Boys in the Trees

by Carly Simon

Charisma is an overused word. It’s different from beauty, and it’s not the same as cuteness. People who have it possess faces that change from moment to moment, from stunning to plain to gaunt to exquisite to ugly to pale to flushed, challenging you to put a name, an adjective, to what you’re seeing, or imagining, but since you can’t, you give up, not realizing you are continuing to gaze helplessly at them, still puzzled, never not puzzled, in fact, unable to take your eyes off a face whose angles and adjectives seem to whirl and spin before you. Right away I could tell that for Mick Jagger, all women, including me, were his, by divine right. Women existed to frame him, impress him, shimmer for him, illuminate him, jog themselves helpfully into his peripheral vision: a fast-click snapshot Mick might take out of the corner of one eye for future purposes and dalliances. By now Mick was huddling with Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts. I can’t remember if Mick even glanced at me that night, but my memory is he didn’t—that would come later. Nor could I bear to look at him directly. Then it was time for the Stones to do whatever it was real rock ’n’ roll bands did before a show. There were groupies in the room, and Danny and I made our way out.