The Ballad
Macy Ashford developed an adolescent crush on singer Ryan Skelley at the tender age of thirteen. After seeing him on a music video, she cut his photograph out of an issue of Tiger Beat magazine and taped it on her bedroom mirror. It was soon followed by a framed photograph from his fan club that she kept on the night table beside her bed so that his face would be the first thing she saw when her eyes opened in the morning and the last when she turned off her light at night.
Ryan, one of the brightest stars in the rock 'n' roll firmament, was barely a decade older than his fan. Only twenty-two years old, he already had three platinum records, two Grammies, an American Music Award, two MTV awards and three People's Choice Awards under his belt. His concerts sold out stadiums and arenas on five continents, and he had a net worth of thirty-six million—and climbing.
Young girls idolizing performers is not a unique phenomenon. Macy's mother had been crazy about the New Kids on the Block, her grandmother screamed for the Beatles and her great-grandmother swooned over Frank Sinatra. Adolescents, soon to become women, often become infatuated with singers, musicians, actors or sports stars before moving on to real relationships with boys their own age. No doubt, had Macy's childhood not taken a tragic turn, she would have dated someone at her high school and gradually taken down the photos of Ryan Skelley.
Sadly, though, when she was sixteen, her father, who had battled mental illness for years, shot her mother and then turned the gun on himself. Macy came home from her girlfriend's house later that evening and found them both dead in the living room. From that day on, her life was never the same. The orphan ceased to be an ordinary teenager and became "the girl whose father went nuts, murdered his wife and killed himself."
To escape the notoriety, she went to live with her aunt and uncle in Memphis, Tennessee. The move from New Jersey did little to ease her sorrow, but at least it gave her back her obscurity. Fearing someone would learn the awful truth, she fiercely guarded her privacy. She made only a handful of friends and always kept them at a safe distance. Unlike her peers, she never dated, did not attend school dances and gave no thought to going to the prom.
Macy was seventeen when, at the end of her junior year of high school, she got a part-time job working at one of the gift shops at Elvis Presley's Memphis, an entertainment and exhibit complex located across the street from Graceland, the singer's former home. It was there, two months later, on a scorching hot, humid day in late August that her life was to take another drastic turn.
"A gift shop? Really?" a curvaceous blonde complained to the man following behind her as she walked through the store's main entrance. "What are you gonna do: buy an Elvis T-shirt? Or maybe one of those kitschy TCB key rings?"
"I wanna go inside because the place is air-conditioned, and it's hot as hell out here!"
Macy recognized the voice. Her head immediately turned in the speaker's direction, and she felt a thrill of excitement course through her body when she saw the face of the blonde's companion.
Ryan Skelley!
Their eyes made contact, and a clear, instant relationship was established: devoted fan and adored idol.
"Can I help you, Mr. Skelley?" she asked when she noticed the singer thumbing through several biographies of "the King."
"No, thanks, Macy. I'm just looking right now."
His use of her name caused a momentary surge of fear. How did he know about her? More importantly, what did he know about her? Then she remembered the nametag pinned on her blouse. Obviously, he had read it.
The blonde quickly ran to the singer's side and possessively latched on to his arm. Macy found it amusing that the buxom beauty would consider a teenage girl a potential threat.
"Well, if you do need any help, just let me know."
Ryan wandered through the gift shop for the next ten minutes—just enough time to cool off from the oppressive heat.
"Come on, honey. I want to go see the house," the blonde urged as he was examining a print of a Thomas Kinkade painting of Elvis and Priscilla Presley unloading Christmas presents out of the trunk of a pink Cadillac that is parked in front of a snow-covered Graceland.
"I'll be right there," he assured his whining girlfriend. Then as he was leaving, he turned to the salesclerk and called out, "Goodbye, Macy. It was nice meeting you."
When Ryan left the shop, it was as though the sun had vanished from the sky, leaving behind total darkness. Only the fact that he remembered her name and took the time to say goodbye to her offered the teenager some consolation.
* * *
Macy groaned when she stepped outside the door of the gift shop at the end of her shift. The hot, humid air made it seem like she was walking into a steam bath.
Someone outside was singing softly.
"Strumming my pain with his fingers."
Surprisingly, that someone was Ryan Skelley.
"You're still here!" Macy exclaimed.
