The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

CHAPTER 19. Detroit (Second Day)

Jane had basically made a full recovery by the morning and didn’t need the wheelchair anymore. She was supposed to take it easy the next few days, which I think even she was going to stick to. The original plan was for me and her and Walter to fly to New York ahead of the others, who’d take the bus and would have a day off, so I could do press and prep for my miniconcert with Tyler Beats. But I didn’t know how much publicity they’d want now with everything that had just happened.

Me and Jane took our own car to the airport, and Walter rode in a taxi ahead of us. He’s too big for all three of us to fit into the backseat sometimes, and Jane’s luggage fills up the trunk. A few minutes into the ride, I said, “I’ve been thinking more about school.”

She put down her phone. “What about it?”

“Like, maybe going to it.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know. It seems like it’s something a regular kid should be doing.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “I can understand that.”

Boxy warehouses passed by us along the highway. Most cities were ugly on the way to the airport. It’s like they didn’t give a shit anymore since they knew you were leaving anyway. “The thing is, you know, you’re not exactly a regular kid.”

“I know.”

“Other people go to school because they have to. You don’t have to.”

“But what if I want to?”

“No one’s stopping you, if it’s something you want to do. It’ll be a tough adjustment, but Nadine can tutor you after school. And we could refer Walter somewhere else.”

“Refer Walter somewhere else?”

“He wouldn’t be your bodyguard anymore. The school wouldn’t let you bring a bodyguard. The point is that you’re supposed to be a regular student. None of the other celebrity kids are allowed to have one.”

I hadn’t thought about that. I might not even be the most famous student there.

“What about after school?”

“That wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t be able to live on a part-time salary, and if we’re not working, I can’t justify spending a full salary on someone who works only a few hours a day. I’m sure we could find someone else willing to do it, though.”

“But when I go back on tour, he’d work for us again?”

“I imagine he’d be someone else’s bodyguard by then. And we’d have whoever we end up with.”

The sky was the color of a mouse and matched the highway and all the buildings. The outside was like an animal that changed its color to blend in. “I’m still mulling it.”

“Entirely up to you, baby.” She returned to her phone.

We found Walter outside the airport and did our thing where we get special treatment and skip all the lines, even the business-class line, and killed time before the flight in the private lounge area. They were always filled with businessmen working on their laptops, so I didn’t need to wear my baseball hat and sunglasses.

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.