Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

Zack bent down right in front of me. His eyebrows looked concerned. A long lock of his hair touched my forehead. “You okay, little man?”

I made sure I wasn’t going to fall again before I stood up. “I’m solid.”

Zack gave me a fake punch on my cheek, lightly touching it with his knuckles, and said, “Cool. Walk out with me.” He put his jacket and hat on me and his hand on my back again, but this time I think it was to make sure I didn’t collapse or depart the realm.

We left through the secret passage from before and there was a long line for cabs, but Irena let us cut in front and told us to come back anytime. I went with Zack and Vanessa again. The cab ride seemed longer than the way there, since we were quieter and time always goes slower after you’ve left something than before you’ve arrived. Zack sat in the middle, and after a few minutes Vanessa leaned on his shoulder and fell asleep, and I got tired, too, and my head found its way onto his other shoulder, but I wasn’t falling asleep and I didn’t really want to be asleep, I just wanted to stay like that forever, smelling the cigarettes in his jacket I was wearing and his cologne me and him were both wearing and resting on his shoulder as we drove silently in the dark of a strange city.

We arrived at the hotel after the two other cabs. Zack and Vanessa took me up to my floor in the elevator. I was hoping we’d pretend to sneak around again, but I think they were too tired. They escorted me inside my room and took Zack’s jacket and hat off me. “Change into pajamas,” Zack said. “You don’t want your mom asking why you’re still in your clothes.”

While I changed in the bathroom, I was hoping Zack and Vanessa would say they were so tired, could they just crash on my couch? And I’d be like, “Yeah, I don’t really like my bed and I kind of want to sleep on the couch, too,” so I’d go on one of the couches and they’d take the other two, and we’d have a sleepover like I used to have with Michael and maybe even make a cushion fort. I changed my clothes super-fast so I could tell them they could crash there if they wanted, in case they were afraid to ask.

But when I came out, they weren’t in the living room. “Zack?” I called.

They weren’t in the bedroom, either. I guess they wanted a real bed. I got under the covers. It had that feeling of being too big, like it was an ocean and I was a stone someone skipped in it, where you watch it carefully at first to count how many times it skips, and then it sinks, and you pick up the next stone and forget about the last one.

I had a hangover. I should’ve put out a glass of water for myself like I do for Jane, and I woke up like three times in the middle of the night but was too tired to get up for the bathroom, even though I knew it would make me feel better. Usually I’m good about doing hard things now that will help me in the future. Deferring gratification, Jane says. An extra hour of vocal practice targeting your weaknesses in the present means an extra thousand in sales a year from now. It’s what separates one-hit wonders from musicians with career longevity.

I took a couple baby aspirin from my toiletry kit when my wake-up call rang at eight a.m., which helped a little, but I still felt like I’d just done thirty minutes of high-intensity cardio on a zolpidem. I got down about half my omelet, but had to run to the bathroom and barely made it in time before it came back up.

I don’t know how Jane does this.

By the time Nadine met me for my morning tutoring, I’d recovered enough so that she didn’t notice anything, except for once when I forgot what eleven times twelve was and she said, “Come on, slowpoke, what’s with the lethargy?”

I tried napping in the afternoon before sound check, but I only turned around in my bed a bunch. Zack probably had good hangover advice, but I couldn’t remember his room number. I called the front desk and asked for the room of Zack Ford.

“One moment, sir,” the woman said, and I was so surprised, I didn’t have anything planned to say when Zack picked up and said hello. I guess they weren’t famous enough to have to use fake names. Or maybe they did it so groupies could find them. That was Mi$ter $mith’s trick. He’d mention how cool his hotel was during his interlude banter, and you’d see all these girls in the lobby waiting for him postshow. He sings about hotel groupies in his song “$ext $candal,” which he couldn’t play on our tour. It wouldn’t work for me, because I couldn’t exactly be like, Hey, your Marriott is really cool, I’ve got an awesome room with a view right down the hall from my mother.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi. You have a name?”

“It’s me. Jonny.”

“Jonny.” He laughed. “I thought you were some girl.”

My speaking voice was high, but I didn’t think it was that high. I made it a little lower, enough so it wasn’t obvious what I was doing. It’s easy for me to control, which is one thing Rog says is a huge weapon in a singer’s arsenal, impersonation, since it means you can be a different singer to suit the subject. I’ve been working on an impression of Walter, to spring it on him one day when it’s good. It kind of hurts my throat, since his voice is so gravelly, so I can’t practice too much. “No, it’s me.”

“So, as my Uncle Morris from Nebraska says, what can I do you for?”

I realized if I told him I got sick off two drinks I would sound like a kid. “That was fun last night,” I said.

“Yeah, we’ll have to do it again.”

I waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t, so I said, “That was all I wanted to say.”

“The soul of wit. I like it,” he said. “I’ve got to get ready for sound check, but I’ll catch you later.” He hung up before I could say good-bye. My stomach jabbed me when I heard the dial tone, but I think it was because I needed to go to the bathroom again.

I didn’t know where the Latchkeys’ room was at sound check and didn’t see them, but it didn’t matter since I was feeling more and more like junk the rest of the day. For my sound check I took it easy, almost spoke the words, which I was allowed to do if I felt like it, so no one paid attention. In the star/talent room there was a super-big spread with barbecue and buffalo wings and ribs and sweet potato fries in addition to my rider requests, and I knew Jane hadn’t approved it and she hadn’t scoped out the room, but I couldn’t imagine putting anything in my stomach anyway, so I told Walter to go nuts. When the Latchkeys went on to open, I realized I hadn’t eaten anything after my morning omelet, and I was starving, so I ate a few sweet potato fries to test it out, and my stomach seemed fine. I moved on to the wings and ribs and some meat loaf, and before I knew it I’d eaten probably two dinners. I added up all the calories from the nutritional listings, and it was around seventeen hundred. I’d have to offset it with high-intensity cardio for ten thousand hours.

I hadn’t vomited before a concert since I saw Dr. Henson, from getting rest and being back in the performance groove, so I thought it would be okay. While I was waiting backstage, though, I had lethargy again, and Jane asked if everything was all right, and when I said yeah, she wiped all this sweat off my forehead that I hadn’t even noticed and had the makeup woman give me another coat of foundation.

The second I went onstage, I knew I’d made a mistake with the barbecue. I opened with “Love Is Evol,” which requires a lot of dancing around from me, and when I did my first split, my stomach gurgled and was like, Fuck you for poisoning me, Jonny. I adjusted and made it more of a crooner-style walk-around onstage, which Rog lets me do if I don’t feel up to the choreography, and I had my dancers do the heavy lifting. It settled my stomach a little. I just wouldn’t do any serious dancing the rest of the show.