The Love Song of Jonny Valentine (33 page)

“Please, Jonathan?” she asked again. “It’s all I’ve wanted the whole day.”

I
still
didn’t do anything for a few seconds, but I’d figured out what I was going to do. After I’d made her wait long enough, I sang

Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry

Go to sleepy, little baby

Go to sleepy, little baby

When you wake, you shall have

All the pretty little horses

All the pretty little horses

I ended after the first verse. “I have to go,” I said. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

She looked more beat-up than she did at the start, with bags under her eyes and her skin pasty and uneven without any makeup. I got this image in my head of Jane in a hospital bed, like she was now, only she was holding a baby to her chest. And the baby’s face was mine. Probably from that stupid drawing in the
New York Times,
or maybe I’d seen her in the hospital when she’d had the other baby, after all, and that was why I felt like I’d been in the room with the premature babies before. If she didn’t look like such crap right then, maybe I even would’ve asked her about it.

Before I could open the door, she said, “I’m sorry,” quieter than before.

I didn’t ask what she was sorry about. I didn’t answer or nod or turn or anything. I just stopped, to let her know I’d heard it, and said, “How are presales?”

“They’re . . . good,” she said. That pause meant they weren’t. “Better than before.”

I left. Walter dropped me off at my hotel room and made plans for when to wake me up the next day. He said me and him and Rog would get Jane at the hospital in the morning. I figured they wanted me there in case any paparazzi were around when she got out.

I turned on the second half of the Super Bowl. It was a blowout, and I didn’t care about the teams, but I kept it on anyway. My hotel room felt huge, like a football stadium, with me the only fan inside it that no one could see.

Tyler Beats starred in a big soda commercial. It was a sixty-second spot, and it was funny, and he even got to promote his new single during it. My commercials so far have all had crap production values for crap products.

I double-locked the door and dug out the glossy I’d packed in L.A. from the bottom of a suitcase. That seemed like forever ago. I turned up the volume of the game and found the F
IT AND
O
VER
40! spread. My hand rubbed over my jeans, and I unzipped them and reached inside my underwear, and once I was hard I slid out of my jeans completely.
I was still wearing my black track sweater, but I didn’t want to take it off and lose my boner. It felt like a strong one. Except I didn’t have any sunscreen on me to use.

I opened up the minibar. The mayo jar was still there. I unscrewed it and scooped out a big glob and spread it over me. It felt slick and like the inside of Dana’s mouth, but cool instead of warm. I kept the jar open in case I needed more, but I stored it in the minibar, with the door open so I could get to it easily, since you’re not supposed to ever leave mayo out.

I went back to get the glossy and put it next to the minibar and stood there, with the cold air washing over me and the pictures of all the actresses, and I kept pumping harder and slathering on more mayo, and it felt like I was disappearing
inside
the mayo, surrounding myself in all this greasy whiteness.

I shut my eyes and imagined Lisa Pinto coming to my hotel room, hanging a
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the knob and closing the door behind herself and locking it with those swinging hotel-door locks, and I opened my eyes again at the actress doing yoga in the glossy and I said out loud, “You like being my little slut, don’t you?” and there was this tingly click inside my penis, and I knew it was happening for real this time, and the middle of my body felt like the most super-intense massage ever, like someone had punched me except the punch made you feel amazing, and there was a huge buildup like the silence in the middle of the third verse of “Breathtaking” before I belt out the words, “Yeah, take away my breath,” and I comed.

It shot up and all over my black track sweater in a splattery line, but I didn’t care, and each spurt was like a small electric shock that felt almost as good as the last one. I breathed heavy and leaned on the minibar for a minute like I’d just done an hour of cardio.

If I could do this each time I tried, I don’t know why I’d ever do anything else.

I screwed the mayo lid back on and closed up the minibar and ran my sweater under the faucet, in case a hotel employee saw it, before I tossed it in the garbage. I nearly forgot to clean myself off, which would’ve been dumb in case the mayo spoiled on me, too.