"Obviously," he laughed. "I was just about to get something to eat, and I thought you might like to join me."
The question left her completely flabbergasted.
"You want me to go eat with you?"
"You do eat, don't you?"
"Yeah, but why me? You don't know me."
"I have good instincts when it comes to people. The moment I saw you I sensed you were someone I'd like to get to know better."
Warning bells went off in Macy's head. As much as she idolized Ryan Skelley, there was the very real possibility he was some kind of a pervert.
"Where's your girlfriend?" she asked, looking around nervously.
"The blonde I was with? She's not my girlfriend—not that she hasn't tried to be."
Macy hesitated. Her every instinct told her to decline his offer. Despite his international fame, he was a stranger to her.
"Don't worry," he laughed. "This isn't a Michael Jackson situation. I'm talking about you and I walking over to Vernon's Smokehouse and getting a couple of burgers and fries. There are plenty of people around here, so you have nothing to fear."
"Yeah, sure. I'd love a burger. I haven't eaten anything all day."
As they walked through the crowds of Elvis fans anxious to see his collection of cars, his sequined jumpsuits and his personal possessions on display, Macy desperately tried to think of something to say. She wanted to appear mature and not a tongue-tied teenager in silent awe of him.
"What was that song you were singing when I came out of the gift shop?" she asked. "It was something about strumming pain."
"It was a song from back in the early Seventies. It was a hit for Roberta Flack, and then the Fugees released a version of it in the Nineties."
"I never heard it before. Are you thinking of recording it yourself?"
"Nah. It's just one of those songs that sometimes stick in my head. Here we are," he announced when they arrived at Vernon's, which was crowded with hungry tourists.
They waited on line for their meals, cafeteria style, and then carried their trays to an empty table. Ryan watched with amusement as the teenager doused her fries with ketchup.
"When I asked you to come here and eat with me," he said, "you asked, 'Why me?'"
"Because you're a famous rock star, and I'm a nobody," she answered honestly.
"I asked you because I could tell, amidst all these Elvis fanatics, you were a fan of mine."
"How did you know that?"
"Like I said before, I have good instincts when it comes to people."
"Well, you're right. I am a fan of yours—a big fan! I have every CD you put out, and I have DVDs of your concert tours."
"And is there a photograph of me somewhere on your wall?" Ryan laughed.
Blushing profusely, she admitted there was.
"You must know a good deal about me," he said after taking a bite of his hamburger.
"I have read a lot about you in the fan magazines."
"Then you know I write all my own songs."
"Yeah, and they're amazing! Honestly, I don't know how you come up with the lyrics to some of them, especially the ballads."
"They're all inspired by real people."
"Really? I never read that."
"That's because I never told anyone. Well, that's not exactly true. I've told a few people, but I never divulged that little detail during interviews."
"Why tell me?"
"There you go again with the 'why me?'" he noted. "You really ought to get some self-esteem, young lady."
Macy smiled, popped another fried potato into her mouth and licked the ketchup and salt off her fingers.
"I'm telling you because I want to write a song about you."
"Why ...?"
She stopped herself from asking the same question again.
"During one of my concert tours, I played Madison Square Garden. I was sitting in my dressing room, waiting to go on, when I happened to see a newspaper in the trash can. I fished it out. It was a Jersey paper, The Star-Ledger."
At his mention of New Jersey, Macy stopped eating. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach.
"On the front page, there was an article about a murder-suicide."
The teenager rose from her seat and was about to run, but Ryan grabbed her wrist and held her in place.
"I know about your father and mother," he confessed. "That's what brought me here, not any desire to see Graceland."
"Please let me go," she cried, the tears falling softly down her cheeks.
"I want to write a song about you, not them."
"I prayed that I left my past behind in New Jersey."
"I won't use your name. I swear no one will ever know the song was about you—no one."
"But I'll know! Why didn't you just write the song and keep me in the dark?"
"Because I want your input. I want the song to be as honest as possible, so I need to know what you've been through, what you're feeling."
"You want me to rehash all that pain for the sake of a song?"
Ryan could have offered her money, but he sensed it was the wrong tactic to take.
Instead, he looked at her with as sincere an expression as he could manage and said, "Please."
Unable to resist his heartfelt plea, Macy sat down, wiped her tears with a paper napkin and replied, "All right."
