Grace Grows (16 page)

Steven pulled me away a few feet and whispered. “Don’t be mad. I don’t want you standing outside by yourself trying to get home, dressed like this.” I felt like I was wearing Day-Glo pasties with tassles.

“Steven. Look around. Plenty of women here are practically topless.”

“Grace. For my sake. Will you let your friend get you a cab?”

“I guess. I’m going home soon, anyway. My stomach is starting to hurt.”

“Okay, sweetheart. I’ll call you when I get to Munich.”

He kissed me and I watched him leave.

I supposed the expectation now was that I would turn around and politely return to my dad and Tyler for more chitchat. Instead, I slipped into the flow of people and moved smoothly into the next room of paintings. Just two more large rooms to shove through, and I’d be at the coat check.

There was an irritating clump of beautiful, entitled people creating a bottleneck at the next doorway. I knew the odds that I could successfully slip away and get my own freaking cab were very small, but I would not look back. I just needed to keep moving. I shook a mental fist.
Damn you, Debbie Harry and Julian Schnabel, move!

“You know these paintings are about you.”

I stopped pressing forward and pretended to study the nearest sadly beat-up old doll head. It had only one sleepy blue eye.

“Are not,” I said, not bothering to look at him.

“I asked your dad.”

Clever. Made me look. “What did he say?”

“He smiled.”

I shook my head sadly at his naiveté and returned my gaze to the painting. “That doesn’t mean
anything
. Was that the question he referred to?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Yeah.”

Okay, so maybe no cahoots, just Tyler being intrusive.

The people pileup dispersed and the path to the coat check was now clear. He stayed right with me.

“How ya been?” he asked.

“Okay. You?”

“Good. Looks like I’ll be going out to California in January to make my record.”

I found the coat-check token in my bag and handed it to the attendant. I knew I really should look Ty in the face while we were on this subject, given the momentous nature of his achievement.

I did a half-turn to face him and raised my eyes. “I am so happy for you,” I said. “I know how hard you’ve worked.”

When had he become so strikingly good-looking? His pale skin and warm eyes shone in contrast with the dark blue velvet of his jacket. And he knew it. I expected him to dazzle me with
the smile
, but he just studied me thoughtfully.

“I mean it,” I said.

He nodded. “Thank you.”

The attendant handed him my wrap. I took it from him and gave the guy a few dollars.

We walked outside. He went to the curb and raised his hand. I let him.

A taxi pulled over and Ty opened the door for me. I had learned earlier that standing up, sitting down, and getting in and out of cars was dangerous in this dress. I tried to sit gracefully and sort of recline/ slide my way into the backseat in such a way that I wouldn’t find myself needing those Day-Glo pasties.

“Thanks,” I said, and reached for the door handle, but he held on and leaned in. The streetlight was behind him and his face was in shadow.

“Would it be okay if I call you? I want to ask you about something.” He sounded neutral, almost businesslike.

“All right,” I said cautiously.

He straightened up and took out his wallet, and before I understood what he was doing he opened the front door, overpaid the driver, and told him my address.

“Ty!” I protested.

“ ’Bye, Grace.” Now
the smile
, quick and friendly.

He shut my door firmly and walked into the gallery without looking back.

songs of love or concealing the bling

My dad IM’d me the next day.

DanB:
So it was Tyler Wilkie who called you on New Year’s Eve, yes?

SueGBee:
Yes.

DanB:
I take it he saw you into a cab?

SueGBee:
Yes.

DanB:
Could you be a little more terse? How did you become best friends?

SueGBee:
I don’t know why he said that. He must have been a little drunk.

DanB:
He didn’t seem drunk.

SueGBee:
Hollow leg. Hey, it was nice to see Tori there with you. That’s been going on awhile, huh?

DanB:
Two years.

SueGBee:
Wow, that must be a record. I guess you really like her.

DanB:
I love her.

SueGBee:
I’ve heard that a few dozen times before, Dan. You give your heart away so easily. And temporarily. LOL.

DanB:
That hurts.

SueGBee:
Sorry. I’m sorry.

DanB:
You could try giving your heart away once, Susannah Grace.

SueGBee:
Okay, I have to go, Dan.

DanB:
Okay. Peace.

I tried to immerse myself in work, which at the time consisted of writing student ancillaries for a series of middle school textbooks on ancient world history. In ordinary times I would have eaten this stuff up; making up study questions about Egyptian political leaders during Graeco-Roman rule was my idea of a good time. I would have become totally absorbed in creating exercises about the metaphorical meaning of “Achilles’ heel,” or the importance of clay-pot-making technologies in ancient South Asia.

But I was not having fun. I was troubled. Because Tyler never called.

I was bundled up on the couch on a Saturday afternoon watching a classic Meredith Baxter Birney movie on Lifetime (SPOILER: the one where she kills her own kid and then kidnaps someone else’s son from a playground but he gets older and remembers who he is and the police find out and she ends up throwing herself off a balcony) when I heard someone come up the stairs, whistling. I flew to the peephole.

It
was
Tyler, letting himself into Sylvia’s. I heard his low murmurs mingle with the sounds of doggy ecstasy. Now here he came, with Biz and Blitz on their leashes. When he passed my door he looked right at my peephole, rubbed the top of Blitz’s head, and said, “You sure do have big ears!”

