Grace Grows (26 page)

I needed to find another grocery. But this was so close. And the only one in the neighborhood that did double coupons.

On a Sunday night in late June, Peg and I ran down to the drugstore on the corner for snacks. We had created our own little film series and committed to watching all the films of Ingmar Bergman. Tonight we would screen the epic
Fanny and Alexander
.

There were too many microwave popcorn options. The angel on Peg’s shoulder delicately pressed us to buy the kind with no oil added. My tiny red fiend stamped his cloven hooves! He wanted lots of movie theater butter, and was willing to get ugly about it.

Then a distinctive voice intruded. Peg and I abruptly forgot about popcorn and turned to the ceiling-mounted television.

A music video. A close-up of Ty’s face, photographed in sepia tones.

I knew the song he was lip-synching. He’d played it on the piano under the deer head for me that Sunday morning last November. Only now it was so much
more
, almost an eighties-style power ballad. And there were words. I heard them in a blur. I couldn’t hold on to most of them, but they made my stomach feel awful.

Now he was no longer in close-up but sitting in a booth in a seedy diner, alone, staring at his untouched food, singing about missing someone’s smell. Now walking down a deserted country road, barefoot, in ragged jeans and beat-up T-shirt, carrying a guitar. Sad. Yearning. Soulful.

Now a girl, ethereally lovely, with long, wavy, blond hair, barefoot and wearing a skimpy little calico slip-dress, slowly comes to him, meeting him in the middle of the dusty road. She is crying. She touches his face. The guitar falls to the ground in slo-mo and the beautiful girl is enfolded in his arms and they stand there on the road, entwined. The camera pulls away, way above them, bird’s-eye view, and keeps going, farther out, till they are just a tiny, satellite-picture speck at the last note of the song. The title caption, in the lower left corner of the screen:

Tyler Wilkie

“Something Sacred”

Album: Innocence and Experience

“Well,” Peg said. “How about that.”

“Yeah . . . wow.”

“His song is in the Top Ten.”

I looked at her. “How do you know that?”

She shrugged. “I saw it online. He’s going on tour in the fall with some other bands.”

Peg bought the Matinee Idol Double Butter. We walked home silently. And while she popped the corn, I went into my room, sat at the computer, and Googled “Tyler Wilkie Something Sacred lyrics.”

Oh, look, he had an official website, with a lyrics page.

our final stand

a mountain breeze

you kissed my hand

and left me on my knees

so long ago

I still can see

how you were mine

it’s in my memory

I need you tonight

don’t think I’ll make it

I need you tonight

wanna hold you naked

I need you tonight

we got something sacred

oh why?

longest night

lost again

I find your eyes

and they won’t let me in

I miss your smell

and our history

back in your spell

and all your mystery

I wonder why

I feel the same

and if you cry

when someone speaks my name

you took so long

for my heart to find

it’s all but gone

leaving it behind

I was shaking.

How could he?

How could he use our excruciating, private moment for commercial purposes?

I laid my head on the desk and wept. Suddenly it was all so clear: the moment in the woods hadn’t done to him what it had to me. It hadn’t shredded his guts and left a permanent, smoking hole in the middle of his chest. It was just another sad, beautiful moment from his life and it was fair game for public consumption.

I should demand a share of the royalties.

I heaved a final, shuddering sigh and sat up and blew my nose.

Somehow I made it through the movie, although I couldn’t say what actually happens. There was a blond lady, and two kids. A mean, bad husband, toward the end of the story. I think there might have been a ghost.

After the movie I said good night to Peg. Got into bed with my laptop. Checked my e-mails. Then, for masochistic kicks, went to
www.tylerwilkie.com
.

The website had the same Ansel Adams feel of the “Something Sacred” music video. Sepia and black-and-white photography, set among rough-hewn backgrounds and locations, with falling-down shacks and wildflower fields and boiling, dark, about-to-burst cloudy skies. And this beautiful man standing in the foreground, gazing back at me, dark-eyed and direct. Or in pensive, close-up profile, eyes closed. Hair blowing across his face. They had made him look so lovely, so carelessly masculine. They had plenty to work with, of course.

I watched the “Something Sacred” video again and wondered if he might be dating that stunning girl in real life. She appeared to be really crying, and they seemed so in love, so relieved to find each other at the end.

I clicked on the
Music
link and heard other songs from his album, among them “Her,” the lovely song he’d played in my living room while I’d been trying to write about wallpaper. At the end of “Her” I took a moment to lower the laptop lid and regroup. I should not keep looking at/listening to these things. They hurt. But I needed to know what was happening to him.