"Now finish your fries," the singer told her. "They're going to get cold."
* * *
Over the course of the next three months, Ryan Skelley toured Europe, giving concerts in Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Austria. While on the road, he kept in contact with Macy Ashford via emails. He sent one or two messages a week, usually consisting of a single paragraph of four or five sentences. The singer never mentioned the tragic events in the teenager's past or the song he intended to write about her. Rather, he discussed mundane subjects: the weather, the sights he saw in Europe's capital cities and the size of the crowds at his concerts. He often took photos with his phone of restaurants he ate in or food he ordered and sent them to her. Macy would acknowledge his emails and comment on the content, but she had little to tell him of her own life. Occasionally, she wrote about a movie she saw or a book she read, but she never talked about friends or boys.
At the end of November, just a few days after Thanksgiving, Ryan ended his tour with a concert in Amsterdam and returned to the U.S. Macy was caught up in the holiday season. For some reason, her teachers decided to assign book reports, research papers and other major projects, all due before Christmas break. She was also kept busy at work since Graceland scheduled special events throughout the holiday season including a lighting ceremony and a concert weekend.
The first Saturday in December, Macy was at the gift shop, restocking the line of Elvis Christmas decorations (stockings, ornaments, Santa hats, tree toppers and wrapping paper, all graced with the King of Rock 'n' Roll's image) when she heard a familiar voice singing in an exaggerated Elvis impersonation.
"I'll have a blue Christmas without you."
The teenager turned around, beaming with joy, and exclaimed, "Ryan! You're back!"
"I couldn't miss Christmas at Graceland," the singer teased. "I heard they put up a white tree in the living room."
Seeing a line forming at the checkout counter, she announced, "I've really got to get back to work."
"What time do you get off?"
"Five o'clock."
"Burgers at Vernon's?" he asked.
"Sure. But we might have a little trouble finding a table. It'll be packed today."
"I don't mind waiting. I'm a patient man."
Promptly at five, Macy left the gift shop, eager to spend time with her idol. In an eerie repeat of events in August, he was waiting outside, singing the same Roberta Flack song.
"Singing my life with his words."
"You must really like that song."
"It must be this place. Whenever I'm here, I can't get the lyrics out of my head."
"Or maybe it's me, not the place," the teenager suggested as they walked to Vernon's Smokehouse.
"What do you mean?"
"Isn't that what you want to do? Sing about my life. Or have you changed your mind?"
"No," he admitted. "That's why I'm here. I've rented a room for a few weeks at the hotel down the street."
"You mean the Guest House at Graceland?"
"That's the one."
"Mind if I come visit and use the pool?"
"Not at all."
There was a lull in the conversation as they read the menu on the wall. Rather than burgers, Macy ordered a barbecue sandwich and Ryan opted for fried chicken. The place was crowded, just as she had predicted, but luck was with them. A couple finished eating just as they walked past, and they were able to take the table.
"So, when do we start?" Macy asked, salting her fries before adding ketchup.
"I assume you're talking about the song."
She nodded her head, and tried to take a bite out of her sandwich without getting sauce on her clothes.
"I don't know. What's your schedule like?" the singer asked.
"I have school until the twenty-third. That's when Christmas break starts, and I go back on the second of January."
"What about work?"
"During the school year, I only work on weekends."
"That's nine days," he announced after a quick mental calculation. "Christmas and New Year's Day you'll probably spend with your family, and then Saturday and Sunday you work. That leaves five days—plenty of time."
"You can write a song in five days? Impressive!"
"I can write a song in one day. I'll need the other four to pump you for information."
"I'm not looking forward to that," she admitted, her eyes misting with unshed tears.
"It might be therapeutic. Just think of me as a shrink."
"All right, Dr. Skelley. I'll start pouring my heart out to you on Christmas Eve—after a swim in the Guest House's pool. I'll consider that hydrotherapy."
* * *
Her hair still wet from a morning spent in the pool, Macy wrapped a towel around her head turban-style and followed Ryan into the Guest House.
"I reserved one of the hotel's meeting rooms," he announced. "I thought you might feel more at ease in an impersonal, business-like setting than in my suite. I've also taken the liberty of ordering pizza. I hope you like pepperoni."
"Yes, thank you."
