emerged from the dance floor, a short guy dressed like a forties bookie close behind her. Tracie noticed that a lot of small men went for Laura. The attraction was definitely not mutual. “Mind if we join you all? Or do you turn into rats and pumpkins at midnight?”
“Rats and Pumpkins. That would be a good name,” Frank commented.
Tracie looked at her watch. “Oh God. I’ve got to get this in.” She turned back to the laptop.
The band members were still giving one another glum looks. More dead soldiers littered the tabletop. Tracie snapped her laptop shut.
“This music sucks, man,” Frank repeated to the uninterested table.
“Yeah, it sucks,” Jeff echoed.
“Thank you for this introduction to Seattle. The conversation here really is a lot more sophisticated than in Sacramento,” Laura quipped.
Tracie looked up. “It all gets better when my work is done and the guys play,” she promised. She started to stand up.
“Where ya going?” Phil asked.
“I have to fax this to Marcus at home,” Tracie explained.
“Hey, don’t leave the table,” Phil said, catching her hand. “You’re making the band look bad. Don’t you realize other girls would die to sit here with us?”
Tracie shrugged and laughed. It wasn’t easy to find modem service in a bar. It would be hard enough to find a Yellow Pages, listing a twenty-four-hour copy center. Phil was being cute but difficult, and she couldn’t afford to get Marcus in an uproar. She’d have to do what was necessary to get her piece in and hope Phil would relax. If she could leave, she’d get back before the band’s performance. There’d be hell to pay with a pouting Phil for the rest of the night if she didn’t get back in time.
When she finally returned twenty minutes later, a swing-dance girl was in her seat. “I made it in just under the wire,” Tracie said, standing beside the table.
“Congratulations,” Jeff said, handing her a beer.
“So what’s new since I left?” Tracie said directly to Phil.
“Well, I hear the music still sucks, and I think there’s a new mascot,” Laura told her.
Tracie tapped the girl on her shoulder to get her seat back, shooting Phil a dirty look because he should have told the girl to move. “Hey, it’s not my fault,” Phil protested as the young woman walked away.
“I don’t know why these bitches want to dress up like Betty Crawford anyway,” Frank said.
“What assholes,” Phil agreed.
Laura leaned across the table to Frank. “It isn’t Betty Crawford.”
“What?” he asked.
“There’s no ‘Betty Crawford,’” Laura informed him. “You must be the drummer, right?”
“Huh?” Frank grunted.
“There was Betty Grable and there was Bette Davis. There was also Joan Crawford. But I don’t think Joan Crawford ever danced to swing,” Tracie explained.
“Whatever,” Jeff said.
“Yeah. Who cares? Whatever, man,” Phil said to Laura.
The band began to play “Last Kiss.”
“Pearl Jam,” Jeff said. “Epic Records. 1999.”
“That was just a cover,” Laura said. “It’s an old fifties song.”
“It is not. Pearl Jam writes all their own material,” Jeff said.
“Wanna bet?” Laura asked, raising her brows in a dare.
“Why don’t we bet each other a dance?” Jeff said. “Then I’ll win either way.” Tracie looked back at Laura, whose eyes had widened to match her brows. Wordlessly she extended her hand, and Jeff, who had to be less than half her size, took it and pulled her out onto the dance floor. God knows, Tracie thought, I’d rather give my jewelry to Allison than dance with Jeff.
“Where’s Bob?” Phil asked.
“Yeah. Where is he?” Frank echoed, obviously disgusted by Jeff’s departure. He and Laura were really getting into the music. Tracie had forgotten how well Laura danced. “I ask myself what would Guns N’ Roses do if they were here?” Frank continued.
“Pull out an automatic weapon,” Phil told him. Tracie had to laugh.
“Man, Axl Rose would turn over in his grave if he saw this,” Frank added.
“Is Axl Rose dead?” Tracie asked.
The band members turned to look at her as if she was crazy. “What are you talking about?” Frank asked.
“You said he’d turn over in his grave. I just …”
Phil put his arm around her. “She’s not smart, but she sure is beautiful,” he told Frank by way of excuse, then gave Tracie a long, wet kiss.
Jonathan Charles Delano rode his bicycle through the morning fog on Puget Sound. The road wound along the misty shore. He wore his Micro/Connection jacket—only given to founding staff with more than twenty thousand shares—and a baseball cap. The wind caught him broadside as he made a turn and then, as he swung into it, the wind inflated his open jacket as if it were a Mylar balloon. Riding was good therapy. Once he hit a rhythm, he could think—or not think, as he required. This morning, he desperately wanted not to think of last night—a night he’d spent standing in the rain getting stood up—or of the exhausting day ahead. He was actually reluctant to get to his destination, but he pedaled his heart out as if participating in the Tour de France. Mother’s Day was always tough for him. For years now, he had been following this tradition, one he had invented out of unnecessary guilt and compassion. He figured that as Chuck Delano’s son, he owed something. And anyhow, as an only child, these visits were the closest he got to extended family. Anyway, that’s how he rationalized the visits.
As he pulled around the next curve of the coast road, the fog cleared all at once and a breathtaking view across the Sound opened. Seattle appeared as green-fringed and magical as the Emerald City—and he noticed that Rainier was out, the towering mountain that reigned majestically over the city when visibility was good.
As one of the four actual natives of Seattle—it seemed everyone else had moved to the city from somewhere “back east”—he’d seen the sight a thousand times, but it never failed to thrill him. Now, though, he could only take a moment to enjoy it before he continued pedaling across Bainbridge Island and finally up to a shingled house. Jon jumped off his bike, pulled a bouquet out of the basket, and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked at his watch, cringed, and bolted up the path to the front door. The name plate on it read MRS. B. DELANO.
He knocked on the door. A heavyset middle-aged blonde in a zippered sweat suit opened the door. Jon couldn’t help noticing Barbara was even bigger than last year. She had an apron on over her sweats. That made Jon smile. It was so … Barbara.
“Jon! Oh, Jon. I didn’t expect you,” she lied in the sweetest way as she hugged him. Barbara was his father’s first wife, only slightly older than Jon’s own mother, but somehow from a different generation.
Jon tried to be all the things he should be: in touch with his feelings, a good son, an understanding boss, a loyal employee, a good friend, a … Well, the list went on and on and made him tired. Being a dutiful stepson was the part that made him depressed, as well.
Something about the first Mrs. Delano really saddened him. It was her relentless cheerfulness. She seemed happy in her little