Grace Grows (27 page)

“Okay. Fair enough.”

My Mega Missile was melting. “So, ’bye. Take care.”

“Yeah, you, too.”

I walked away from him feeling not guilt, as expected, but perplexity. He was perfectly nice, a good guy and all, but why had I ever tried to convince myself I was in love with him?

I got back to our blanket just in time for the lobster scene in
Annie Hall
. The one where they’re at the beach house with live lobsters crawling all over the kitchen floor, and one disappears, and Alvy says, “It’s behind the refrigerator! It will turn up in our bed at night!” Ordinarily that line makes me do a spit take. But this time my laugh was more of a limp, reflex chuckle than genuinely from the belly.

Not long after that I let Todd kiss me, which was not unpleasant. After the movie he asked me to come home with him for a drink but I said maybe next time, finding myself not quite ready for full benefits.

Sigh.

AUTUMN SCHMAUTUMN

whisper

The weather in New York City is never more sublime than in the first two weeks of September. Cloudless blue skies, warm sun, cool breeze. A few leaves have fallen already. The rest are still green, but beginning to whisper good-bye.

The air seems more oxygenated, and you remember to breathe deeply, gratefully. Beauty and clarity coexist with sorrow and remembrance. You can’t stop the PowerPoint presentation that, on autoplay, starts up now and again in your mind: the images of violent destruction, of faces filled with shock and fear and despair. You remember the care and tenderness with which people, strangers, treated each other for a long time after witnessing together unspeakable cruelty. You know that, unfortunately, you will never be able to completely forget any of it. You accept that, and try to focus on life as it is now. You keep moving forward.

voracious reversion to virgin try saying
that
a few times

My thirtieth birthday fell on a Monday, Peg’s night off. I accepted her invitation to dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant a few blocks from our apartment.

I had two glasses of wine and got a little maudlin.

Peg handed me a tissue. “Why are you sad, sweetie?”

“I’m not!” I blew my nose. “I’m actually happy. I feel like things are finally starting to make sense. I love my job.”

“Grace, that is fantastic.”

“And also, I know how to say
no
. If my life ever feels like a speeding freight train again, I have the power to stop it. To redirect.”

“Yes.”

“And not that I have this perfected or anything, but I’ve realized that I have to try not to make choices based on fear. Or what I think I’m
supposed
to do.”

“That’s a tough one.”

“Yeah. I’m just shooting for seventy-five percent completion, with that.”

“Wow. Grace grows.”

“I know, right? It only took me thirty years.”

The evening was a little chilly for the sundress and sandals I was wearing. Just in case, I had brought along my birthday present from my dad: a scarlet, butter-soft, silk-and-cashmere pashmina. I wrapped it around my shoulders and walked arm in arm with Peg and told her once again, for about the millionth time, how I treasure her. When I do that she always smiles and pats my hand like a no-nonsense, indulgent auntie, but of course she enjoys being told she is loved.

We came to the drugstore and she stopped. “While we’re here, do you want to pick up some more Double Butter?”

“What movie are we watching?”

“
The Seventh Seal
. The one where the guy plays chess with Death?”

“Double, yeah. I wonder if they have Triple?”

Through the glass I saw three men coming out of the store and stumbled over my own feet trying to get out of the way quickly. I grabbed Peg’s arm and pulled her till we were well out from under the fluorescent-lighted awning.

She was confused. “What are you—”

“Please!” I hid behind her.

The men emerged, all lanky, long-haired musician types in jeans, boots, leather jackets. One of them Tyler Wilkie. They headed down the street away from us.

“Oh!” Peg exclaimed involuntarily. Loudly.

He looked back over his shoulder. I could have strangled her.

He said something to his friends and they all turned and walked back to us.

“Hey, Peg!” He gave her a hug, which she returned enthusiastically. “Hey.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek with cool lips. I developed instant tunnel vision. I could still see him quite sharply, but all the peripherals became fuzzy. “Did you get my postcard?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He introduced his blurry-faced friends. One of them was his drummer, the guy he’d once lived with for a few months. We shook hands all around.

“Today is Grace’s birthday.” Peg said. “We’ve just been to dinner.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ty said. “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you.”

“I guess now we’ve both hit the big three-oh. It’s not so bad, is it?” He was smiling, but his eyes were still and dark. Impossible to read.

“So far, so good! Well, nice to meet you,” I said to his friends. I looked at Peg. “We’d better get going, we don’t want to be late.”

“Oh, yeah,” Peg said.

“Is there a party?” Ty said.

“Just a small get-together.”

Note the deterioration. Two minutes in the presence of Tyler Wilkie, and I had once again become The Liar. I held out my hand. “Good to see you, Ty.”

His warm hand briefly enveloped mine. I felt a strong urge to cry. I smiled brightly at his friends and moved several feet closer to home and waited for Peg to say a quick good-bye.

“Hey,” Ty said. “I’m playing at Roseland next Sunday night, do you want to come? I’ll put you on the list. There’s a party after.”

“I’ll come!” Peg said.

He looked over at me.

“Sunday . . .” I frowned with concentration and faux-contemplated the date. “Oh, I can’t, I’m already doing something that night.”

“Do you have a date with Todd?” Peg asked. “Because maybe he’d want to go hear Ty play.” She looked at Ty like
would that be all right?
Then she looked at me. And I swear, her eyes glinted with an evil light.

He shrugged. “Bring whoever you want.”

“It’s not—I don’t have a date. I just can’t come.”

“ ’Kay,” he said cheerfully, turning away with his friends. “See ya.”

I waited till Peg and I got to our stoop.

