This book has a total of 42 chapters. This page is to provide you with a "taste" of what the actual book is like;
therefore I've only typed a very small portion, if you like this book, please buy it!
FEATURING P. 81 ~ 84 OF OLIVIA GOLDSMITH'S "BAD BOY"
"Stop!" She got up off the sofa and went toward him. "Rule Number Four: Never offer them anything. You make
them offer. That's the key to the whole thing. And never use either 'urinary' or 'tract' unless you're a vet, a gynecolo-
gist, or a religious fanatic." She took him by the lapels of his jacket. For a moment--a very brief moment--Jon
thought she was going to kiss him. That or head-butt. "They're going to be asking you to go to bed with them."
"Them? More than one?" he asked, and realized his voice had risen an octave.
Tracie just ignored him, pulled on his lapels, spun him around, and twisted his jacket right off him. "Well, not
at first," she said. "That's the advanced class." With a flourish, she threw his jacket in the wastebasket.
"Hey!" he began to protest, then remembered her stricture.
"No sports jacket. Ever. And no checks or plaids. Solid colors only. And dark ones. In fact, to begin with, we're
going with the Henry Ford approach: any color you want, as long as it's black."
"Black? But I don't-- Every--" he stopped himself. "Fine," he said.
Tracie walked around him slowly, like an officer inspecting the troops. "Where did you get that haircut?" she
asked.
"Logan's."
"Never go there again except to clobber him. Stefan will try to fix it. If I beg him." She looked down at his legs.
"Forget khakis. And you don't wear anything from the Gap, Banana Republic, J. Crew, or L. L. Bean." Jon was
desperately trying to remember what she was saying, wishing for his Palm Pilot, and attempting not to take offense,
all at the same time. "Look, if you wear this stuff, you'll just create a pucker in women."
"What's a pucker?"
Tracie made her big eyes bigger. "It's the female equivalent of a wilt in a man. There are some looks that are so
bad, they make us pucker up to be sure we would never carry any of that genetic material."
"More information than I require." He tried to think of what, if anything, in his wardrobe was left. "So where do I
get my--" he began.
"You wear either cool stuff from thrift stores or really, really expensive Italian clothes," Tracie said. "And you
mix them. Let's go through your closet." She stalked across the room and pulled open the door to Jon's walk-in. He
followed her. The clothes were meticulously arranged by pattern. Checks on one side, plaids on the other, descend-
ing down the color scale from light to dark. Tracie moved down the middle of the aisle like a machine gun mowing
down soldiers. She pulled the first sports jacket off a hanger and dumped it on the floor. "No." She pulled the next
and dumped it too. "No and no and--ecch! no!"
"What's wrong with madras?"
Tracie ignored him, except to give him a withering what's-right-with-it? look. She opened his bureau drawers
one after the other and scrabbled through his stuff. Jon panicked for a moment and wondered if there was anything
that he... Well, he had no time to think, because Tracie threw him a black crewneck sweater, jeans, and--in--
desperation--pulled off her own belt. Jon cringed.
"No! Not the strap! Are bad clothes a whipping offense?"
"No, but spending real money on this crap probably is. We definitely have to go shopping. I'm not sure I can pull
more than one cool outfit out of this. Okay? So here's the point. You are going to change: what you wear, what you
say, where you go, what you eat."
"What I eat? Maybe we're talking too much change," Jon said.
"Hey, you asked for this. You get it." Tracie raised her brows. Silently, she gave him the belt and pointed back to
the closet. He headed over to strip off his clothes behind the door.
"Change now?" She gave him a look. "That was just a question," he said as he slipped into the straight-legged
jeans.
"No questioning the alchemist," Tracie called from somewhere near the door. "Otherwise, the magic doesn't
work."
Tracie was going through his coats and jackets again. She began to bundle all the rejected clothes together and
stuff them into a plastic bag.
Jon stepped out from the closet. Now he felt meek and small, like the real Oz. Tracie dropped the bag and
looked him over. "Well, that's better. Except the shoes. No more sneakers."
"No more sneakers? But..." Tracie raised her brow and spun on her heel. "That wasn't a but," Jon hastened to
tell her. "It wasn't even a question. It was...a clarification. So what do I wear instead of Nikes? Sandals?"
Tracie turned back to face him. "Only if you think Jesus had a hot social life. Look, footwear is very important.
Nice guys wear Nikes, or Top-Siders, Keds, or Converse. Boring! Sexy guys wear Doc Martens or boots." She
squinted and looked him over again. It made Jon feel...peculiar. Surely she was taking this too far. "Look," she said
with a sigh. "I have to tell you about the pants thing."
"What pants thing?"
Tracie seemed not to hear him. "I'm really trusting you by telling you this, but I feel you have to know. Most
women have a pants thing."
"What?" Jon asked. He was afraid she was going to tell him that he had to stuff socks in his crotch and that
women picked out their lovers and husbands based on bulge factor. He just didn't think he could bear it, but before
he could tell her to stop, she began with a completely irrelevant question.
"Did you see Out of Africa?" She asked.