Decades ago, I was seated next to a WBUF disc jockey named James Braun in a Buffalo, New York, airport hotel conference room, where two middle-aged Monkees had just finished performing a stop on their tour.
James was doing the interview. I carried his tape recorder and kept the meeting running smoothly, as good assistants do. Not 3 feet away, there across the table, sat my English prince of princes.
I could not bear to look at him. Micky, ever the chatterbox, babbled away. Davy was the smooth, polished pro. I pretended not to be mesmerized. At the end Mickey turned to me, grinned widely and blurted out: “So-what’s-your-job-do-you-just-sit-there-quietly-and-look-at-us?” Davy smiled. He knew.
Let me tell you something: When Snow White was singing, “Someday, my Prince will come,” she was singing about Davy Jones.
Forget the headlines announcing — well, forget them. Millions of girls are still lining up to marry David Thomas Jones. Just like me.
Oh, we’re in our 50s and 60s now, baby-booming into retirement and old age. For my birthday almost 10 years ago, my very elderly father graced me with my own personal membership in the AARP. I have been dyeing my gray hair for decades now. My spare-tire tummy has borne me two children.
But the truth is, I never gave up my plan to marry the English Monkee.
Oh, Davy. Three women made it ahead of me to the altar with my favorite Monkee. None named Valeri. You lucky ducks.
This is not to say I diminish their loss. I do not envy wife No. 3, Jessica, married just two years if my calculations are correct. No one ever wants to live through the promise “’til death do us part.” Although this is where all perfect marriages lead, in the end.
Nor do I want to minimize the loss to his children, and his grandchildren. Their cherished, captioned photos were everywhere on his blog, “Keep up with the Joneses.”
Yet, when I remember that gorgeous face, those mischievous eyes and that adorable, boyish smile, and oh God that accent!, I think back to the first concert I ever attended, at Forest Hills Stadium. Screaming, apoplectic teenyboppers were dropping like flies. By then, my bedroom walls had been plastered for months with Davy pix from Tiger Beat, Flip, 16 Magazine and a dozen others, back when preferred adjectives were “outasite” and “groovy,” and boys we liked were “cute,” “beautiful” and “gorgeous.”
Davy opened his own “head shop” on Thompson Street in Greenwich Village. It was called “Zilch!” after one of their sillier songs. Any truly dazzled, frazzled female fan would make the pilgrimage to Davy’s boutique, where he sold love beads and peace-sign T shirts, incense and Nehru jackets and tie-dyed peasant dresses.
Of course, the point of shopping at Zilch was not the merchandise. It was the realization that in the recent past, Davy Was Here. It was therefore entirely possible that Davy Would Be Here Again at any moment.
A girl named Shelley Tomashoff on the next block, in the Edwards Street apartments, moved to Sherman Oaks, California, when her father was transferred. Months later, she sent a letter back to Long Island. Shelley had run into Davy at a baseball field. He’d stopped to sign autographs. Shelley had real photos of him, pen in hand, his beautiful, long, brown eyelashes cast down as he signed, standing just inches away. Sigh. Isn’t that always how it is for people in California?
We envied her, then. I had no idea that decades later, I would be sitting at that table with Micky and Davy. It would be the first and last time my path crossed theirs.
My best friend, Kathy, preferred the kind, gentle Micky Dolenz. Maryann loved Peter. But my heart belonged to Davy.
Oh, there were others I pined for. Sajid Kahn on Maya. Luke Halpin on Flipper. Steve McGarrett on Hawaii Five-0. Batman and Robin. The Men from U-N-C-L-E. Decades later, when I was pregnant, I could not stop gazing at the Wiseguy.
But there was something so long ago about the way Davy sent this 15-year-old girl’s heart a-flutter. Something about those girly, melting moments. Something about first true love, and innocence, and dreams that never die.
You once thought of me, as the white knight on his steed…
Davy, if you’re listening, I still love you. And I will wait for you forever.
