The Love Song of Jonny Valentine by Teddy Wayne

personnel lot, and Jane just got the car pretour so they didn’t recognize it or the plates. Once we were on the freeway I told her I’d changed my mind about Roberto. She only nodded and said, “So I talked with Bill about the swing.”
    I’d forgotten about the swing because I was so happy about getting the gem on Level 65. “What’d he say?”
    Usually Jane looked at me in the rearview mirror when she talked to me about something serious, but she just faced straight ahead and her hands tightened around the wheel. “He said they figured out what the issue was and resolved it, but there are apparently three separate safety devices on it, so even if it happens next time, you’re protected by three levels of defense.”
    Walter’s eyes shifted over to Jane before he turned his head out the window.
    “It didn’t feel that safe,” I said.
    “I know, baby. That’s what I told him. But he swears it is. And it really is the technical highlight of the show, and the fans are going to expect it now.”
    I thought about climbing back into the swing. When something bad happens once, you always think about it after. It was like how I’d choked onstage one time on my bottle of water, in New Orleans, and now every time I took a sip I worried I’d do it again, mostly because choking on water would be such a crap way to depart the realm. At least crashing in the swing would be cool.
    “If you say so.”
    “Great,” she said. “We’re going to use it for a lot of visual promo content. And Bill knows what he’s talking about.”
    Walter laughed quietly to himself. “Something funny, Walter?” Jane said.
    “If he knew what he was talking about, it wouldn’t have gotten broke in the first place.”
    Jane kept driving without talking, but it was the kind of not talking that said a lot. It wasn’t the smartest thing for Walter to say that to her, but I thought again of him jumping in front of me to catch a bullet. General Jonny and Private Walter.
    “Don’t mind me,” Walter said. “It’s not my place. You going out tonight, or are we driving straight home?”
    “Home,” Jane said. “And I’d appreciate it if you kept your mind on security issues, Walter.”
    He kept looking out the window. “Sorry, Miss Valentine.”
    Jane turned on the radio to a classic rock station. We didn’t talk the rest of the way. When we got home, Walter mumbled good night to us and went off to his bungalow, and Sharon was still up and asked us if we wanted anything. Jane said she was going to sleep and reminded me we had a six a.m. wakeup.
    My body was tired but my mind was racing from the concert, so I asked Sharon to make me some decaf green tea with honey from the kettle, not the microwave or the hot-water faucet. It would take longer that way.
    It was just me and Sharon awake in the house. She leaned over the island counter. “How was the concert, Mr. Jonny?”
    “One of the dancers kept messing up and it threw me off, and then the swing that carries me over the crowd, it broke when I was inside.”
    She put her hand over her mouth. “It broke?”
    “But there are three safety devices. So I didn’t get hurt.”
    “Oh, good.” She swept my hair to the side. “They’re not going to make you do it anymore?”
    “No,” I said. “Jane said she wouldn’t let them put me in it again for a million dollars.”
    Sharon said that she worried so much about me when I did tricks in my concerts, but now she could relax. I finished my tea while she read the front page of the L.A. Times on the counter. She’s taking an adult-education writing class and they have to read the front page every day. When I was done, she looked up from the paper and said, “I love watching you drink your tea. You’re so serious about it.”
    She took my mug and opened the dishwasher and bent over to put the mug in the back of the bottom row. Her butt was like two huge boulders guarding the entrance to a cave in Zenon. And I felt like I wanted to