Publishing, Inc; Dutton, Penguin, Putnam, Inc.
Published: 2001-06-16T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

The next week, Wednesday, Jon met Tracie for the much-discussed haircut. They swung open the salon door, the music blasted from inside, and instinctively Jon stepped back. “Come on,” Tracie told him. “Avant-garde hair care is not for the fainthearted.” She took his hand and pulled him through the portal. “Don’t worry,” she said blithely. “Stefan will take care of you.”

For the first time in his life, Jon really doubted her. He didn’t think so, unless she was implying the mafioso meaning of “taking care of.” Well, what the hell. He felt half-dead already.

Was all of this really necessary to get a girl? It took so much time, thought, and energy. Wasn’t the relationship supposed to require maintenance, not his wardrobe and hairline? As he was dragged through the reception area‌—a room filled with bright lights, incredibly loud technorock, and something that seemed like the decor from a very bad gameshow set‌—he felt himself flinch. There was a point at which a man had to put his foot down, and he figured this was it . . . until the woman with endless legs and silvery gold hair down to her waist walked by. She nodded to Tracie and smiled‌—actually smiled‌—at him. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. “Hi, Ellen,” Tracie said casually, as if the goddess of love had not just walked among them.

“Who is that?” he whispered.

“What?” Tracie asked at higher than full volume, continuing to pull him along.

“Who is that?” he asked, this time shouting. He had fallen deeply in love. She was a dream. She was paradise. If not for the hellish music, he could imagine paradise with her. “Who?” he shouted.

“Ellen? That’s Ellen,” Tracie repeated, as if that clarified anything.

They’d crossed the reception area, walked through a bustling room of chairs and mirrors, and now Tracie led him down a much emptier hallway, though the music continued full blast. All the walking was taking him farther away from his goddess. Two other women walked by. Neither one was quite up to Ellen’s standard, but both were truly, deeply beautiful. Wow! They nodded at either Tracie or him, and on the blind chance that he had been included, he nodded back. Neither one giggled or pointed. It seemed he was expected to nod back, just as they were expected to nod at him. Maybe, he thought, maybe Tracie did know something about all this after all. But he would not let Ellen drop. “Who is Ellen?” he repeated once the other two nymphs were safely gone.

“She’s Stefan’s wife,” Tracie shouted casually, as if that didn’t mean his entire world had just crumbled. They passed a dozen doors, until Tracie opened yet another one‌—into what had to be the Holy of Holies in this temple of beauty.

“Isn’t Stefan gay?” Jon shouted, still reacting to the technorock. But as the door swung closed behind them, the noise ended abruptly. He was standing in a small, square, perfectly silent white room furnished with only a Star Wars-type barber’s chair in the center of it.

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