Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

The TV above us was showing a morning talk show on closed captioning, and I was watching because I had nothing else to do, and after a couple boring minutes, Rog appeared on it. I elbowed Jane. She perked up. “He didn’t waste any time, did he?” she said.

The closed captioning was screwing up a lot, like a few times it called me “Jenny,” but the interviewer was grilling Rog all about Jane, and he was saying things like, “She’s paranoid and a control freak,” and “She thinks she knows how to run Jonny’s career, but she doesn’t understand music — it’s everyone else who makes the smart decisions,” and “I only hope Jonny makes it out of this in one piece.” Every time he said something mean about her, my gut twisted up like it was my fiftieth crunch in a row. Jane had screwed him over, but I didn’t see what the point of bashing her in return was, unless he was trying to score a book deal or become a judge on a reality show. When people commit reputation suicide like this, it’s about money.

Jane made little sounds like she couldn’t believe him. She said to me, “If anyone interviews you about this, take the high road and say gracious things about Rog. Say he was a great coach and, unfortunately, sometimes people go their separate ways. Kill him with kindness.”

When they put up a bad photo of her near the end, she said, “The coffee here’s terrible. I’m finding a Starbucks.” After she left, I noticed a complimentary computer terminal in the corner of the lounge. This could be my only chance.

“I need to send Nadine follow-up questions for my slavery essay,” I told Walter, and I pointed to the computer. He nodded, and I ran over to the terminal and checked my email, though I really should’ve been asking her questions since I still had no idea what to write about. There was a message from him from a few days before:

I’m sorry I wasn’t in Cincinnati. I thought I might have the chance but it didn’t work out. Was it fun? Maybe I can see you perform in New York. I lived in Sydney, Australia. I moved there because it seemed like a place where you could really have an adventure and a friend of mine told me there was lots of construction work. Here’s a picture I took of my friend Dave on a hiking trip we took in Australia.

The picture was of some guy wearing sunglasses in the desert. I didn’t have time to think about what I wanted to say, so I quickly wrote

If you can get a ticket to my concert in NYC at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 14 I will find some way for us to meet. I can’t buy the ticket myself or get you on the list.

I ran back to my seat and picked up a glossy Jane had out and pretended to be reading it when she came back. It was published a few days ago, so there wasn’t anything on me or her. Anyone who says all publicity is good publicity never had actual bad publicity.

Jane typed something into her iPhone and said, “Rog’s career is essentially over, as of this email.” She said it loud enough so that Walter would hear, too.

She was trying to project confidence like you have to do onstage, but I knew my career might be essentially over if things didn’t go right the next two days. That was how quickly your star could fall. And I might meet my father. I tried not to think about either thing, and took out my slavery books and a piece of paper to outline my essay, but I couldn’t focus, and just stared at the blank page.

Jane’s face sort of lit up when we landed in New York. She loves L.A., but wherever she is, she always feels like she’s missing out on the real business in New York. She says L.A. is for entertainment-industry people who dabble in business, and New York is for business-people who dabble in the entertainment industry, and business is what makes entertainment possible even though entertainment sucks up most of the media attention.

We had a few short-form interviews and one business meeting in the morning before my late-show performance with Tyler Beats. Jane cut out interviews with anyone that might be hostile press, and she’d had our publicist make sure that questions about Jane would be off-limits, so they were all softballs I’ve had a million times, like, “What’s your favorite song to sing?” (“Guys vs. Girls” is what I’m supposed to say, but it’s actually “Breathtaking”) and “What do you look for in a girl?” (a nice smile, which is something any girl can have, and someone who’s got a really fun and nice personality, because every girl thinks she’s got a fun and nice personality). Once in my life I want to answer something like, “I want a super-chubby girl so I feel less beefy compared to her.”

I asked Jane if I could skip the business meeting. She shook her head. “We make more off branding and ancillary deals than we do with the music. The music is the plane that flies you to the branding.”

“But the music’s still the most important thing, right?” I asked.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “I didn’t mean to put it that way.”

Maybe Rog was right. Jane knew a lot about some things, but she didn’t know much about music. So I went but didn’t hardly speak, just shook the hands of all these men and women who told me their daughters were big fans and asked me to sign all kinds of crap merch for them, which was funny, since the meetings were mostly about producing more crap merch, like a cell phone decorated with pictures of me and with all my songs preloaded for ringtones. I don’t even have a cell phone yet. I was worried about overexposure, but Jane says it only seems like overexposure because we’re looking at it all, and the average consumer has to see something seven times before they decide to buy it. Maybe that’s another reason so many songs sound the same, to trick people into thinking they’ve heard it six times before and now they’re finally ready to buy it.

The whole time we bounced around the city in the car service, I looked out the window like I did in Cincinnati. I knew I wouldn’t spot my father on the street, but I kept thinking about how he was out there somewhere, and on every street I thought something like, My father could have walked on this street before. By now he’d probably read my email, and maybe he was trying to get a ticket. I wish they weren’t so expensive, though. They’d cost even more from a scalper.

We arrived at the late show in the afternoon for the 5:30 taping. The fans were already lined up, and a few held signs for me, but most were for Tyler, which wasn’t a positive audience predictor if he was supposed to be there supporting me in a secondary role. He even had some guy fans, and they were all older than mine, some in their twenties and thirties. His manager had done a really savvy job broadening his base through his music and image maintenance. I bet if Tyler got busted for drinking, he’d find a way to spin it into a positive.

Walter and the show’s security escorted me into the star/talent entrance. Tyler wasn’t arriving till later, so the show coordinator had me rehearse on my own with the house band and do a mock-interview with her. Since it was a special performance of two singers, we’d get three songs, then our joint interview. First I’d sing “RSVP (To My Heart),” Tyler would sing “Beats Me,” then he’d sing backup on “Guys vs. Girls.” I was worried that we wouldn’t get a chance to rehearse it together, but she said, “Don’t worry, Tyler’s a total pro, just do your usual thing.”

After I’d finished my rehearsal, Tyler came into the dressing room by himself. I wondered where his bodyguard was. He was smaller than I expected him to be, and his tight leather jacket and jeans made him seem even smaller, but with his head so big, it almost looked like his body hadn’t fully grown. He was good-looking, but nothing special, like someone had picked out enough decent features and zero ugly ones and mashed them together.