When I was looking for a job in publishing he told me I was going to get a job in education. I scoffed, but a week later I got the call to interview at Spender-Davis. And one time last summer he called me at work and told me to get up and leave, right away. I didn’t tell everyone because I knew no one would believe me. But Edward and I went out for lunch, just in case. When we came back the building was cordoned off and people were filing out. There had been a bomb threat.
The next day I e-mailed my dad and asked him: Why is it just things to do with me? Why not world events, or your own life?
I think it’s my guilt, he wrote back, in overdrive.
I could smell curry. Dan cooks great Indian food.
“Can we eat soon? It smells so good.”
He got up. “Come on.”
Place settings were arranged on the kitchen island. I hopped up on one of the tall chairs and watched him spoon basmati rice and lamb curry onto a plate.
“Give me a lot,” I said.
“There’s raita and mango chutney in the fridge,” Dan said. “Will you get them?”
I was rooting around in the refrigerator when I heard my cell ring.
“Excuse me.” I went across to where I’d left Big Green and looked to see who was calling. twilk. A 570 area code.
“Hello?”
“Damn, Gracie. Damn.”
“Ty?”
Silence.
“Are you okay?”
“I just finished the book.” He sounded strangled. Was he crying?
“Are you okay?”
“No! Were you, when you finished reading this?”
“No.” I smiled, delighted. “It wrecked me.”
“In a good way?”
“Yes.”
“Man, Atticus was awesome.”
“Wasn’t he?”
“He tried, you know? Even when everything sucked and there was no way he was gonna win. Damn, that pissed me off! What a bunch of fucking idiot people, in that town.”
“I know! In that time.”
“He was righteous. A righteous human being. And the stuff at the end, with Boo Radley!”
“Yes!”
“Let’s try to be like Atticus, Grace.”
“Okay, let’s.”
“Tell me what else that lady wrote.”
“Sorry. That’s it.”
Long silence. “No fucking way.”
“Yes. She wrote one genius book.”
“Damn. Why?”
“No one knows. Maybe she scared herself with how good this one was. Or maybe she only had one story she wanted to tell.”
“It’s a mystery,” he said.
“It is.”
He blew his nose loudly. “Are you at your mom’s still?”
“No, actually, I’m at my dad’s. For dinner.”
“Okay, I’ll let you go. Sorry.”
“No, it’s all right. Where are you?”
“At my parents’ house. Heading back to the city tomorrow night.”
“Oh.”
“While we’ve been home I got Bogue to help finish the Facebook page.”
“Oh, that’s great!” I was so happy to be off the web-geek hook. I peeked over my shoulder at Dan, who was sitting at the island, watching me, waiting patiently.
Tyler was quiet.
“Are you there?” I said.
“Damn, Gracie.”
His response to the book was so completely gratifying. I knew exactly how he was feeling.
“I think I’ll read it again,” he said.
I laughed. “Okay, well, happy New Year, Ty. Be safe.”
“ ’Kay, Grace. You, too.”
I returned to the table.
“Who was that?” Dan asked.
I helped myself to a big spoonful of chutney. “A friend.”
“Must be a good one.”
“Huh?”
“Well, you changed, when you were talking on the phone. Your face. It was like you woke up.”
“Have I been asleep, all this time?”
“Let’s just say you’ve been typically enthused to see me.”
“Dan—”
“Never mind, dear.” He patted my hand. “What’s your friend’s name?”
“Tyler.”
“Five Words.”
I smiled. “Oh, come on.”
Five Words is a game my dad made up when I was a sullen teenager, to force me to communicate. As clever parental manipulation goes, it bordered on the diabolical. With my thing for words, I could never resist. And there was cash involved, if I managed to make a small poem.
“You come on. Give me five words about Tyler.”
I laughed and shrugged. Easy money. “Warm . . . smiling . . . shining . . . autumn . . .”
My dad leaned toward me as I reached for the last word.
“. . . song.”
“Ahh,” my dad said, as though I had just painted a fascinatingly comprehensive verbal portrait. He got out his wallet and handed me a five. All the while piercing me with his extrasensory Dan Barnum eyes.
“I barely know the guy,” I said as I tucked the bill into my pocket. “He’s just . . . really nice. And I am glad to see you, Dan, please don’t think I’m not.”
“Susannah Grace Barnum.” My dad smiled and patted my arm. “All is well.” He passed the basket of fragrant bread to me. “Naan?”
sad, inevitable, winter wedgie
It’s winter in New York, and you do what you have to. You hunker down, pay your holiday bills, and try not to freeze your ass off schlepping to work and home again. You drink lots of hot tea and put full-spectrum lightbulbs in all the lamps. You watch What’s Up, Doc? three times in one weekend for some medicinal Madeline Kahn. You decide that now is the time to take that trip to Cancún. You go online and choose a vacation package, but no one else can go with you right now. You seriously consider going by yourself.
