Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

“Why’d he say that?” I said.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Walter, get the door, please.”

I slid into the car. “What’s in the envelope?”

“Just some papers I needed,” she said.

“What kind of papers?”

“Boring business stuff.”

“But why did he dis you?”

“What?”

“He said, ‘You’ve been served,’ like what people say when they dis someone or block their shot in basketball. Only they usually say, ‘You got served.’ ”

“It’s to let you know he’s from the delivery service.” Her body seemed smaller and her face was tighter than usual, like she’d shrunk into a Jane Valentine doll. Walter looked like he didn’t know what just happened, either. “Can we have quiet time until we get to the restaurant? I need to email a few people back.”

The restaurant was an Italian hot spot for Cleveland, the type of place where there’d be write-ups of us locally and they’d get syndicated out to the nationals. Maybe that was why Jane chose it, to show me and her went out to eat in restaurants like a normal mother and son. But when it’s a third-tier city, their trendy places always feel desperate, like they’re trying to be a cool place in L.A. or New York but not coming close. Jane always puts down pop acts that imitate someone else, because they’ll never do it too good and it looks worse when they fail. She says you have to make your own brand, no one wants a knock-off. I’m like, But you’re always trying to make me into the next Tyler Beats. She says we’re imitating his career trajectory, not his music. She’s always on the label about getting songwriters and producers who understand that distinction, except I’m not sure she can hear the difference herself in the music.

Jane ordered a mimosa when the waiter seated us and went to the restroom and had another waiter stand by me since Walter had stayed outside. When she came back, the white envelope was poking out of the unzipped part of her bag and was opened. Without making it obvious, I peeked at the writing in the corner. It said “Meacham Weiss & White,” and it had a New York City address. So it was another legal letter, and not from her L.A. lawyers. I don’t think she had lawyers in New York. It could have been something about business, or about me and her drinking, or about my father. No way she’d tell me, though.

She kept watching the room like there were paparazzi everywhere, and slurped down her mimosa by the time the waiter came back for our food order. When she asked for a third in the middle of her Caprese salad, I said maybe she should switch to water. “It’s my birthday, Jonathan,” she said. “I’m entitled to a couple drinks.”

The waiter was this young guy, and he looked like he was about to piss his pants because he had a tough logic question of who should he listen to, the adult or the child celebrity, so Jane held up her glass and said, “Refill it.”

She left for the bathroom before he came back, and when he did I said, “If she asks for another drink, can you make it very low on alcohol?” and he was cool about it and said, “Certainly, sir.” He wasn’t the kind of guy who’d talk to the tabloids. Plus he’d lose his job if he did. That was the best defense against employee leaks.

She didn’t ask for a fourth drink, but she also didn’t finish her salad. Her walk to the car service for the Wolstein Center was a little wobbly, but she held it together and didn’t slur her speech or anything. That was the thing with Jane, you couldn’t always tell if she’d had too much or not. She could be a decent actor.

The concert was tight, because we all knew it was one of our last tune-ups before New York. I pulled out the hottest girl from the front rows to sing to, and I didn’t care if it made the others jealous. But I didn’t try telling her to wait for me backstage this time. Even if it worked and Jane wasn’t around, Walter would shut it down.

When I did get backstage, Jane was pacing around the hallway near my room. She had a glass of white wine in her hand. White doesn’t stain your teeth. “Are you going out?” I asked.

“Yes, I am.” The words came out fast, like she was vomiting them.

“Why are you walking around here?”

“I’m not allowed to walk?” She spilled a little wine on the carpet.

“Tell Walter I’ll be in my room,” I said. Jane seemed not like she wasn’t herself, but like she was super -herself, two or three times the regular amount. She had tiny drops of sweat covering her nose and her face looked white in parts and splotchy and red in others.

Before I turned the doorknob, Jane said, “Make sure you warm up your vocals more before New York. You were flat a few times tonight.”

I wasn’t flat at all. It was one of my best performances on the whole tour. I was going to say, “Maybe Bill can help me with my warm-ups,” but when I turned, she was wavering and put one hand against the wall for support and dropped the wineglass in the other. It broke in a few big pieces, and then she crumpled in the opposite direction onto the carpet.

I screamed, “Jane! Fuck!” What Peter said, with my name, when I fainted in the kitchen.

Her eyes were closed and she was breathing, but when I shook her, she didn’t wake up, and for a second I thought I was going to faint, too. “Help! Somebody help me!” I yelled, almost the lyrics to that Beatles song. It’s like I was derivative of other people even in an emergency. A voice down the hall shouted for someone to call the medical team. Sometimes a few girls faint during my shows and the medical teams from the venues have to help them, but this wasn’t normal fainting.

I stopped shaking her, because it could’ve been making it worse. I kept saying, all quiet, “Jane, wake up.” And then this was stupid, but I whispered to myself, “Don’t depart the realm.” She was the one who was sick, but I was having trouble taking full breaths and my heart was squeezing up and releasing like some animal that hides in its shell and pops out once in a while to see if the coast is clear. All this commotion whirled up around me, walkie-talkies crackling and people running and barking directions at each other and a few adults I didn’t know testing her pulse and breathing. In a minute a couple guys from the medical team ran over with a stretcher.

“Clear some space!” one of the guys said, and even though I was glad they were helping, in my mind I was like, Fuck you, she’s my mother. But I moved over and he listened to her heartbeat and checked her breathing. They carefully put her on the stretcher and carried her off to an elevator down the hall.

Walter rushed up to me as the elevator doors closed, wheezing like an accordion. If he ever has to carry me away from a crowd racing after us, we’re screwed. That’s the downside of strength training over cardio.

He asked what happened. “She just collapsed,” I said. “I think she’s been drinking all day.”

He looked at the broken glass on the ground near us. “That must be it. She’ll be okay.”

I wasn’t sure she would, but when Walter said it, I mostly believed it, and my heartbeat started to go back to normal, the slow verse after the fast chorus. We found the medical offices on the basement level, where a woman was eating fast food. Girls and guys, burgers and fries, all gets ruined with a coupla lies.

“They’ve already taken your mother to the hospital,” she told us.

“What happened to her?” I asked. My heart sped up again . The last five minutes were like an album with a bunch of different tempos for each track. You don’t want too much variation if you’re trying to craft an iconic sound. Only critics care about versatility. Fans want consistency.