Some of the come was between my fingers. It was sticky but also slippery. I could make a baby now. I could find a groupie by myself and nine months later be someone’s father.

You had to be careful with that, though. Mi$ter $mith had two different women who said he’d gotten them pregnant, and he said it wasn’t true but they made him take medical tests, and it turned out they were his kids. All the glossy headlines were like M
I$TER
$
MITH
L
O$E$
P
ATERNITY
$
UIT
.

If I had a baby with Lisa Pinto, it’d be cute and talented, but I bet she wasn’t on her period yet. The only other girl I could think of was Dana. We’d end up having a chubby baby, but not cute-chubby, and I’d have to visit it every few months, and each time Dana would have some new local band she was going on about with her gimlet eye for spotting Cincinnati talent. I could sort of see why Mi$ter $mith pretended he wasn’t the father.

A
knock at my door woke me up, but it wasn’t Walter’s. Through the peephole I saw Rog pacing around. Before I could say anything to him when I opened up, Rog was like, “We have to go to the hospital immediately. Get changed.” He looked serious. I was afraid to ask why we were in such a rush, but I did.

“She’s fine,” he said. “Just get moving.”

He left so I could change, but I got my answer when I turned on E! A reporter said that an anonymous tipster had let the media know that Jane’s hospitalization hadn’t been from a peanut allergy, but allegedly from a cocaine overdose. I called Rog’s cell and told him about it.

“I know,” he said.

“It wasn’t that, right? It was alcohol, wasn’t it?”

He took a long time to answer, and the longer he took, the more sure I became that it wasn’t actually alcohol. “I don’t know. That’s why we have to talk to her at the hospital.”

He got Walter and we headed over there again. “This is the last time I’m going to a hospital for a long time unless I get sick myself,” I told Walter.

“I’m with you, brother,” he said. Rog wasn’t talking, though. He was emailing like he’d had eight cups of coffee.

The hospital rep met us again but we knew the way. Walter waited outside and me and Rog went into Jane’s room. She looked a little stronger and had her phone out and was typing on it when we came in.

“Jane—” Rog started, but she put up her finger and he shut up.

She finished and said, “So, we have another little problem on our hands from America’s worst mother.” I knew she was joking, but when she called herself that, it made me think for a second that the media was right. It’s like when backup singers apologize for being flat that day. After that, they sound way worse to you, even if they’re not.

“We need to tackle this head-on,” Rog said. “A press conference.”

“First of all, the doctors are making me stay here another night,” she said. “So that’s out for today.”

“How are you going to be at my show tonight?” I asked.

“I’m not. I’ll have to miss it.”

I knew the whole point of being there was to talk about the cocaine overdose, but her missing the concert felt like the bigger crisis to me. If I brought it up now, though, they’d tell me it wasn’t.

“Second of all, there is no
we
anymore, Rog,” Jane said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“It was an anonymous tip from someone on tour.”

He looked at her and at me and back at her. “I don’t follow.”

“Rog, don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about, Janie.”

She took a deep breath in through her nostrils. I couldn’t tell if it was because she was upset or she had a hard time breathing. “I’m going to let you go. You’ll be paid the full amount of the tour.”

His mouth was open, and then he smiled. “You’re joking, right? You’re setting me up? Is this like a hidden-camera show?” She shook her head. His face and voice turned desperate. “Janie, this is insane. I didn’t say a word. Why would I do that?”

“You tell me. Maybe to make me more dependent on you.”

“Dependent!” Rog said. “What does that even—look, I did everything I could to keep this under control.
Everyone
knows you sometimes do—”

She shot him a mean stare and he looked at me and realized he’d messed up. He got quieter. “I’m not the one who did this. And for you to throw two years out the window because of . . . I don’t even
know
what, is—”

“I have it on good authority that you’re behind the leak,” Jane said. “I value your previous work with us. Save your receipts for getting to the airport and your flight home and the label will reimburse you.”

He smiled again, but it wasn’t the smile he had when he thought he was on a reality show. “This is an excuse to get rid of me.”

