Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

At home she had me lie down on the living room couch and eat a new omelet as her and Walter got ready. She even asked Walter to carry me to the car. I was like, Jane, I’m good now, but she insisted. Walter was cool about it. He threw me over his shoulder and said, “You can carry me next time I’m on a bender, brother.” I didn’t mind him carrying me, once he did it. It was kind of fun, actually, and felt familiar, but I couldn’t remember him doing it before.

The car service took us to the studio parking lot, where the buses and eighteen-wheelers were still waiting. We weren’t that late, and all of them except the star/talent bus could’ve left, but I guess they needed to make sure I was really going before they took off, because without the star, the apparatus is irrelevant. The EVP of creative Stacy was standing by my bus, typing on her phone. She looked up when we arrived and inhaled and exhaled like I did with Dr. Henson. I told Walter I could walk fine and he shouldn’t carry me.

“Are you feeling okay, Jonny?” she asked when I came by.

“I was just tired,” I said. “When we find a way to get me more rest, I’ll be fine.”

Her eyebrows were worried. “As long as the doctor cleared you,” she said, looking at Jane. “You up for meeting the Latchkeys?”

“The who?” I was watching Nadine, who’d come out of my bus and was talking with Walter while they both looked over at me.

“The Latchkeys. Your new opener. They’ve boarded their bus, but I can ask them to come out.”

I said sure, and she went into the band/vocalist bus and came out with four guys in their twenties. Three of them were unshaven or had beards and wore regular clothes and looked like normal guys, but the one in back was thin and tall and had midnight black hair that almost covered his eyes and a maroon leather jacket that was all scuffed up. It was the kind of look a stylist would never be able to come up with. Or if she did, it would feel like a stylist did it, instead of it being the look this guy had his whole life.

“Hal, Steve, Tim, Zack, meet Jonny,” Stacy said. “Jonny, meet the Latchkeys.”

They all shook my hand and wore these goofy smiles that older guys always have when they meet me, because they don’t know if they should be impressed or think it’s silly. People say that girls are hard to figure out, but they’re much easier to handle, even the older ones. Guys are the ones who have to think they’re always in control, so they act the way they want to act.

Zack was the tall and thin one, and he was the only one that said something more than hi. “Pleased to meet you, Jonny. I’m Zack. We’re excited to open for you.”

“Me, too,” I said. “I mean, for you guys to open for me.”

He laughed in a way that made me feel like I’d made a funny joke even though I’d messed up. “Just last night a friend who’s a kindergarten teacher said to me, ‘Have a good tour,’ and without thinking, I said, ‘You, too.’ ” Zack looked at one of his bandmates. “But the thing is, she is going on a huge kindergarten-teacher East Coast tour, so it made sense.”

They laughed, but it was still early in the morning, so not that hard, and said bye and returned to the bus. After he left his cologne hung in the air. It smelled like the woods mixed with cigarettes.

Stacy said, “Jane, if anything comes up, don’t hesitate to call my personal phone.”

“This isn’t creative’s responsibility, right?” Jane asked. “Olivia’s our usual tour liaison.”

Stacy smiled at me. “Well, I sometimes make an exception and prioritize talent like Jonny.”

Jane pinched her lips and said bye and walked onto our bus. When I got on, she told me I should sleep on my bed for as long as I wanted, since it was like a twelve-hour drive, and Nadine and I could tutor later. So I took a long nap and didn’t need any pills to fall asleep. When I woke up I felt super-strong. I bet if I was alone I could’ve gotten close to coming.

I went out to the seating area and told Nadine I was ready for tutoring. But Jane said she wanted to talk to me about something quickly first, and she came into my room and sat down on the bed with me. “Do you feel better?” she asked.

“A lot.”

“What do you think it was? We got home from the concert too late?”

“No,” I said. “I think it was getting home from the party late the night before.”

She looked down when I said that. “Anyway, I’ve been mulling our options for the next six months or so,” she said. “Even if album sales have lagged, the gate receipts have been respectable. If the live-stream sells well, I think the label would be open to a bigger tour to expand your fan base.”

“To where?”

“I’m thinking Asia and Europe both. If there’s ever a time, it’s now, because if we don’t make a splash at the Garden—” She cut herself off and smiled big, like it’d make me forget what she just said. “But it would mean a lot of work right after this ends. We’d start recording new songs and have to orchestrate a whole new show. The album would drop and the tour would begin next fall, and it’d continue through the winter.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The other option is this.” She fiddled with her silver ring. “We can do a smaller repeat tour on the West Coast next fall, and we record the next album in the summer.”

“What would I do the next six months?”

“There’s this school in L.A. that a lot of celebrities and children of celebrities attend. You could just go to school for the spring semester. It starts right after the tour ends, and I’m sure we could pull some strings to get you in.”

“So I’d be going to school and that’s it?”

“Basically. We could see how you like it. But remember that going to school full-time can be hard, too.”

“I know. It’s hard just with Nadine. She’s making me read three whole autobiographies by slaves this unit.”

“Slaves, huh? Well, you don’t have to decide now. But we need to figure it out after the tour ends.”

I said okay. Before she left she said, “I bet we could schedule free time in Japan to look at samurai stuff, so when Peter calls you ‘little sensei,’ you’d actually know what he’s talking about, right?”

“That’d be cool,” I said. But I looked out the window at the side of the highway and thought about what it might be like to not be on tour anymore. I hadn’t been around regular kids in a long time, not including times like at Matthew’s birthday party. All I was around were fans. Me and Michael Carns from St. Louis hadn’t talked since I moved to L.A. I couldn’t hardly even remember what school was like by now. When you live one way for a while you sort of forget how you lived before. Except Jane remembers working at Schnucks. She never goes into supermarkets anymore, not even the fancy organic ones.

And then I thought about my father maybe getting in touch again with Jane, and how he wouldn’t like the celeb lifestyle, but now that we were having a normal life, he wanted to come back. We’d have enough money to keep Walter on staff and in the bungalow, and him and my father would become friends and lift together and come to my Little League games, so he’d be more like Uncle Walter than my bodyguard, but if anyone messed with me or my father, he’d still be there to provide buffer.

I’d also be able to sleep in again and not have to spend months recording and rehearsing and traveling and performing. I hadn’t had a real hiatus for two years.

Nadine came in to tutor, and a million times she was like, “How are you feeling?” and “Do you feel like you need to take a break?” and “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Finally I said, “I feel like you can stop asking me how I feel, ” and she laughed and said sorry, she lets her caretaking tendencies get the best of her sometimes. After we played word games at the end, I almost told her about Jane’s offer, but I realized that would mean she’d be out of a job. I didn’t feel so bad about that. She could find other celebs or rich kids to tutor or work at a school, and I bet Jane would keep her on to tutor me part-time if she had openings. But I hated the idea of telling someone they had to leave. Even when someone fucks up like Roberto did.