Grace Grows (15 page)

“And I’m old-fashioned.”

I almost choked on my baklava.

“Last time I saw Julia was at your graduation,” Dan said. “What does she look like now?”

“She’s stunning.” I got out my wallet and handed him a picture.

He studied it for some time.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Dan. Five words.”

He gave the photo back to me. His eyes were red. “She used to be soft.”

She used to be soft.
Oh, man. Five words used in a sentence was worth double the money. Triple, if they could make you laugh or cry.

I tucked the picture away; I was not going to puddle up about my parents right now. “She’s very professional. And she is definitely tough.”

“When I first knew her, there were no edges.”

It was hard to imagine. “How did you and Mom meet?”

“Hasn’t she ever told you?”

“Only vaguely.”

“I taught a life-drawing class at the Art Students League. She was one of the models, fresh in town from Piscataway.”

“Really? You mean nude modeling?”

He nodded. “She was gorgeous. Not embarrassed at all about her body.”

“So you saw her naked before you even really knew her?”

“Yes, which was . . . awkward. I had to teach standing at the back of the class.”

“Dan!”

“I became obsessed with her. I found out she waited tables, so I ate at that diner almost every day. She was taking acting classes down in the Village. I’d wait for her outside the school and go home with her. Luckily for me, her roommate was hardly ever there.”

“That’s interesting, but now we are on the threshold of Too Much Information.”

My dad laughed and raised his hand for the check. “So come to my show, you and Steven.”

“I don’t know, Dan. I don’t have the right clothes for those kinds of events.”

“I don’t care what you wear. Buy something, I’ll give you my credit card.”

“No.”

“Well, why not? I’d like you to come.”

“Is it a big deal?”

“Very.”

I sighed. The last time I’d gone to one of my dad’s things I’d lost my balance and accidentally stamped on Yoko Ono’s tiny foot. Then I walked in on Liza Minnelli in a ladies’ room stall. She was nice about it but hey, would it have killed her to turn the latch? My point is, I was a New York culturati disaster. But Dan asked so little of me, and continually offered me everything. Showing up for him and his paintings seemed the least I could do.

“Oh, all right,” I said. Not all that graciously. “I’ll come.”

On a Saturday afternoon in late September, Steven and I were in a record store in Times Square. He was in the Jazz section, headphones on, quietly bopping. I slipped over to Rock and flipped through CDs. Oh, look—Aerosmith. I had a simultaneous thought about their song “Janie’s Got a Gun” and Bill, at work.

We had tickets to a movie down the block and it was about time to head over. I started across the store to collect Steven and suddenly had to duck behind the near-life-size cardboard cutout of Hoobastank.

Tyler. In the Soul section. A girl with him. Tall, long blond hair, and tight jeans. Glued to his side. One hand cupping his ass.

I thought about the layout of the store. I had options, other ways I could go to get around them without being seen.

“Grace, we need to go!” Steven practically shouted at me from Jazz. “The movie starts in seven minutes.”

Ty looked up at Steven and then slowly around at me.

He was sporting the Johnny Cash look. Black jeans, black Western shirt, cowboy boots. Chewing gum. He lifted his dark glasses to the top of his head and smiled. I surmised several things:

1) He was stoned. In an elegant, Jim Morrison kind of way.

2) He was sexually satisfied. Recently.

3) The girl with him (also smiling at me) was Thong Girl.

“Oh, hey,” I said, coming out from behind Hoobastank.

“Hey, Grace,” he drawled. “Long time.”

“Yep. Long time.” I knew I was smiling the way my mom so often does. Which is to say, not really. Just stretching my lips. I tried to relax them, but it just wasn’t happening.

“This is Roberta.” She nestled even tighter under his arm, her left breast crammed into his armpit. How unfortunate, I thought, that she had a name that suggested a female truck driver. Stocky. Mustachioed. Someone with anger issues.

“Yes,” I said. “And you remember Steven.”

“Oh yeah, hey, man.” Tyler offered his hand.

“How’s the music going?” Steven asked. “Grace says you should be famous.”

“Almost there. I just signed a record deal.”

“No kidding!”

Tyler grinned and lazily worked his gum. His bloodshot eyes shifted to me and narrowed slightly.

“Well, our movie’s about to start. Good to see you!” I flapped a hand at them and grabbed Steven and dragged him through the store.

Outside, he stopped me. “What is going on?”

“You know I can’t stand to miss the beginning of a movie.”

“Wait a minute. Why were you so weird in there?”

“Was I weird?”

He gave me a look.

I scrambled for something plausible. “Well, I think he was high, don’t you? You know it’s just not productive, trying to talk to people when they’re like that. Best to move on.”

Steven looked dubious, but decided to buy it. He settled an arm around me as we walked. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense.”

It was not, technically, untrue.

For so long I prided myself on being a truth-teller, no matter what. And now I was dissembling all over the place. Telling very smooth semi-truths.

This situation with Tyler Wilkie had turned me into a liar.

That week I brought my pointy shoes to work so Edward and I could go on a lunchtime jaunt to Saks. My dad’s show was coming up in four days.

We narrowed it down to two tiny, mod, sixties-style mini-dresses. I favored a hot-pink satin, sleeveless shift. Not a lot of shape to the body, just a straight line down to midthigh, but I have good legs. Which I guess is the point of a dress like that. The other dress was girlier: black, strapless, with a floaty hemline and a big black bow across the breasts.

I slipped on the cruel shoes and tippy-toed out of the dressing room to model each of the dresses for Edward.

“So, which one?” I asked.

“It’s a myth, you know, that all gay men have exquisite fashion sense.”

