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Narrated by Susan Ericksen
Olivia GoldsmithUnabridged — 10 hours, 11 minutes
Narrated by Susan Ericksen
Olivia GoldsmithUnabridged — 10 hours, 11 minutes
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Best friends Tracie and Jonny meet for coffee each Sunday night to discuss their forlorn love lives. Tracie loves boys with an affinity for leather jackets and poetry-classic bad boys who seem too good to be true (and usually are); Jonny falls for girls who never like him in that way...until Jonny convinces Tracie to teach him some tricks of the trade. After a wardrobe makeover, learning to return from a dinner date with another phone number scrawled on his hand, scope for women at the airport baggage claim, and always carry a motorcycle helmet (even though he doesn't ride a motorcycle), Jonny quickly becomes a successful heartbreaker.
And Tracie discovers that she just might be head-over-heels in love with her best friend. But there are more than a few loose ends. Tracie's current bad boy has at last decided he wants to settle down, her girlfriend has the hots for Jonny, and Jonny can't understand why Tracie never liked him for who he was before the leather.
With her inimitable wit, Olivia Goldsmith, bestselling author of The First Wives Club, delivers a smart, laugh-out-loud tale of modern romance sure to keep listeners everywhere in stitches.
The bestselling author of such mischievous novels as The First Wives Club and Young Wives is back and up to her old tricks. Dot-com geek Jon Delano is sick of just being "friends" with the women in his life and enlists pal Tracie Higgins to give him a Johnny Depp-esque makeover. But the makeover's made "Jonny" a heartthrob, and Tracie discovers -- too little too late -- that she just might be falling in love with him.
Olivia Goldsmith at her best.
A guilty pleasure.
Witty and wonderful.
Olivia Goldsmith at her best.
Gulity pleasures don't come mich tastier than this latest bon-bon from Goldsmith....
For all its hip talk and flaunting of high-tech accessories, Goldsmith's (The First Wives Club) cream-puff new read is an old-fashioned tale of love and friendship. In the new Seattle--a town suddenly stinking rich, "famous for its bad boys, good coffee, and Micro Millionaires"--Tracie Higgins is a young reporter for the Seattle Times. Though she has a musician-poet-lout boyfriend, every Sunday Tracie meets platonic chum Jonathan Delano for brunch. Jonathan is a techno-wizard for Micro/Con; he is responsible, dedicated, environmentally correct; good to his mother and stepmothers; and alas, an ugly duckling dweeb who hasn't had sex in a year. Tracie agrees to give him a "make over": the clothes, the moves, the haircut, the lines--in short, attitude. "Women don't want nice guys," she says. She should know. In fact, every man in the book (except Jon) is a selfish leech, abusive or indifferent. Every woman seems clueless. But the dialogue is crisp and funny, and though the characters are shallow, they're lively, comradely and comic. The makeover itself is wonderfully funny, especially as poor Jon remains pretty hapless on the pickup. Soon, however, his spiffy clothes, spiked hair, stale lines and casual cruelty turn his love life around. Has the loyal friend, the true lover, the decent, smart, stock-optioned man vanished into chic-ether? Read on. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Goldsmith (The First Wives Club) here offers a gender twist on an old clich . Instead of a female ugly duckling indulging in a makeover to snag a rich and handsome guy, she features a nerdy nice guy who wants a transformation. Jon is a successful Seattle computer executive who just can't seem to hold the romantic attentions of the girl he loves. Sure, he and Tracie have been good friends for many years, but Jon is interested in developing that relationship, while Tracie seems destined for a succession of handsome, irresponsible bad boys who ultimately break her heart. Figuring that a character metamorphosis is the way to win her, Jon begs Tracie for advice on changing his image. Tracie makes a bet with her current stud that she can turn Jon into a man the women will drool over. The book is kind of silly and sappy, but it works because Goldsmith infuses her story with much humor, general good cheer, a compulsively readable plot, and a hapless happy ending. Readers who have enjoyed her previous titles won't be a bit disappointed. Essential for all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/00.]--Margaret Hanes, Sterling Heights P.L., MI Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Guilty pleasures don't come much tastier than this latest bon-bon from Goldsmith (The First Wives Club)...A delightful romantic farce.