“Please leave now before we both say things we’ll regret.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Rog said, “but there’s a hell of a lot I
could
have said. And I never have.”

“You say whatever you want. No one will believe you, and I’ll make sure you never get work again. Or I can give you a nice recommendation and say we amicably parted ways. Which way do you want to go?”

Rog bit his lower lip and waited for what felt like an hour. “This is a fucked-up way to treat a friend.” He turned to me. “Hope you get along with my replacement.” He slammed the door. Jane stared at it for a few seconds.

“You and me, kid,” she said. “Just the two of us.”

“I don’t think Rog did it,” I said. “I heard him talking on the phone in the bathroom and it sounded like he was the one who came up with the peanut story.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. I have trusted sources.”

“More trusted than Rog?”

“These things are more complicated than you think. Rog and I have had conflicts you don’t know about. I’m sure you and Michael used to have fights that I didn’t know about. Can you try to understand that?”

No, I can’t understand it. This is worse than what you did with the Latchkeys, and even worse than what you tried to do with Walter. Rog was your best friend for two years, and even if he wasn’t the most in-demand voice and dance coach anymore, he worked hard and groomed me. You don’t fire your friends because someone told you they messed up, especially if they say they didn’t. And I didn’t fire Michael as
my best friend. You moved me away from him. Plus you didn’t tell me he wanted to visit.

And maybe it’s what you did with Al. You fired him as your husband and as my father and didn’t tell me he wanted to see me again.

“I understand,” I said.

I didn’t ask her how often she did cocaine, or what she was going to say to the public. The tabloids really go for your throat if you get caught doing cocaine, but she was good at spinning, and they’d shield me from the media until we got to New York, and by then it would blow over. She’d be fine. Rog would be fine, eventually. I’d get a new voice and dance coach when I went back to L.A. who’d be fine. My image would be fine. Jane knew what she was doing.

“I’m going to meet you in Detroit tomorrow, baby. Okay?”

“Fine.”

“Don’t worry about any of this. Just focus on tonight’s show.” I nodded, and she told me to go back to the hotel with Walter because she needed to rest and deal with the label.

In the car, Walter said, “So, she fired Rog?”

“Yeah.”

He whistled. “Damn. I didn’t like the queer much myself, but he doesn’t deserve that.”

The ride to Detroit was weird with no Jane, no Rog, no Nadine, only me and Walter on a huge bus by ourselves with Kenny the driver. Three fans in the football stadium. Walter should’ve had the day off yesterday, so I let him sleep and I tried to think about my history essay, but I kept coming back to how Jane wouldn’t be at my concert tonight, and Rog wouldn’t be there to warm me up even though I could do it on my own, and the only person I’d have was Walter, who was the best in some ways, but he couldn’t make up for everyone else.

If my father was around it’d be different. Having someone related to you nearby when you were with strangers would be cool. He’d probably comanage me with Jane, or do something else behind the scenes. I wouldn’t have to worry about Jane going out late at night or doing cocaine, and she definitely wouldn’t be with Bill. He wouldn’t let her fire people who’d worked hard for us.

If Walter had a smartphone I could’ve checked my email to see if he’d written again, but he’s not into gadgets, sort of like Nadine, and he says having one would make him less alert to protect me.

Kenny dropped me and Walter off at the hotel, where I napped and ate lunch, and the car service took us to the venue for sound check. The audio was junk, and usually Jane or Rog takes care of it and yells at whoever to fix it, but I didn’t know who was really in charge, and Walter definitely didn’t know what to do. I could’ve asked Bill, but I didn’t want to talk to him. And he could’ve been behind the leak. Maybe Bill wanted to get out of his relationship with Jane and this was a way. She should’ve fired him, not Rog. Rog wouldn’t do something like that.

I played Zenon in my room preshow and ate three slices of pepperoni pizza, which was dumb and totally off-limits if Jane or Rog was around. It would make me too full and the dairy would destroy my voice, plus the pepperoni might make me burp. I vomited, partly from overeating and partly I made myself.