There was a Tyler Wilkie fan forum. With over
five thousand
members. How had all of this developed so quickly?

I clicked on the “Talk About Tyler” forum and skimmed the day’s discussion topics:

Pics of Tyler live at the Knitting Factory LA

I met Tyler last night!

sexy Pics of TW

lyrics to . . .

Ty on Jay Leno

Live and Unreleased Recordings

are we sure he isn’t gay?

TW on tour?

You Tube Interview!

My friend hooked up with Tyler Wilkie

I clicked on that last one. The thread went something like this:

RMluvsTy:
Hey! I’m a newbie here. Two nights ago my bff met Tyler Wilkie at a bar on Melrose, in W. Hollywood. She said he was pretty wasted. He bought her a drink and then they went out to her car.

TyTyTy10:
Damn! Lucky girl! What happened?

RMluvsTy:
Um, “heavy petting.”

Mesha3:
what does that mean?

TyTyTy10:
It means she blew him.

Mesha3:
ewww.

RMluvsTy:
They talked and stuff, too.

WilkWoman:
We’re not supposed to talk about his personal life on this forum. It’s disrespectful.

   TyTyTy, you’ve been warned before.

TyTyTy10:
What? I didn’t start this one. It’s not my fault he’s a man-ho!

TLTy2:
He’s a man, yes, and SINGLE. And plenty of girls are making themselves available. He’s not a ho!

RMluvsTy:
My friend said he was nice.

Mesha3:
he is nice, i met him at the garlic festival. he signed my CD and ticket and my shirt and my mom took my picture with him.

TyTyTy10:
Nice and horny. Heh! RM, what about his, uh, “dimensions”. Did your friend say anything?

RMluvsTy:
She said he was HUGE. But honestly, she hasn’t seen that many, so he might just be average.

WilkWoman:
WHERE IS THE MODERATOR!

I tried some of the picture threads. How could I not? There were some beauty shots from Ty’s website and lots of cell-phone shots of him playing live in clubs and at a music festival in Chicago. For a moment I felt happy for him; he’d gotten to see another new city.

I watched the Jay Leno clip. No big interview, just small talk with Jay about the new album, and then Ty playing with his band. I knew it would probably happen, but how strange to see him becoming national. This was the problem with only watching CNN and TV Land. You miss things.

There was a link to a video on YouTube of him singing drunkenly, tunelessly, with the house band at yet another bar. I could never have imagined him singing badly, but there it was.

Against my better judgment, I finished with the
are we sure he isn’t gay?
topic. It consisted of only two entries:

Me&MrW:
Are we sure he isn’t gay? He’s so darned pretty!

Smokinhot:
LOL. I just took a poll of the 18-25 female population of Los Angeles County, and a large number of them confirmed that Tyler is into women. And I do mean INTO. Regularly.

You know? WHERE WAS THE FREAKING MODERATOR?

The guy at the Strand, whose name was Todd, asked me out again and I accepted, having decided that a careful, emotionally uncomplicated sex life might be a reasonable option after all. He was in grad school at NYU, attractive, blond and blue-eyed, with an athletic build. Other people had “friends with benefits.” Why shouldn’t I?

The week before our date I traded my cotton granny panties for thong underwear. I walked around in them for several days feeling like I was flossing my ass, but I threw out all the old undies, determined to get used to it.

We went to dinner at an Italian place and then to a movie in Bryant Park.
Annie Hall
, one of my all-time favorites.

Edward and Boris were at the park, too. I missed seeing Edward daily and went over before the movie to tell him so. We agreed to get together sometime the next week. On the way back to our blanket I stopped at an ice cream vendor. To my severely uncomfortable surprise, Steven joined me in the line. I hadn’t seen him since the day of our breakup.

“Hey,” he said. Like it was no big deal.

“Hi,” I said.

“You look good,” he said, glancing at my size-larger behind.

“Thank you.”

“How’s it going?”

“Okay. How are you?”

“I’m good.” He surveyed the people around us. “Are you here with someone?”

“A friend, yes.”

“Me, too.”

The line advanced. The five-dollar bill clenched in my fist was growing damp. Soon I would have my raspberry Mega Missile and be on my way.

“So, I saw Tyler’s music video.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Finally, my turn to buy! I got my change from the guy and turned to Steven. “Well, good to see you.”

He followed me out of the ice cream line. “Are you with him?”

Maybe he had a right to know how things had turned out; no telling what he’d been imagining. “No. I never have been.”

“So . . . was it the right thing after all, leaving me?”

What was he, a masochist? “Well . . . yes. Not that you did anything wrong, but it was the right thing.”