“Now you tell me.”

“But it happens to be true of me. The black dress. With opaque black tights.”

“But won’t I look a little somber, all in black? Don’t you think the pink is more fun?”

“Grace, I’m reminded in this moment that you have breasts. Why not let the girls out for a little fresh air? Steven will love it.”

I bought the dress and the tights and a strapless push-up bra and also some big, sparkly, opalescent crystal earrings. A few hundred dollars later, we went back to work. I had to admit, I should make the effort to look like this more than once every couple of years.

I still had bangs but the rest of my hair had grown out enough to wear in an updo. I had on tons of mascara, pale pink lip gloss, and my breasts looked like a couple of softballs nestled together on a shelf and all bound up with a bow. Although why you’d tie softballs up with a bow, I don’t know. The black tights and heels made me look leggy, almost tall. Just for this evening, I was a hottie.

Steven was coming with me for the first hour of my dad’s event, and then the driver was taking him to the airport for his flight to Munich. I left the bathroom as he was coming out of the bedroom and we gently collided. He stepped back to look at me.

“Damn, I’m canceling my flight and coming home with you tonight.” He set his hands on my waist and pulled me closer.

“No you’re not,” I sighed.

“I could tell them I’m sick.”

“Yeah, right.”

He sniffed the tops of my breasts. “Is that a new perfume?”

“No.” I straightened his tie. “It’s just that body lotion I always wear.”

He could be so oblivious.

We left my wrap at the coat check, I snagged a glass of wine from a passing waiter, and we strolled around so Steven could check out the broken baby doll paintings and try the sound effects. Someone had given us a program that included an essay about my dad and a list of the various sounds we might hear.

We stopped at a painting and Steven slipped on the headphones and pressed the button. And made a pained face. He took off the headphones. “Yikes,” he said, consulting the list. “That had to be grieving Pashtoun women ululating.”

I put the headphones on and pressed the button, feeling lucky.

“
You got some ’splainin’ to do, Lucy!
” Desi Arnaz shouted self-righteously in my ear. I always hated when he did that. I hung the headset back on its wall hook in disgust.

“This is even more creepy than you described,” Steven said as we perused the rest of the paintings in that room.

“I know. Creepy and sad.”

“I can’t believe how beautiful you look.” He discreetly nuzzled me. “How can you do this to me right when I’m leaving?”

“Sorry.” I smiled. “I’ll wear the dress for you again sometime.”

“Yes, you will. The night I get home.” He checked his cell for the time. “I’m going to find the men’s room, okay? Be right back.”

I traded a passing waiter my empty wineglass for a full one and spotted my dad in the next room talking to three people. A chic Asian woman, an executive-type man in an expensive suit, and—

TYLER WILKIE.

WTF?

Though the rest of me seriously balked, my feet automatically moved toward them. My dad stopped whatever he’d been holding forth on to come and kiss me. “My God, you look like your mother thirty years ago,” he whispered. Just what a girl loves to hear.

He brought me over and I shook hands with: the director of the San Francisco MOMA; Tori, who represented my dad’s paintings in Japan and might be his current girlfriend; and Tyler Wilkie, whom Dan had heard was an incredible singer.

“We know each other, actually,” I said.

“Oh?”

“We do,” Ty said.

It was so disorienting, seeing him in this context. Then I had the bizarre realization that he was a New York celebrity guest. Like Parker Posey or Liev Schreiber, both of whom I’d spotted when I came in. Tyler was more dressed up than I’d ever seen him, in a rumpled dark blue velvet dinner jacket, albeit with jeans, a black shirt, and black biker boots.

While I was mentally evaluating his appearance I endured his flash examination. It started at the tips of my pointy shoes and swept up to the crown of my French-twisted hair, slowing almost imperceptibly at the unavoidable speed bumps—my bow-bound boobs, glossy lips, and the mini-chandeliers hanging from my ears. Our eyes met when he reached the top. I expected to see a teasing glint in his, but he looked away. Totally unreadable.

“How?” Dan asked.

“I beg your pardon?” I said.

“How do you know each other?”

“Grace is my best friend in New York,” Ty said.

“Really!” Dan looked at us, brightly curious.

I would have liked to accuse Tyler of gross exaggeration, but my throat was too tight to speak.

“So that explains your question,” Dan said to Ty.

That comment tipped me over into full-scale paranoia.
What question?
It appeared that my dad and Tyler Wilkie might be in some kind of cahoots. A bizarre combination that had the potential to send me back to therapy for years. I looked around the room and gauged the distance to all exits. Ah! Here came Steven.

“Oh great, she found you,” he said, shaking hands with my father. “I have to go to JFK now and I hated to leave her alone.”

“Thank you for coming,” my dad said. “Did you get a look at the paintings?”

“I did. They’re interesting.”

My dad grinned. I wondered how many times he’d heard that one.

“Hello, Tyler,” Steven said. “This is the second time we’ve seen you this week.”

“Yes, it is. An unexpected pleasure.” Ty shook hands, all charming, drawling friendship.

Steven turned to my dad. “Dan, can you make sure Grace gets out of here okay? Help her get a cab?”

“Hey, man, I’ll take care of her,” Ty said. “That way Dan doesn’t have to leave his party.”

Dan smiled at Ty as if he was his new favorite person. “Thanks, Tyler.”

“Uh, okay. Thanks,” Steven said. Looking not all that grateful.

Ty smiled ultra-sincerely. “No problem.”

I could not believe my ears. “I cannot believe my ears,” I said. I was standing in the middle of what had to be the three most upsetting men in the world. “I can get my own cab!”