Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

Matthew’s father was like, “Seriously? That’d be amazing. Jonny, would you be up for that?” I couldn’t tell if his father had no idea Matthew hated my guts, or if he picked up on it but knew that if I sang at his son’s birthday party, all the kids at school would be talking about it and Matthew would seem cooler to them.

Jane was telling me with her eyes to do it. It was supposedly a birthday gift for Matthew, but it was really a gift to Jane, for business opportunities down the road.

“If you think he’d like it, then sure.”

He smiled and said he’d tell his wife, and I should come in the kitchen soon so I could walk out with the cake. When he left and the actor went to get a refill, Jane leaned down and whispered, “This will make a huge impression on all the brain-dead execs here.” Jane says an exec is a businessman who’s convinced he has the soul of an artist.

“Fine,” I said. “But I want to leave right after.”

“Deal.”

“Like, call the car service now.”

“Okay,” she said. “One more prosecco first before they run out.”

Her face looked dried out and red from the alcohol, but she joined the actor at the bar and I went into the kitchen, where Matthew’s dad supervised one of the waiters lighting the candles on the cake. Before we walked out, he said, “Thank you so much for doing this for Matthew, Jonny. He may not… he may not be able to express it, but I know this means a lot to him.”

Sometimes parents know their kids better than anyone, and sometimes they don’t have a clue, even if they’re the kind of parents who throw their kids fancy birthday parties. Maybe my father would understand me because he hasn’t been around.

Matthew’s father turned off the lights in the living room and asked everyone to stay quiet for a special guest performance. He opened the door and the waiter carried out the cake, with me right behind, singing. Matthew stood by himself in the middle of the room, and the other kids were all taking my picture, because once I was performing the regular protocol didn’t apply.

When I got to “Happy birthday, dear Matthew,” I stared right at him again. He seemed like he was sort of pissed I was hogging the attention but also happy for the reason his father might have wanted, that it made his party the juicy gossip item at school. And even though he hated me for no good reason, I still felt sorry for him. He’d probably get even funnier-looking as he got older, and these kids might not really be his friends, maybe they only liked coming to his house for his pool and all the other cool amenities he had and because his father controls the purse strings, and not because they like him.

He blew out the candles and the adults applauded, but it was like they were mostly clapping for me, and I found Jane standing next to the actor and told her I wanted to leave, now, and she said, “I’ll call the car service.”

“You said you’d call it before,” I said.

“They were busy.”

The actor asked where we lived and Jane told him off Laurel Canyon, and he said, “Awesome, I’m in Los Feliz, I’ll give you a lift.”

I could see where this was going. Jane would invite him in for a nightcap and send me to bed. In the morning, I might see him on his way out, and he’d nod at me or act like he’d come back to take a business meeting at our house, which I’m not that stupid. And that’d almost definitely be the last time he came over.

We could all see where it was going, but no one could say anything, just like you can’t say anything besides “Big fan” when you meet a celeb.

Jane said, “Let me finish this drink and we’ll go. And that was nice of you to sing for Matthew.”

She still had most of her prosecco to go, but it was better not to argue now. Jane and the actor were flirting and he was teasing her about how high her heels were to make up for her being so short, so I slipped away to get some more of the mac-and-cheese cupcakes from the kitchen. But on the way over, Matthew’s father’s study was still open with his laptop on. No one was around. I closed the door behind me.

I was going to use a totally made-up name for a new email address, but then it might look like I was someone else. So I came up with valentinojonny@gmail.com, since a lot of times celebs use an email that’s just a little different from their real name. It took a couple minutes, and I had to keep glancing up to make sure no one was coming. Once I heard a loud creak on the floor right outside and got on my hands and knees and hid under the desk. When it didn’t sound like anyone was there, I got up again, but I was still nervous. In the movies, when the star hides and the enemy leaves, they come out of hiding and don’t worry about them ever coming back, like that was the only chance to get caught, but in real life, people can surprise you and come back again.

I took the paper with his email address out of my jeans and wrote

Can you prove you are really Jonny’s father? If you can, I can find a way to get you in touch with him.

I sent it and sat there for a minute in case he answered right away, but then I remembered where I was and closed the browser and snuck out. I made it seem like I was waiting for the bathroom, and went in and flushed Albert’s email address down the toilet.

I found Jane with the actor. She said she had to say good-bye to Matthew’s parents and go to the bathroom before we left.

When she was gone, the actor turned to me. “I’ve got an eight-year-old daughter,” he said. “She loves your music.”

I figured doing my “If it wasn’t for my fans I wouldn’t be here” line wouldn’t work on this guy, so I just said, “That’s cool. Is she here?”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna leave her here by herself, she can find her own ride home,” he said, and I thought he was serious, but then he went, “No, she’s with her mother this week.”

He kept going. “Actually, my band has this one song, ‘Xanax is a Deified Palindrome,’ that some people say sounds a little like you. We’re called the Band-Its, but with a hyphen between ‘Band’ and ‘Its.’ ” Before I could say something pretending to know the song, he said, “You wouldn’t have heard of us. Our first album was on a no-name label, but it was before I was cast. We’re gonna shop our next one around soon to the majors, now that I’m better known. And the show plays a new song every week over the credits, so I’m working to get us some airplay.”

Airplay means radio rotation, not TV. Every celeb thinks he has a cross-promotional platform just because he’s famous. Being an all right actor playing a detective on some crap TV show might mean you can launch a career in crap movies. It doesn’t mean you can launch a music career. Acting is a talent that you’re born with or not. You can improve a little with practice, but there are some eight-year-olds who are better than sixty-year-olds who’ve been doing it their whole lives. Music is a talent that requires cultivation. This guy didn’t look like someone who’d put ten thousand hours into it.

“I’ll be sure to give it a listen when it comes out,” I said.

“Here, I’ll give you our demo, if you want to give your label a sneak peek,” he said, and he pulled a CD out from his inner jacket pocket. “Or do people do that constantly to you, so it’s really annoying?”

People hardly ever did it to me, since Walter or Jane was always providing buffer, but they pushed demos on Jane all the time.

“It’s not annoying,” I said. “I’ll show it to them.”

“Seriously? That’s really cool of you.”

I stuffed the CD in my track sweater’s pocket before Jane came back. “Ready, boys?” she asked, a little slurry.