First Love, True Love

"I love you."  The depths of those big brown eyes drew me in and I closed my own eyes, feeling his hands on my cheek, in my hair, his breath hot on my face, full lips gently grazing my eyelids.  And in that adorable English accent, the words came back.  "I love you, too."   Heart aflutter, I pursed my lips in anticipation, reeling when I felt his kiss, slow, lingering, over, and over, and over...

It was 1967, and the goose down lips touching mine may have been a poor substitute...nevertheless, they sent a tingle up my spine.  For that pillow represented more than a nameless, faceless concoction; that pillow was Davy Jones.

I thought about those kisses yesterday when the shocking news of Davy's death began circulating.  About how innocent they were, how simple was our clandestine love.  For our affair never went beyond a kiss.  "Free love" may have been the hallmark of the 60's, but this pre-teen knew nothing of the desires of true love. That kiss was IT.

I opened my eyes again and stared into his.  Willing his lips to part, he whispered, "Will you marry me?"

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!  We kissed again, a quick, joyful kiss, then more of the long slow ones. Cut to a series of vignettes...we're running hand in hand through a field of hay, touched golden by the sun...strolling along the beach at twilight...tumbling in the surf. Sitting cross legged on a blanket spread in a meadow, Davy fastens a strand of daisies into a crown and places it on my head.  His head in my lap, eyes closed against the sun, I feed him plump red strawberries, and he pulls my face down to his.  Clad in only cowboy hat and blue jeans, he's riding bareback along the beach.  He stops, pulls me up onto the tall white horse, and we're off, the wind blowing my hair, those luscious lips caressing my neck with gentle kisses.  And all the while,I hear a faint tune.  ♫...oh what can it mean to a daydream believer and a homecoming queen...♫

Those scenes were played out to perfection in my mind over the course of the two years I devoted myself to Davy Jones.  Those scenes and one other...

Was the memory always gauzy, or has it faded with time?  Davy, in white tails, is standing at an altar, pink roses scattered on the path to his side.  I'm nervous, but he slowly turns, fixing those loving brown eyes on me, amazed to be marrying such a spectacle of loveliness. The feeling is mutual, and I gain confidence with each tiny step, until I am standing beside him, and he takes my hand, and a distant voice says, "I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Davy Jones," and he bends me back slightly and kisses me with such depth and emotion as never been felt before...

The dream was shattered when Tiger Beat and 16 magazines leaked the BIG STORY:  Davy had been secretly married to Linda Haines for a year and now had a baby.  Betrayal!  How could he have done that to me?!  That he had a baby was of no concern; indeed, it only added to his charm.  But a wife?!  SHE must have been the instigator, I decided. SHE must have forced the marriage, SHE had him under some kind of spell.  Davy, oh Davy, why didn't you pay attention to the Monkees' own song and "Don't Listen to Linda"?

By that time, though, Bobby Sherman had entered the scene as Jeremy Bolt on ABC's Here Come the Brides, and I, as the scorned lover, took him on the rebound.  Bobby's poster joined Davy's on the wall across from my bed, and the dreams began anew.

No, my daydreams never went beyond the kiss, beyond the altar, though Fred insists otherwise.  "I KNOW you had to have dreamed about the wedding night," he says.  "Don't tell me you didn't imagine having sex with him."

"I was twelve," I've told him.  "It's all about the fairy tale at that age.  There's no sex in fairy tales."

He still doesn't believe me.  HE would have had sex with a female counterpart, he maintains, therefore he's sure I would have.  "Girls have desires, too," I've heard time after time.

"When were you ever a twelve year old girl?" I counter.

Life happens, and somewhere along the way, daydreams gave way to the real thing; lips replaced pillows, and Davy's and Bobby's pictures were tossed into the trash.

But daydreams are sometimes infinitely preferable to real life, I have determined.  My romping-in-the-surf days are long gone, and my fair skin is far too delicate for picnicking in the sun.  Horses?  Never ridden in my life.  And if Fred plopped his head down in my lap and requested that I feed him strawberries, he'd quickly find said head flat on the ground with a whole retched bowl of the things smothering his face.

I've had twenty four hours to reflect upon Davy's death, and I've come to realize that I am not mourning just the singer, just the actor, just the idol, just a genuinely nice "good guy," not even just my first love. No, I'm mourning a part of ME, a part that was pure, wide eyed and innocent, a part that knew nothing of the harsh realities of life.  A part of my youth has died, and I cannot stop the flow of tears down my cheeks.

Davy reportedly said in a recent interview that he felt blessed to have lived exactly the kind of life he'd always wanted.  And one of his four daughters told Access Hollywood yesterday that her father died tending his horses, which was exactly the way he would have wanted to go.  That's good, I tell myself.  May we all be that blessed.

And still I fight the tears.

And still I believe in daydreams.