Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

I thought it was hard not to jump out before when he slapped her, but it took everything in me to stay still now. I couldn’t remember Jane being pregnant. Maybe it was before I was born. It wasn’t something I could ask her about normally, but now I really couldn’t be like, Oh, I know about it because I heard you talking about it with Bill after he jerked off on you in your hotel room I’d broken into so I could email a guy who says he’s my father but he still may be a child predator.

And she didn’t lose me . I was right next to her. Closer than she would’ve wanted.

There was a long silence. Jane said, “I missed you. I don’t like going this long without seeing you.”

“It’s only been three days.”

“I know.” I could hear her tracing her fingers over his chest. “Still.”

For some reason this made me even more upset. I tried to remember all the other times Jane had said she was meeting with a promoter or something so she wasn’t coming back to the hotel. Sometimes I bet it was real, and the rest it was Bill.

“You want to go to the bedroom?” she asked.

“Mmm.” He stretched and stood up. “I gotta go.”

“Can’t you just stay a little?”

“You know I have to check in with Elsa before she goes to sleep, and I won’t do it from here.”

“You can come back after.”

“I never sleep well with you, and we’re loading up early tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she said, even more quietly, like she’d really been slapped this time.

He put his clothes on there, and when he was dressed he gave her a quick kiss on the mouth and said, “We’ll do something nice for your birthday, okay?” and she said, “Uh-huh,” and he walked out quickly and let the door shut on its own behind him.

Jane didn’t move, but I knew she was awake, probably with her eyes open. I could almost hear her thinking in the dead quiet of the room. I didn’t know what was going through her head, but I was sure it wasn’t about my digital apps or the Asian market or anything like that. Finally she went to the bathroom, and I thought about making a run for it, but it was risky. A pill bottle opened with a popping sound. It was smarter to wait it out.

From now on, when I looked at Bill, I’d know he was cheating on his wife. I kind of hoped I’d run into him in the hall, even if it meant getting in trouble. I’d ask him if Elsa was a fan, because I could make a courtesy call to her to say hi. Just to make him sweat.

And when Jane told me she had to go to an unexpected dinner with a regional promoter, I’d know she was lying. It’s also probably why she defended Bill for the heart-shaped swing. Plus it made me pissed that of all the guys on the tour, she chose him. He was muscular and good-looking and the best at his job, but he was an asshole. If she had to pick someone, it should’ve been Zack. He’s not much younger than some of the other guys she’s been with.

She started snoring like a quivering bird from the bedroom, and I climbed out carefully from behind the couch and left. When I got to my room, I called the label. It was late, but someone would be there. A girl picked up, and I identified myself as Client 463, password Breathtaking, and asked if I could get Zack Ford’s cell phone number. She said he was no longer a client of the label but they still had it on file.

I called his number. It rang a few times, and I thought it was going to go to voice mail, but then Zack said hello.

“It’s Jonny,” I said, so he didn’t think I was a girl again.

“Jonny,” he said in a flat voice. That was it.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“In my kitchen. Making couscous. It’s a glamorous life.”

I’d meant what city, in case Jane was lying about that, too, but she’d told the truth. “So you’re not with the label anymore?”

“Nope,” he said. “Their lawyers found a variety of clever ways to cleave us. Cleave in the sense of separate, not join . That’s called a contronym, by the way, when a word means its own opposite.”

If he’d stayed on the tour I could’ve learned all this stuff, plus new bands I’d never heard of and ideas about movies and smart jokes. Now I couldn’t.

“I’m sorry I made it so you had to leave,” I said. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have even come to the nightclub with you.”

“It’s okay. We’ll find another label.”

“And I wouldn’t have had any of the alcohol.”

Right when I said it, I could hear him tense up in his kitchen in L.A. “Anyway, it was nice talking to you, Jonny,” he said. “And watch out for yourself out there. It’s a cutthroat industry.” He hung up before I could even say good-bye.

Maybe he thought I was taping him for a tabloid or something, except that would make me look worse than him. That was probably the last chance I’d get to talk to him. I didn’t blame him. I’d left Michael Carns behind in St. Louis and I’d left Zack behind in Memphis, even if officially we made him leave. I was like the criminal who told the police my friend was guilty.

The next morning I watched out the bus window as Bill directed the final loading of the eighteen-wheelers near us. He just did it like normal, like nothing had happened the night before. A silver wedding ring was on his finger. Elsa.

I told Walter I was getting air for a second and stepped outside and went up to Bill. “Hey, is Els—” It wasn’t worth him asking Jane how I knew his wife’s name. “Is there anything else to know about the Nashville setup? Is it standard or special prep?”

He said, “Standard.” He never said more to me than he needed to.

Jane looked hungover but not too bad on the bus. I waited until we were a few hours on the road and she’d had a chance to hydrate before I reminded her that she promised I could go with Walter tonight to visit his daughters and I was giving them a game system and a copy of The Secret Land of Zenon that was supposed to be waiting at the hotel for me.

“Sure,” she said. Her eyes were closed and she was reclining in her seat. I was going to ask her to call the hotel to confirm the game system was there, but I didn’t want to push it. She asked Rog to sit next to her, which was my cue to leave her alone and let them talk.

At the hotel, before I left with Walter in the car service, Jane called to say she was staying in that night. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was seeing Bill or she was actually staying in. “Do you want to come with us?” I asked.

“No, thanks,” she said, and she was so tired-sounding, I was pretty sure she was hanging at the hotel. “You sure you don’t want to stay in tonight, too? You don’t have many days off coming up.”

“I promised Walter.”

“Just because you promised doesn’t mean you have to do it. We could order room service, watch pay-per-view.”

“I love hanging out with Walter,” I said. “He’s the best.”

“All right. Do what you want,” she said, and hung up.

“Yeah, and do what you want with Bill every other night,” I said to the dial tone. “Maybe I’ll die tonight like your other baby you never told me about.”

We brought the game system and Zenon along in the car, and Walter was jittery in the backseat. He hadn’t seen his daughters since last summer, or his ex-wife, Callie. He’s all calm when he has to push away a hundred fans who might stampede me and him, but seeing his own family got him nervous.

Callie’s house was in an okay part of town, with streets that had some trees and grass, but her house was kind of depressing. It looked thinner than my bedroom and connected to the houses on both sides of it, with flimsy wood that was painted yellow and peeling. Walter was really jittery when we walked up to the house and he rang the bell. Callie opened the door in her winter coat. She wasn’t fat, which I was expecting, but she also wasn’t cute. Walter wasn’t that handsome, either, so I guess they were a good match. “Hi, Walter,” she said.