Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

And though I wouldn’t say it to Jane, in my mind I was like, No, don’t make me. I don’t even know how I could do that. I’m already working the hardest I can without departing the realm.

Jane always takes a year getting ready. I knocked on her door and told her the car service was waiting outside, and she opened it and said, “They get paid for their time.” She was in her lingerie and had two dresses on her bed, a red one and a blue one, and asked me which I liked more, and I said the blue one, so she put it on and asked me to zip her up. “Do you think my stomach’s getting fat?” she asked.

It was a little fatter than pretour, with some wobbly jelly chub over her gut. We went through a women’s glossy a few months ago that ID’d problem zones. I didn’t say anything, but Jane’s were Belly Bulge, Bat Wings, and Muffin Top. She didn’t have Turkey Neck, Armpit Fat, Thighscrapers, Cankles, or Back Fat. She thought she had Mom Butt, but she doesn’t.

I went, “No, not at all.”

In the ride over she told me who she thought was going to be at the party. I didn’t know their names, but I knew who they worked for, and most of them were at top-shelf movie and TV companies and agencies. For a second I wondered if maybe my father had been waiting for me to return to L.A. and he might show up, but that was stupid for a million reasons.

Jane hadn’t stopped talking. “We still have to find the right vehicle for you,” she said.

“How about a Ferrari?” I said.

She smiled and pinched my cheek and said, “Maybe you could do comedy.” That kind of joke was like my Victor joke to Nadine, though. You smile, but you don’t laugh. Like a song you hum along with but don’t tap your feet to.

The party was in Calabasas, and we got lucky with traffic, so it took about forty-five minutes. The house was behind a security gate like ours, and when Jane had trouble with the guard and her name on the guest list, she pressed down the window all the way, and he let us in.

We drove around the half-circle driveway past all the parked cars of the guests and up to a typical Calabasas mansion, with stone columns in the front and a huge set of double doors like a castle, and the house was white and light pink the way Jane likes her salmon cooked. There were torches along the walkway to the door and balloons and banners saying HAPPY 12TH BIRTHDAY MATTHEW! Jane checked her makeup once more in her compact mirror and knocked.

A woman with the kind of long skinny arms Jane is always trying to get — she calls them flamingo arms even though they’re really like flamingo legs — and who didn’t spray-tan and had straightened black hair that was a definite dye job answered it with a glass of wine in her hand. She smiled at Jane and said, “Hello!” and then saw me and her smile became real. “Hi, welcome! I’m Matthew’s mother, Linda.”

People who know better never say my name when they first meet me, but they try not to act like they don’t know me, either. It’s the fans who slobber all over you, and sometimes other celebs pretend they don’t recognize you. It’s always the male movie stars or rock stars who act like they’re too cool, but I can tell when they’re faking it and are secretly excited to meet me, since they’re pretending not to be impressed. When someone actually doesn’t care, like politicians who meet me for photo ops and don’t hardly know who I am, they have to pretend to be impressed. That’s how you know who’s more famous, whichever one of you is more excited to meet the other. It helps that I don’t really know a lot of older actors, but they all know me, besides the ones who are seriously old and culturally irrelevant. Jane says most male movie stars have career peaks from about twenty-five to forty-five, but a male pop star can start earlier and also probably ends quicker unless he’s really savvy. Women’s careers in both are over by the time they’re thirty, which is why they all suddenly get interested in having kids then. Once you have a kid, you’re basically saying, Fuck you, career, except if you’re the type of parent who doesn’t really care about his kid anyway.

Jane introduced us and handed Linda a wrapped gift, which I’m sure was my debut album and a concert DVD. Our basement has a room that’s filled with like a thousand of each.

About eighty adults and kids were standing around eating hors d’oeuvres from waiters in the main living room after the entrance. I recognized a few of the adults from the glossies, but no one was nearly as famous as me, which sometimes is a rush and sometimes you want someone else to take the attention off you, since everyone either looked at me or pretended not to when me and Jane walked to the bar. Except when there is a bigger celeb, after you relax, you get pissed, like, Why is this guy more famous than me?

Jane whispered that Linda got small roles on a few TV shows but her career would be in the toilet without her husband. After she got her prosecco, Matthew’s father came over and kissed Jane on the cheek and thanked us for coming and shook my hand and said, “Big fan,” and I said, “Love your work.” You’re not supposed to say anything else except “Big fan” or “Love your work.” He wanted me to meet his son, so he called Matthew over.

Matthew was wearing a button-down and nice pants. His father said, “Matthew, thank Jonny for coming to your party. I’m sure he’s very busy.”

He stared down at his loafers and mumbled, “Thanks for coming.” For having such good-looking parents, Matthew was pretty funny-looking. He had buck teeth and he already had acne and his stomach was a little chubby. I felt bad for him. I wondered if my father was good-looking, and if he was, why him and Jane made a good-looking kid, but Matthew’s parents didn’t.

His father said, “Make eye contact when you’re speaking to someone, Matthew.”

Matthew made eye contact, and this time, when he said, “Thanks for coming,” his eyes turned into tiny hard stones and I could tell he hated me. I didn’t know if it was because I was famous or cuter or more talented, which are the usual reasons, or because his father was embarrassing him, but I can always tell when someone hates me right away. A lot of times it’s easier to tell than when someone loves you.

I said, “Jane, can we get Matthew and his parents VIP seats to the concert tomorrow night? If they’re available and want to come, I mean.”

Jane seemed surprised but said we could probably do that, and asked Matthew’s father if that was okay. He said they had plans but they could easily cancel them, and I looked at Matthew sort of like, Fuck you, Matthew, now you’ll have to make eye contact with me for a whole night and sit through an entire concert and your parents are gonna love me even more, and I don’t even care that when you open Jane’s gift you’ll probably try to break the discs with your friends from school.

Jane saw someone else she knew and introduced me, and we spent the next hour schmoozing different adults in the movie and TV entertainment industry. A few mentioned they had a project in mind that I was perfect for and we should call their offices to take a meeting, and Jane said we’d be making the rounds when the tour was over. I was still tired and wanted to go home, so instead of talking shop, I ate every spinach-and-cheese-pie triangle and mac-and-cheese cupcake and all the other weird hors d’oeuvres from the waiters, most of which had dairy. Each time I did, Jane shot me a look like, Enjoy it, kid, because that’s your last one, but I knew she wouldn’t say anything in front of the others, so I kept pigging out. She owed me for making me take basically two different meetings in one day.