The singer had gone to the trouble of putting out cans of cold soda and a variety of snacks: potato chips, pretzels, Raisinets and peanut M&M's.
"I'm a junk food junkie," he explained with a smile as he reached for a handful of chocolate-covered raisins.
Macy took a seat and helped herself to some potato chips. Ryan sat down across from her.
"Do you mind if I take a few notes?" he asked before reaching for the pen and pad of paper that were on the table.
"No. I'm surprised you're not taping our conversation. It would be easier than writing down what I say."
"While a tape recorder can preserve words, it can't describe emotions."
"That's what this song is going to be about. Isn't it? My pain."
"Paul McCartney once sang, 'Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs.' Such ballads are all well and good, but there are other stories to tell—yours, for instance."
"Okay. What do you want to know?"
"Tell me a little about your parents. How did they get along? How did they treat you?"
In the midst of describing what to Macy had been a normal, middle-class family environment, the pizza arrived. It helped add a touch of normalcy to an unusual situation. The short, frequent breaks in her narrative that allowed her to bite into and chew her food and occasionally wash it down with a sip of Coca-Cola kept her from breaking down in tears.
From time to time, Ryan jotted down his reactions to her answers as well as phrases that would eventually be included in his lyrics. When he felt he understood the Ashfords' homelife before the murder-suicide, he went on to the next question.
"Now tell me about that night."
Tears fell down the teenager's cheeks onto the grease-stained paper plate that held a half-eaten slice of pizza and a piece of crust. Ryan remained silent while she spoke, not wanting to upset her further with needless questions and comments.
"I can't help wondering," she cried after describing the awful events of that evening, "if my father would have killed me, too, if I was home."
Sensing that his young fan was emotionally drained, the singer suggested they call it a day.
"We can continue this conversation another time. Tomorrow, maybe?"
"Yeah. I can come back here after I finish my chores."
"I have a better idea. I haven't seen much of Memphis. Why don't we take one of those hop-on, hop-off busses and get the grand tour?"
Ryan's lighthearted eagerness to take in the city's sights cheered Macy up.
"That sounds like fun," she agreed. "You've already seen Graceland, but we can go to Sun Records and the Stax Museum."
"I'd also like to see the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. I understand there's a Civil Rights museum there now."
"But what about the song?"
"We can talk on the bus or take a walk down Beale Street, and you can tell me about how the tragedy has changed your life."
* * *
The following morning, they met on Elvis Presley Boulevard, outside the Guest House. It was a short walk from there to Graceland, one of the stops along the bus route.
"No eating at Vernon's today?" Macy laughed.
"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of the Hard Rock Café."
"Then we should time our tour to be on Beale Street around noon."
Unlike the previous day, there were no tears when the teenager talked about her past. At this point in her narrative, the worst was over. Once her parents were buried, it was all a matter of adjusting to her life as an orphan. Not that it was easy! She was uprooted from her home and school and sent to live with relatives in a different region of the country. Even for someone who did not carry painful emotional scars, such a move would have been difficult.
"It's not as though I don't like the South," she explained. "But I was born and raised in the North. Everything was familiar there. Tennessee is like the Land of Oz, and I sometimes wish I could click my ruby slippers together and chant, 'There's no place like home.'"
"I like that analogy," Ryan said. "I might use it in the song."
"Have you started writing it yet?"
"I've experimented with the melody but not the words."
Rather than the emotionally draining experience of the previous day, the self-guided bus tour through Memphis was both educational and fun. Although he took fewer notes, Ryan felt he had a good grasp of what Macy's life had been like in the wake of the loss of her parents.
It was dark by the time they hopped off the bus at Graceland, and the singer insisted his fan take a cab home.
"What time do you want me to come back tomorrow?" she asked, getting into the back seat of the taxi.
"I think you can use a break. Why don't you spend the day with your aunt and uncle?"
"They both have to work," she answered, disappointed that she would not be seeing Ryan.
"What about your friends?"
Macy shrugged her shoulders, not wanting to admit that she rarely spent time with others her own age except during school hours.
"If you want to, you can come over and use the pool."
The resulting smile brightened her young face.
"Thanks. I'll be over around ten."
"Now, if you'll excuse me," he said, shutting the door of the taxi for her, "I'm going up to my room and work on my melody. Hopefully, the song will be completed by New Year's."
"So soon?"