—People Magazine
Clothes make the man ... and the man makes the woman. Or so thinks Seattle journalist Tracie Higgins, who keeps herself busy writing feature stories for a local newspaper, hanging out with an assortment of comical pals, and letting her slacker boyfriend Phil take advantage of her. When Tracie complains to her longtime best friend Jon, he wonders why women always fall for users and losers like Phil. Jon is a great guy who always does the right thing—from making a modest fortune in the city's computer industry to visiting each of his several stepmothers and his own mom on Mother's Day. But since he can't get a date, he asks Tracie on a whim to make him over. She eagerly complies, tossing out his dorky khakis and company T-shirts in favor of unbuttoned black leather shirts and torn jeans, insisting that he get a sexy, spiky haircut, dubbing him Johnny in the name of ersatz badness, and setting him loose on the unsuspecting female population of Seattle. After some initial strikeouts, Jon hits pay dirt with Tracie's buddy Beth, who announces some amazing news the very next morning: Jon is fabulous between the sheets. Tracie finally wises up and realizes what she's been overlooking all these years. She's in love. But will Jon believe it when a tell-all account of his makeover and subsequent bungling appears in the newspaper? Fresh and funny for the most part, although Goldsmith (The First Wives Club, 1992, etc.) supplies enough trendy cuteness to fill a shopping mall. And the story's central conceit—that an intelligent, sensitive, kind, attractive, hard-working, loyal, rich guy who's also great in bed would somehow be invisible to theoppositesex—boggles themind and begs the question any post-teen female reader would scream at cheerfully oblivious Tracie: Are you crazy? Entertaining fluff—and sure to sell. Literary Guild alternate selection; film rights to Paramount
| BN ID: | 2940172407659 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Brilliance Audio |
| Publication date: | 05/16/2017 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Chapter 1
The sky was the same gray-white as the skim milk Tracie poured into her coffee. But that was what she loved about Seattle. It definitely wasn't Encino, where the sky was always a glorious blue, as empty of clouds as her house had been empty of people. As an only child with parents in "The Industry," Tracie had spent too many hours staring at that sky. No more empty blue for her. It made her feel as if she should be happy when she wasn't. Here in Seattle, any happiness against the overcast arc above seemed a reward.
Before Tracie had come here to college, she'd considered East Coast schools, but she wasn't brave enough for them. She'd read about Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, and the Seven Sisters. Uh-uh. She knew, though, that she wanted out of California and far enough away from home that weekend visits wouldn't be possible. Unlike the heroine in a fairy tale, she couldn't say that her stepmother was wicked. Just passive-aggressive. So she'd picked the University of Washington, and the bonus had been that, aside from a pretty good journalism school, she'd made good friends, gotten a decent job, and fallen in love with Seattle. Not to mention that when the music scene got hot, she'd found a string of drop-dead-sexy guys. Of course, Tracie admitted to herself as she took her first sip of morning caffeine, Seattle was famous for its bad boys, good coffee, and Micro Millionaires. And, staring up at the cloud-filled sky, Tracie Leigh Higgins considered herself an aficionado on all three.
Sometimes, though, she thought she had them in the wrong positions: Maybe she ought to quit the bad boys completely, cut back on the coffee, and start dating the Micro Millionaires. Instead, she got serious with bad boys, guzzled lattes, and only interviewed and wrote about Micro Millionaires.
Tracie looked up at the sky once more. Her boyfriend, Phil, was giving her problems again. Maybe I should quit coffee, date the Micro and Gotonet guys, and write novels about the bad boys, she thought, and considered the idea as she stirred a little skim milk into her brew. She considered one of the chocolate and yellow-cake muffins, but then she scolded herself because they were addictive and she was off them for good. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Tracie realized it was either the thought of giving up Phil or writing a book that made her so upset she craved comfort. Did she have the courage to quit her day job to write books? And what did she have to write about? Too embarrassing to write about her ex-boyfriends, she decided. Tracie loved the quiet time she spent each morning reading out-of-town papers and staring out the coffeehouse window, but she'd be late if she didn't get moving. She had another Nettie profile to write. Boring.
She took another sip from the cup and glanced at her watch. Wait. Maybe I should quit bad boys and write about coffee.... It was all too confusing this early in the morning. She was a night person. She couldn't sort out life issues this early in the day. She'd wait until next New Year's to make some resolutions. Today, she had a deadline. She had to finish the article about one more Seattle TechnoWunderkind.
Then she'd see Phil.
Tracie tingled at the last part of her thought and picked up the coffee, which was now an almost-undrinkable temperature. She took a last gulp anyway and wondered if she could leave work early to get her hair done before seeing Phil.
She pulled out a Post-it notepad and wrote, "Call Stefan for a c,w & bd," then gathered her purse and backpack and walked to the door.
But as Tracie walked down the Times hallway, she was stopped by Beth Conte, eye-roller extraordinaire. "Marcus has been looking for you," Beth hissed. Even though Tracie knew Beth was a drama queen, her stomach took a little dive, and the coffee in it didn't like the plunge. The two of them kept walking toward Tracie's cubicle. "He's on the warpath," Beth added unnecessarily.
"Is that term politically correct?" Tracie asked Beth. "Or would it be considered a slur on Native Americans?"
"Putting Marcus in any ethnic group would be a slur on them. What is he, anyway?" Beth asked her as the two of them hurried along the corridor. "He's not Italian-American. I know that," she added, putting up her hands as if to defend her own ethnic background.
