Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

The elevator opened with a gray-haired guy in a relaxed-fit suit and tie. He looked up from his phone at me for a couple seconds when the door slid open, but I think he was wondering what a random kid in sunglasses was doing by himself in a Vegas hotel elevator at ten o’clock on a Thursday night. That’s the nice thing about flying business class, the business guys are too far out of my demo to visually ID me, unless they have daughters who are rabid fans. He seemed safe, but I sized him up like Walter would, since sometimes the guys who look the most normal are the biggest pervs of all.

I got in and held up the glossy over my face. Jane was pissed they’d pushed back the pub date to over two weeks into the tour, after we’d already finished the South and Southwest legs. At least we still had the heartland ahead of us, where I need to bulk up my presence so I don’t project only a bicoastal identity, which is funny considering I’m from St. Louis, but St. Louis isn’t high-tier enough for me to strongly connect with it. Geographic background is a tightrope you have to walk carefully.

I folded it over to my profile to read it. I’d been putting it off all day, because in the interior photo I wasn’t wearing a track sweater and was slouched over and it looked like I had way more stomach chub than I actually did, and they didn’t help me out with Photoshop.

Will He Be Your Valentine?

by Wendy Detay

Send an RSVP to your local arena: Jonny Valentine is cruising into your city! We caught up with the eleven-year-old heartthrob before he launched his cross-country Valentine Days tour on New Year’s Eve, with shows in thirty cities over forty-six days, as he dished about what song made him want to be a pop star (Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”), what his life goal is (“To share the music and the love”), and, of course… girls!

“I love spoiling girls with one-on-one face time,” JV says, brushing his world-famous blond hair out of his eyes as his mother and manager, Jane, watches over him in their Los Angeles home. “Like, if a girl wants to see a movie, I’ll surprise her and rent out the whole theater just for us, like the rest of the world doesn’t exist, with all the popcorn and soda we want. It’s awesome.”

But the Angel of Pop swears there’s no one in his life right now — he’s focused on his supersonic career. And what he’s most psyched about is his final show on the tour, on Valentine’s Day at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

“It’s every performer’s dream to play the Garden, but I’ve only been to New York before on business trips,” says the “Guys vs. Girls” singer in his crush-worthy voice. “And we’re bundling it with an Internet live-stream for $19.95.”

I was glad the writer hadn’t asked why I’d never played the Garden before, because we always had gate-receipt conflicts with the bookers that Jane finally ironed out, but I was even gladder she’d put in the plug for the live-stream, which we were hoping would make it my exposure breakthrough in the untapped Asian market. The whole thing, the Garden debut plus the live-stream, could make this a brand-perception game changer, if we pulled it off.

The elevator stopped and a good-looking couple in their twenties got on in clubbing clothes, smelling like alcohol. They might be able to ID me. And if they did, and blabbed or Tweeted about it, it might end up in a tabloid or on the Internet, and it would eventually get back to Jane, and she’d enforce check-ins every half hour and not give me my own key-card, like on the first national tour. I held the glossy closer to my face like it was the most interesting article in the world, but I couldn’t focus on it to read the rest.

In real life you might encounter a child predator who could molest or kidnap or kill you, or a tourist who could take a candid of you with his phone and post it and create a mini-scandal, but in Zenon you encounter enemies who can reduce your damage percentage. The lower it gets, the slower and weaker you are, and if your damage percentage or anyone else’s hits zero percent, your ghost silently floats up into the air and the narrator’s voice and the screen both say, “Everyone must depart the realm sometime.” It’s for the thirteen-and-up demo, but Jane let me get it anyway. The online version against real people is supposed to be different, but I haven’t played it because who knows what kind of crazies I’d meet out there.

The business guy’s finger pecked at his phone like a bird’s beak until we hit the lobby. The younger guy told his girlfriend how everything that happened tonight was definitely going to stay in Vegas. People repeat everything they see in commercials. Yeah, what they did here, they’d keep private. Gossip about riding in an elevator with a celeb didn’t count. My stomach kept tightening up every few seconds, especially when the guy got off-balance and put his hand on the wall near me for support, but they were so into themselves and drunk that they didn’t notice me.

We got out, and with the blinking lights and sounds of the casino on the ground floor like an overproduced video and song, I blended in more easily and could’ve passed for being on vacation with my parents. I found the lobby desks and saw a black woman with gold glasses and the name tag ANGELA behind one. She was fit for her age, which I’d guess was thirty-seven or thirty-eight. I’m getting almost as good at the age game as Jane.

A few people were in line, so I waited to one side with my back turned and pretended to be reading the glossy. What would really kill my chances was if a tween girl spotted me. But I was the only kid around. When no one else was near, I walked over to Angela and lifted up my sunglasses for a second. “Is this enough proof?”

She put her hand over her mouth and was like, “Oh, my God, you weren’t joking! Wait till I tell my girls about this, they play ‘Guys and Girls’ twenty-four-seven!”

Normally I’m only a little annoyed when adults act this crazy around me and forget I’m in the room with them, except Angela made me extra pissed since she could’ve sparked crowd interest and she called it “Guys and Girls,” not “Guys vs. Girls.” There’d been like a five-hour discussion with the label when we produced it about vs. or and.

But I acted like a consummate professional. “If it wasn’t for my fans I wouldn’t be here. Everything I do belongs to them,” I said. Angela was still in shock and I don’t think she really heard me, so I waited a few seconds, also to make it not sound like this was all I cared about. “So, do you think you can get me the key-card to my mother’s room?”

“I don’t know.” She wasn’t so starstruck that she wasn’t worried she could get caught, the same way I was. “You’re not authorized in the system.”

“What if I give your kids an autograph and let you take a picture?”

She looked around to make sure no one was watching. No one was, and she pushed a hotel stationery pad and pen over the desk. “Write it to Ashley and Lucy,” she said. Offering the autograph was like gaining thirty experience points in Zenon.

I grabbed the pad and wrote a “Songs, Smiles, and ♥ JV” autograph, which I basically do without thinking now like when Dr. Henson hits my knee with that little hammer. Angela took a photo of me with her phone and gave me a key-card and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone about this, okay?” which relaxed my diaphragm because it meant she wasn’t going to tell anyone, either, plus the photo could’ve been taken at any time so I didn’t have to worry about it getting back to Jane. I waited until the elevator area was clear before going upstairs.