You vacuum out Big Green and restock all items. You set aside the Toni Morrison you are reading and pick up Janet Evanovich. You think about dyeing your hair blond. You think about going back to therapy. You hijack your boyfriend’s Wii and play Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party, ignoring the downstairs neighbors’ complaints, until you are sidelined by a pulled groin muscle.
You time your comings and goings to minimize the possibility of running into the dog walker. You only run into him a handful of times, and you keep the interactions friendly but brief. You let him leave messages on your cell and leave him a quick reply in return. This gentle weaning strategy goes on for four whole weeks, and seems to be working.
Then he leaves you a note on the doormat:
Hey Grace are you alive? I miss you. I wrote a new song. Check it
out. I will play it for you if you come Monday.
TGW
calling
well the time has come for calling
and I know that your in town
I heard you cry the other day
and I think I’ll try and tell you
I love you, do you love me
lets get together again
well I never could stop falling
and I know that your around
I saw you smile the other day
and I think I’ll dial and tell you
I want you, do you want me
lets get together again
where did you go to, baby
who did you run to see
why in the world did you leave me, honey
aint you glad to see me again
now the time has come for calling
and your somewhere around
I caught your eye the other day
I was dumbstruck. Did he actually mean me, with the crying? When could he have heard that? Oh, I realized. Just about any January weekday morning, before work.
Why was he doing this? He had volumes of girls fawning over him. Did he really need another conquest? It was exasperating. There was no way I was going to go hear that song.
Then Peg called m
e. “Do you want to go hear Ty Monday night? You’ve missed a lot. He has a band now.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, a drummer and a bass player. And the crowds have grown exponentially. I got there a little late last time and almost didn’t get in.”
“Wow.”
“He keeps asking where you are. He thinks you’re avoiding him.”
“I left him a message. It’s just been too cold to go out at night.”
“I think his feelings are hurt.”
This was crazy. “What’s the big deal? We’ve only known each other for a couple of months!”
“Well, you know those artistic types. They’re very sensitive.”
I sighed. “I’ll see if I can come for a while.”
“I’ll try to save you a seat.”
I hung up. There were predictions of a massive winter storm late Sunday into Monday. I crossed my fingers.
Those people on the Weather Channel are liars. It barely snowed at all. So I went. When I arrived at the bar Ty was already playing with his band. The place was packed. Peg waved to me from the back of the room and I squeezed my way toward her, peering over my shoulder at Ty. I was hoping he’d register that I was there so I could leave soon.
The song finished and people clapped. Ty said into the microphone, “Hey, Grace.”
I turned around and gave him a little wave.
“Aw, I embarrassed her,” he said. Mass laughter. He began another song.
Peg was sitting with Bogue and a tall, emo-ish, black-haired girl who turned out to be Rash. She was pretty, in a wan, purple-lipped way.
“Rumor is there’s a New York Times reporter here, doing a story on Ty,” Peg said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, for a series on singer-songwriters in the city.”
I ordered a glass of wine and asked Rash about herself. She was from Virginia, a psychology student at NYU, and a performance artist. She was working on a new piece, to be staged in front of the New York Stock Exchange. She was going to dress in a man’s suit and run a half-marathon on a treadmill while reading aloud from the Wall Street Journal.
“How are you going to power the treadmill?” I asked.
“Generator. And my friend has a van to haul it in.”
“There are a lot of police down there.”
She shrugged. “If I just get five minutes of video, it’s cool.”
I asked about her experience of living with Bogue and Ty.
She leaned closer and spoke confidentially. “Bogue’s a total slob. And he doesn’t have a job yet. But he’s rich, so I guess maybe he doesn’t have to get one if he doesn’t want to.”
“He’s rich?”
“Yeah, his dad owns grocery stores.”
Who knew? “What about Ty?”
“He’s a little better. He hangs up his wet towels. And makes his bed. Which is more than I can say for Bogue. And neither of them jerk off where I can hear them, unlike other guys I’ve roomed with.”
“Maybe you should stick to female roommates.”
“Nah, sometimes I need something heavy moved.”
I excused myself to go to the bathroom. Two girls were huddled over the sink, laughing, fixing their hair and makeup. I recognized them as being on Ty’s street team. The taller, prettier one had on thong undies that were displayed way over the top of her pants in back.
I went into the stall. They were dead silent the whole time I was peeing.
I came out and they made room at the sink.
“Grace, right?” Thong Girl asked.
“Right,” I said.
“So are you and Ty hooking up, or what?”
I thought about not answering such appalling rudeness but it seemed better to squelch a stupid rumor. “No,” I said. “He’s just a friend.”
“Yeah, it didn’t seem like you were his type. No offense.” She flipped her ice-blond hair over her shoulder.
I resisted the urge to grasp the edge of her tiny underpants and give her the mother of all wedgies.