“By the way,” I asked. “are you possessed?”

“What? What did I do?” All innocence.

I tried to take advantage of the nice weather by walking home from work every day. The SASS office was near Times Square, so I had about a forty-minute walk home to the West Village.

It was a couple of days after the drugstore incident. I had already bagged some apples, and was testing the firmness of a late-season melon at my regular produce mart on the corner of Christopher and Seventh, when I heard a voice over my shoulder.

“Hey there.”

I lost my grip on the melon and essentially bowled down the produce guy’s entire pyramid of navel oranges. They rolled everywhere. Quite a few got smashed by cars.

“I’m so sorry!” I said to the guy, and the three of us started picking up the oranges that hadn’t rolled into the street.

“Sorry, man,” Tyler said. “I’ll pay for them.” To me he said, “You sure are jumpy.”

I was busy rebuilding the pyramid, so I ignored him. He handed me the last undamaged fruit and gave the vendor some money. In the fading daylight, I got a better look at him than I had the other night. He was wearing one of his Western shirts, half-untucked. The scuffed boots, the low-rise jeans. Everything was more or less the same, but different, somehow. He was more man than boy. Even his shoulders seemed broader. And his eyes were canny. A little cold.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asked.

“Tomorrow night. . . .” My mind was still pinwheeling. I had no idea what was happening ten minutes from now, much less tomorrow night.

“I’d like to take you to dinner for your birthday.”

A pack of passing girls slowed on the sidewalk and came to a full stop. He glanced over at them and they collectively rippled and gasped, like someone had goosed all of them at once with an invisible stick. He looked back at me, waiting for my answer.

I scrambled for a convincing obstacle.

He leaned closer. “Come on, Grace,” he said in a drawling undertone, “I know you’re not gonna humiliate me in front of these girls.” His eyes had warmed. He was once again the hapless, sweet-faced dog-walking boy for whom I would do almost anything.

“All right,” I muttered ungraciously. “But not too late. I have an early workshop on Friday.”

“Great.” He smiled, but only with his mouth. The eyes had cooled again.

Why are you doing this?
I wanted to ask. It was so clear that he didn’t expect to enjoy it any more than I did.

I turned away to pay for my apples and one of the girls nervously approached him. He spoke kindly to her and then the others came to him, too, blushing, staring up at him with dazed eyes, asking him to write his name on their shirts and wanting to photograph him with their cell phones.

I took my change and walked away.

I wasn’t teaching Thursday and a couple of people were out sick, including Lavelle, so I was able to slip away from work a little early and race home to get ready. I reasoned that because I didn’t go out to dinner with people all that often, I might as well try to look nice. And while I had no intention of trying to compete with the aggressive girls who were continually throwing themselves at him, my pride insisted that I at least doll up a little bit. Maybe it would be good for him to get a reminder of what a grown-up, non-ho, everyday-attractive type of woman looks like.

I didn’t want him to think I considered this a
date
date, so I didn’t get too dressed up. Just jeans, and boots that gave me a little height, and a cranberry-red top that showed a tiny amount of cleavage. Silver hoops. A little mascara and lip gloss, nothing dramatic. I was representing all dignified women, and strove for appropriate understatement.

He rang the buzzer at 8:07. Practically on time. Impressive. I grabbed my bag and jacket and took a deep breath and went down.

He was sitting on the stoop. Wearing the perpetual jeans and boots, with a faded denim shirt and a gorgeous, expensive-looking, fringed suede jacket that brought out the autumn red and gold lights in his hair.

He stood when I came down the steps. “Hey.”

“Why didn’t you tell me we were dining on the frontier tonight? Let me run back up and get my coonskin cap.”

Back in the day, that kind of thing would have made him laugh. Tonight he smiled coolly and took off down the sidewalk. I had to jog a little to catch up.

We walked to an Asian restaurant over on MacDougal. On the way we stopped at a guitar store on Bleecker so he could buy strings. Everyone who worked there knew him, of course. And a lot of people on the street either said hi or simply stared at him as we passed. With some of them, it probably wasn’t even because he was becoming famous and recognizable. He was just beautiful. Me, I was the invisible woman, tagging along.

At the restaurant, Ty asked for a booth in the back. The waiter brought us menus and hot tea and a bowl of those crunchy fried noodles. I didn’t have a big appetite; I was actually feeling a little headachy and funky. I ordered a bowl of egg drop soup. Ty ordered moo shu pork, General Tso’s chicken, fried wontons, and three egg rolls.

We gave the menus to the waiter and shared a moment of uncomfortable silence.

“So,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “My grandma died.”

“Oh, Ty! I’m so sorry. When?”

“About a month ago. Not even from what she was supposed to die from. She had a stroke.”

“Did you get to see her?”

He shook his head. “I was in L.A. They didn’t call me about it till she’d been in the hospital for a while and it was starting to look like the end. I got on a plane, but it was too late.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“They said she wouldn’t have known me anyway, she was unconscious.” “Maybe, you know, she wasn’t even there anymore, in her body. Maybe she’d moved on to, um, whatever is next.”

“Yeah, probably.”

It hurt, seeing him like this. “I’m so glad I got to meet her.”

“You met her too late. She used to be so great.”

The waiter brought the egg rolls and wontons, and Ty dug right in. It seemed that not even grief could challenge his appetite.

“How is your mom about it?”

“She’s okay. Peaceful. Rebecca cried for days and is still messed up.”

I must have looked surprised.

“Beck acts all tough, but she’s fierce about loving.”

I picked up one of his fried wontons and nibbled it to try to take the edge off my headache.