"He sprang from Zeus's forehead," Tracie conjectured as they turned the last corner and entered her cubicle at last.
"'Zeus's forehead'?" Beth echoed. "Is Marcus Greek? What are you talking about?" Tracie took off her raincoat, hung it on the hook, and stowed her purse under the desk. "You know, like Diana. Or was it Athena?"
"Princess Diana?" Beth asked, wrong and one beat behind, as usual.
This was what happened if you talked Greek mythology with Beth before 10:00 A.M. (or after 10:00 A.M.). Tracie took her sneakers off, threw them under her desk, and rooted around for her office shoes. She was about to explain her joke when the doorway to her cubicle was darkened by Marcus Stromberg's bulky form. Tracie pulled her head out from under her desk and hoped he hadn't had more than a few seconds look at her butt. She pushed her feet into her pumps. Facing Marcus barefoot was more than she could bear.
"Well, thanks for the lead," Beth squeaked, and slipped out of the cubicle.
Tracie gave Marcus her best I-graduated-cum-laude smile and sat down as coolly as she could. She refused to be cowed by Marcus. He wasn't so tough. He was a much smaller bully than all the men that her dad worked with back in L.A. He wasn't even as big a bully as her father. Just because Marcus had hoped one day to be Woodward or Bernstein and had wound up only being Stromberg was no fault of hers.
"How kind of you to drop in," Marcus said, looking down at his wristwatch. "I hope it didn't interfere with your social schedule."
Marcus had a habit of acting as if she considered herself some kind of debutante. "You'll have the profile by four," Tracie told him calmly. "I told you that yesterday."
"So I recall. But as it happens, I also need you to do a feature today."
Shit! As if she didn't have enough work to do. "On what?" Tracie asked, trying to appear unconcerned.
"Mother's Day. I need it good and I need it by tomorrow."
Tracie's beat included interviewing high-tech moguls and moguls-to-be, but, like everyone else, she was occasionally given other assignments. To make matters worse, Marcus had an uncanny knack of assigning the very story that would ruin your day. To Lily, an overweight but talented writer, he'd always assign stories about gymnasiums, anorexia, beauty pageants, and the like. To Tim, who tended to be a hypochondriac, he'd assign stories on new hospital wings, treatments. Somehow, he always found their weakness, even when it wasn't as obvious as Tim's and Lily's. Since Tracie rarely saw her family and didn't particularly like holidays, she was usually stuck covering the special occasions. And Mother's Day!
Her mother had died when Tracie was four and a half. Her father had long ago remarried, divorced, and remarried. Tracie could barely remember her mother and tried to forget her current stepmom. She considered Marcus's square jaw and the beard, which, to be accurate, should be called "10:00 A.M. shadow." "What's the angle?" Tracie queried. "Or can it be a sensitive essay on how I plan to spend Mother's Day?"
Marcus ignored her. "How Seattle celebrates its mothers. Mention a lot of restaurants, florists, and any other advertiser you can stuff into it. Nine hundred words by tomorrow morning. It'll run on Sunday."
God! Nine hundred words by tomorrow would kill any chances of fun with Phil tonight. Tracie looked at Marcus again, his curly dark hair, his ruddy skin, his small blue eyes, and wished, not for the first time, that he wasn't good-looking as well as totally obnoxious. Looks aside, Tracie made it a policy that she'd never give Marcus the satisfaction of knowing he'd upset her. So in keeping with her policy, she merely smiled. She knew that would bug him, so she tried to make it a debutante smile.
"'As you wish,' said Wesley to the princess," she added.
"You're the only princess around here," Marcus grumbled as he turned and took himself off to darken the cubicle of some other poor journalist. Over his shoulder, he added, "And would you please try to get that Gene Banks profile fluff-free? I don't want to hear about his schnauzer."
"He doesn't have a schnauzer," Tracie called after him. Then, in a lower voice, she added, "He's got a black Lab." It was true she mentioned the Micronerds' pets and hobbies in her pieces, but that was a humanizing touch. Anyway, she liked dogs.
The phone rang, and it reminded her she'd have to call Phil about tonight, but at five after ten, it couldn't be him. He never got up before noon. She lifted the receiver. "Tracie Higgins," she said in as brisk and upbeat a voice as she could manage.
"And for that I am eternally grateful," Jonathan Delano teased. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, Marcus just had an aneurysm," Tracie told him.
"Isn't that a good thing?" Jon asked.
Tracie laughed. Jonathan always made her smile, no matter what. He had been her best friend for years. They'd met in a French class at the university. Jonathan had the biggest vocabulary and the worst accent that Tracie had ever heard. Her accent was pure Paris, but she couldn't conjugate a verb. She'd helped Jon with pronunciation and he'd helped her with grammar. They'd both gotten A's, and the partnership had thrived ever since. Only Jon or her girlfriend Laura could tell from four syllables that she was upset.