Squeezing back through the crush of people at the bar, I ran into Ty’s manager, Dave. We hadn’t formally met, but he seemed to know me. He was a big, good-looking guy, mid-forties, dark hair and beard. Very white teeth. He smiled at me, so I thought up something pleasant to say.
“Ty sounds great!”
Dave leaned in close. “He’s fucking brilliant. It’s just a matter of time.”
“Till what?” I asked politely.
“Till he makes us both a shitload of money. Enjoy him while you can, soon he’s going to be very, very busy.”
Why? Why did people make this annoying assumption?
“Oh. Well. Hopefully he won’t change that much.”
Dave smiled like he knew a clever secret. “Change is inevitable.”
“Yes. Okay, I have to go now. ’Bye.” I hated being rude, but I needed to get out of there.
I pushed through the drunken multitudes—had the door in sight—when Ty stepped into my path. He grabbed my shoulders, laughing, his eyes glowing from alcohol and the high of performing. His hair had grown out a lot and curled ruddily around his face, brushing his collar.
“Hey!” he said. “Sorry about making everyone look at you earlier.”
“Yeah, that was kind of uncomfortable.”
“Thanks for coming. I thought you didn’t like me anymore.”
“I’ve just been so busy. In fact, I’m sorry, but I have to go now.”
“No, I’m gonna play that new song for you!”
“I’m so sorry, I’ll have to hear it another time.”
He tilted his head and gave me a long, unsmiling look that might have meant he knew what was up. Which was probably for the best.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “Good-bye.”
He kissed me on the cheek, close to my ear. “ ’Bye, Gracie,” he whispered.
SPRING
learning the Heimlich/hearing the song
When March comes I desperately grab on to it. It’s only marginally warmer—the wind and sleet are biting and I know we could have a freak snowstorm in April—but still, I pack away my heavier clothes and start planning picnics.
Self-delusion. I’m good at it.
At work things had settled to avoidance and false camaraderie between me and Bill. Healthy Teen was at the printer. Now I was busy proofreading a fourth-grade Indiana history textbook.
I went to Peg’s Vernal Equinox celebration. We had dinner, then lit candles and planted herb seeds in little clay pots. Peg talked about how this was a time of new beginnings, of new growth and fertility. She had us write our prayers for positive change in white crayon on hard-boiled eggs, then one at a time dip them in a bowl of dye made from grated beets.
My turn came. I nudged my egg around in the soupy redness and watched it turn pink.
Peg peeked over my shoulder. “Your egg is so bare. Couldn’t you think of anything you’d like to see change?”
“I needed more time to think about it.”
She sighed and scooped up my egg with a slotted spoon. “Hey, look!”
A tiny, improbable adornment was attached to my otherwise plain pink egg. A fragment of shredded beet in the shape of a perfect little heart.
“Hey, how did you do that?” I asked.
“I didn’t.”
“I mean, how did you make little tiny beet hearts?”
“I didn’t! I just grated them to smithereens.”
“Weird.”
We contemplated the egg.
“It’s a message, Grace,” Peg said. “Pay attention.”
Steven spent the first three weeks of March in London, working on the European patent application for a new drug for blepharitis. I enjoyed the time alone. I liked sleeping in the middle of the bed, spread out, a foot in each corner. I liked walking around naked without worrying about bottom wobble. I liked bringing home page proofs and spreading them out on the table and working while slurping down a half-gallon of takeout tom kha gai. Maybe I d
ribbled some on my shirt. Maybe I belched. Or worse. Maybe I got up and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and observed that my hair, blindly piled up and banded in a knot on top of my head, made me look like the mayor of Whoville. Maybe all the mascara on one eye had completely disappeared and, on the other, had slid down almost to the corner of my mouth. Maybe, it turned out, I was the building’s Boo Radley, not Sylvia. So what? Who was there to see it but me?
It bothered me how okay I was with Steven being away for so long. But it’s perfect! my inner deluder reassured me. Because he would always be traveling for work, and it would never make me miserable.
Ty had stopped calling weeks ago. I knew that Peg was still going to see him play on Monday nights. Edward went, too, sometimes. But neither of them talked about it much after I made it clear I wasn’t interested. Sometimes Peg would glare at me during a conversational lull, as if she had something exciting she was just busting to tell me, and I would divert her with a quick dive into a new subject. But I could only hold her off for so long.
“What is your problem with Ty?” she blurted out during one late-night phone call. “What did he do?”
“Nothing!”
“Why won’t you go see him play anymore?”
“You know what it is?” I said. “He’s very flirtatious.”
“So what?”
“Well, he’s just relentless about it. It’s tiresome.”
“He’s a horny young guy, he flirts with everyone. Can’t you just ignore it? I think you may be missing out on a major sociological phenomenon.”
“And that is?”
“Well, I know this sounds cheesy. But a ‘star’ being born.”
“Golly.”
“Seriously, Grace. There are more people there every week. It’s like watching a religion grow. It’s fascinating.”
Grace Grows Page 6