"I work fast. Besides, I have a concert in New York on New Year's Day."
"Will you come back to Memphis afterward?"
"I'm afraid not. I have to go to L.A. and begin recording my next album."
"I'm going to miss you."
"Don't worry. You haven't heard the last from me."
When the taxi driver drove away, Ryan watched the cab's rearview lights disappear into the traffic.
What a shame, he thought. She's such a nice kid.
As he entered the Guest House lobby, he softly sang along to the Roberta Flack song that once again played in his head.
"Telling my whole life with his words."
* * *
"You've been in that pool all morning," Ryan noted when he came down from his room in the early afternoon. "Your skin is going to prune."
"You sound like my mother," Macy said, her eyes immediately tearing up.
"Are you hungry?"
"Starved."
"I'll order us some lunch, and then I'll play the song for you."
"You've finished it!"
"Almost. I worked most of the night. One more verse and it'll be ready to record."
"I can't wait to hear it."
"I'm afraid you'll have to. I never perform on an empty stomach."
Ryan ordered a selection of Chinese dishes delivered to the hotel by Grubhub. Macy finished off her General Tso's chicken in record time, but the singer ate slowly, savoring his meal and enjoying the girl's anticipation. Finally, he pushed aside his empty plate.
"Fortune cookie?" he asked.
"No, thanks."
Ryan ate the cookie but crumbled the slip of paper it contained and tossed it in the brown paper bag with the trash from their meal.
"You didn't even read it," Macy observed.
"I don't put much faith in such things. I make my own fame and fortune. Let's go."
"Where?"
"Up to my room where we'll have more privacy. I don't want to risk anyone overhearing the song."
The singer picked up his guitar and sat on the end of the bed. In true disciple fashion, the teenager sat on the floor at his feet. The song was a ballad with a slow, almost mournful melody—not at all what one would expect from a rock star. As Ryan sang, Macy felt the compassion behind his lyrics.
He understands, she thought. It's like in that song he sometimes sings: he's telling my whole life with his words.
Suddenly, the song came to an abrupt end.
"That was wonderful!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands as though she were at a concert.
"It will be once it's finished."
"But you've covered the whole story. What more is there to say?"
"Like a book or a movie, the song needs an ending."
"I don't under—"
She fell silent under the singer's steady, hypnotic gaze.
Why is he looking at me like that? she wondered.
"You've known so much pain in your short life," Ryan said in a mesmerizing monotone. "There's only one way you will ever be truly free of it. Your father knew that."
"Yes."
It was all she could manage to say as images of her dead parents filled her brain, tormenting her.
"You know what you must do; don't you?"
"Yes."
"Goodbye, Macy. It has been a pleasure to know you."
In a slow, steady, robotic movement, she got up from the floor, turned around and headed toward the door.
"There's a car waiting for you at the hotel entrance to take you home."
The teenager, lacking all will of her own, said not a word. Nor did she look back at the man who had put her under a spell. The Uber driver had the radio tuned to a country and western station that was playing Keith Urban, but Macy could not hear the song being broadcast. Instead, it was Robert Flack's voice that filled her mind.
"Strumming my pain with his fingers. Singing my life with his words. Killing me softly with his song."
When Macy's aunt returned home from work that evening, she found her niece dead under the Christmas tree in the living room. Meanwhile, Ryan Skelley, who had orchestrated the girl's suicide so that his song would have a dramatic ending, was on a plane to New York.
Later that week, during his New Year's Day concert, he premiered his new song, "The Ballad of Macy Ashford," which he recorded in L.A. a week later. The emotionally charged song went on to become the bestselling record of the year and earn the singer and songwriter, among many honors, another Grammy Award. Despite the occasional twinges of guilt he experienced over the girl's death, he felt justified in his actions, taking some comfort in knowing her story would live on.
"Killing Me Softly with His Song" was composed by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel; written in collaboration with Lori Lieberman, who recorded the song in late 1971.
"Blue Christmas" witten by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson. Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Demi Music Corp. D/B/A Lichelle Music Company.
"Silly Love Songs" © 1976. Words and music by Paul and Linda McCartney; piano part by Bill Oliver.
Graceland® is a registered trademark belonging to GL SPE LLC.
This painting is an obvious forgery. Thomas Kinkade did not paint Salem in Graceland Christmas.