I pulled on jeans and a tee and washed my face.

When he came back I waited till he was coming out of Sylvia’s and opened the door.

“Hey!” I said nicely.

“Oh, hey.”

His hair had been cut a little but was still longish and wavy.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I’m good. How are you?”

“Good! Do you want to come in for coffee? I have banana bread.” Steven had made it.

“I’m sorry, I’d like to, but I have to be somewhere in half an hour.”

“Okay. Another time.” He was about to say good-bye. “I’m surprised to see you—I didn’t think you walked dogs anymore.”

“Oh, yeah. Sylvia called the agency, said the dogs were pining for me and could I just come once in a while.”

I laughed. “You’re such a softy.”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “And she’s paying me triple.”

“Hey, you never called,” I said. “To ask me about something.”

“Oh, yeah.” He took out his vibrating cell phone and looked at the screen. Slipped it back into his pocket.

“Well, what was it?”

“Nothing. Just a thought I had that night when I saw you. And then I decided against it.”

“Well, can’t you tell me what it was?”

He shook his head at my tenacity, or his foolishness, or something. “All it was, was it’s my grandma’s eightieth birthday coming up and my parents are throwing a big party for her back home, the weekend before Thanksgiving. I’m supposed to bring someone. I had this idea that it would surprise everyone if I brought a smart woman like you with me. Not what they would expect. And it would please my grandma.”

He rubbed at something on the tile with the toe of his Converse, then smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry, Grace. I was totally thinking of how I might use you to make me look good. I thought better of it the next day. That’s why I didn’t call.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, you must have been wondering all this time.”

“Well, no. It’s just . . . hearing you this morning reminded me.”

“Anyway, I’m sorry. I gotta go now. It’s great seeing you.”

“Yes, you, too.”

My curiosity was piqued. I was dying to see where Tyler grew up, see his parents again. I wanted to see their house, and their big garden, and where he played as a kid. Where he fell off the roof. I wanted to see if there was something in the water or air that had made him grow up to be so very different from other people, so . . . interesting.

He probably knew that I could go with him to his grandmother’s party as his friend, and people would make their own assumptions about our relationship. I could do something like hold his arm a time or two to help the illusion.

And I had never been to the Poconos. And Steven would be in Munich the weekend before Thanksgiving. I could go on a short road trip and be back before he got home. And I wanted to help Ty. How unimpressive, indeed, if he took someone like Roberta. And I wouldn’t even need to tell Steven that I’d gone anywhere . . . though why wouldn’t I tell him? I would, of course. Eventually.

So on Monday afternoon I called him. And, apparently, woke him up.

“What are you doing, taking a nap?”

“Just trying to get my eight hours.”

Of course. He’d gone to bed at seven a.m.

“Well, listen. I could go with you to your grandmother’s party, if you want.”

“Oh, man, Grace, are you sure?” Now he sounded a little more awake. “If you could, I’ll owe you a big one. Not
the
big one, of course.”

“Ha ha. Which leads me to ask, would we be staying overnight?”

“Yeah. You can stay in my old room. I’ll sleep in the basement. I’m glad you called. I was just about to ask someone else. But she doesn’t have a giant brain.”

Probably giant other things, though. “Well, I’ll double up on
Jeopardy!
, just to make sure I impress.”

“Maybe you could mention a book you’ve read or something, that would be good, too.”

On the Friday of the Poconos weekend, I went home at lunchtime, changed into a sweater, jeans, and boots, and threw a few things into my overnight bag. I had a long-sleeved blue knit dress, V-necked, a little clingy but not too tight, that I hardly ever wore. With heels it would do for the birthday dinner.

I rechecked Big Green to make sure I had my book (
East of Eden
), checked the time on my cell, and shrugged into my leather jacket.

My cell rang: twilk. I grabbed my bags and locked the door. Ran down the stairs and stepped outside. Where was he?

Beep, beep.
The window of the black BMW double-parked in front of my building rolled down. “Come on!” Ty yelled from the driver’s seat.

I threw my bags in the backseat and got in.

“It’s Bogue’s car.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot he had it here.”

He pulled into traffic. “Rents a parking spot for it and everything.” “I thought he might be coming, too. Isn’t he kind of like family?”

“He’s gone with Allison to Virginia to meet her parents. I guess they’re getting serious.”

“Oh. Wow.”

Ty was wearing jeans, a gray waffle-knit henley, and a Yankees baseball cap. He looked in my general direction and smiled but I couldn’t see his eyes because of his mirrored sunglasses.

“Um, should I drive?”

“Why?”

“Have you been smoking marijuana?”

“No!” he laughed. “Why?”

I pointed to the glasses.

He slipped them off and showed me his eyes. Warm and clear. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

Once we got on I-80 he played me some of the recording from Joe’s Pub. We talked about that night and all the famous people who were there. I asked if that had made him nervous.

“Like I might crap my pants,” he said, with a disarming abandonment of personal dignity.

“I felt that way, too. I was so nervous for you.”

“The good thing was, the light on me was so fucking bright, I couldn’t see who all was out there till after I finished. I came offstage and got an eyeful and my knees buckled.”

“I guess that explains the heavy drinking that ensued.”