Hi, by the way

I met her first on a tape, and after that we spoke on the phone late at night, and then one evening I went to see her play piano and sing.

It was a tiny Notting Hill Brasserie, and Tori had already started when I got there. She saw me come in and smiled like the lighting of a beacon, played Tear In Your Hand to welcome me in. The room was almost empty, save for the owner, who was having his birthday meal in the middle of the room. Tori sang Happy Birthday to You, then a song she's just made up called Me And A Gun, pure, dark and alone.

Later, we went off through Notting Hill and talked like old friends do who are meeting for the very first time. On the empty subway platform she sang and danced and acted out the video she had made that day for Silent All These Years -- one moment she was a Tori in a box, spinning around, the next a a small girl dancing past a piano...

That was several years ago.

I know Tori a little better now than I did that night, but the wonderment she inspired then has faded neither with time nor with familiarity.

Tori doesn't ever ring me anymore. She sends strange messages by other means and intermediaries, and I have to track her down in odd countries, negotiate my way through foreign switchboards. The last time she wanted to tell me that they served great pumpkin ice cream in the place across from the recording studio, a continent away.

She offered to save me some.

And she wanted to tell me she sings about me on Under The Pink. "What do you sing?" I asked.

"Where's Neil when you need him?" she said.

Tori is wise and witchy and wickedly innocent. What you see is what you get: A little delirium, a lot of delight. There's fairy blood inside her¹, and a sense of humor that shimmer and illuminates and turns the world upside down.

She sings like an angel and rocks like a red-haired banshee. She's a small miracle. She's my friend.

I don't know where I am when you need me. I hope the pumpkin ice cream doesn't melt before I find out.


-Neil Gaiman

(¹ I'm not saying she was born with it. She may have done something nasty to some otherwise innocent fairies in order to obtain it.)

© hereinmyhead.com | audrey