"I have a huge new assignment and I wanted to go out tonight. Plus, Laura is threatening to visit, so I gotta clean up my place."
"Famous Laura, your friend from Sausalito?"
"Sacramento, actually, but what's the dif? Yeah. She broke up with her freak boyfriend and needs some recovery time."
"Don't we all? What kind of freak was he?"
"Oh, just the usual 'I'm-sorry-I-didn't-call-you-can-I-borrow-three-hundred-dollars?-and-I-didn't-mean-to-sleep-with-your-best-friend' kind of freak."
"Oh. A freak kind of like Phil."
Tracie felt her stomach drop as if she were in the Needle elevator. "Phil's not like that. He's just having a hard time working on his writing and his music. Sometimes he needs help getting by, that's all."
Actually, Tracie more often felt Phil didn't need her help at all. While she always asked him to read her pieces, he rarely shared what he wrote. She still couldn't tell if it was because he was too sensitive to criticism, or if he didn't respect her opinion. Either way, Tracie felt attracted to that in him. His self-containment was so unlike her too-eager hunger for acknowledgment. He was cool. She was not.
Jon snorted. "Phil's a distraction from things that matter."
"Like what?"
"Um. Like the story of your mother's early death. Your complicated relationship with your father. Your real writing."
"What writing?" Tracie asked, playing dumb, though she'd been thinking the very same thing over coffee that morning. Jon meant well. He believed in her, but sometimes he ... well, he went too far. "I don't do any real writing."
"Sometimes it creeps into the middle of a puff piece," Jon said. "Your real stuff is good. If they give you a column-"
"Ha! It will be forever before Marcus lets me have a column." Tracie sighed. "If he'd just stop cutting them and I got a few features published the way I wrote them ..."
"You'd be a great columnist. Better than Anna Quindlen."
"Come on. Quindlen won a Pulitzer."
"So will you. Tracie, your stuff is so fresh that you'd blow everyone away. Nobody is speaking for our generation. You could be that voice."
Tracie stared at the receiver of the phone as if hypnotized. Neither one of them said anything for a moment and Tracie put the phone back to her ear. Then the spell broke. "Come on. Marcus doesn't even let my punch lines stay in my features. I'll be writing holiday features until I'm old and gray."
Jon cleared his throat. "Well, maybe if you focused more on your job ..."
Tracie's other line rang. "Hold a minute, would you?" she asked Jon.
"I'll hold for Marcus but not for Phil," Jon said. "I have my pride."
Tracie punched the button, glad to hear Laura's soprano. "Hey ho, Tracerino. I phoned because I'm actually getting on the plane now."
"Get out. Right now?" Tracie asked. "I thought you were coming on Sunday."
"Face it. You thought maybe I wasn't coming at all. But I am. I really am. I'm just calling to say I packed up all my stuff and left my pots and pans with Susan."
"So that's it? You've told Peter?"
"I don't think I had to tell him. He saw the look on my face when I caught him going down on our next-door neighbor in our bedroom. Plus, he told me Quincy was an asshole."
Back in high school, Laura'd had a tremendous crush on Jack Klugman. Tracie could never understand why, but sometimes the two of them drove through Benedict Canyon and staked out the house where somebody had told Laura he lived. They'd never seen him, but there wasn't an episode of Quincy that Laura didn't know by heart.
Tracie's eyes widened. "He didn't like Quincy?" she asked in mock horror. "And he went down on your neighbor?" she continued. "Was your neighbor a man or a woman?"
At least Laura laughed at that; it was better than tears. By Tracie's count, Laura had cried fifteen gallons' worth over Peter already. "So what's your flight number and what time should I meet you?" While Laura fumbled for the info, Tracie thought of her deadline and her date, but Laura had been her best friend for years. "I'll meet you at the airport," Tracie said, trying to assuage her guilt.
"You don't have to do that. I'm a big girl," Laura said, and laughed. Laura was six feet tall, and not skinny. "I'll just take the bus to your place," she offered.
"Are you sure?" Tracie asked.
"Yeah. I'll be fine. Besides, you've got work to do. You still get Quincy reruns in Seattle, don't you?" Laura added.
Tracie smiled. "Yup."
"Great. So hang up. I don't want to hold you up," Laura said.
That reminded her. "Oh no! I've got Jon on hold!" Tracie exclaimed.
"Don't worry, he's still there waiting for you. Hey, I'll get to meet the nerd at last." Laura laughed. "See you later," she said, and then hung up.
Tracie pushed the button for line one and, sure enough, Jon was still on the other end. "What's up?" he asked. Reprinted from Bad Boy by Olivia Goldsmith by permission of Dutton Books, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright (c) 2000 Olivia Goldsmith. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
