The Third Wedding #2
J relies on his wedding gigs to supply a significant share of his income; what started out as a lark spun off from a song became something a little more reliable than a lark.
This is the reality of the music industry right now; if he wants to actually live off of music, he has to be a part of the gig economy.
As streaming transformed how people listened to songs, music became like tap water, something people took for granted, that they expected to be there for a monthly subscription fee.
And in this process, music itself was transformed into something that could only be profitable if it was sold via another commodity.
There is no stability in being paid $0.003 every time your song is played.
The choice for J was between having an energy drink logo tattooed on his forehead or finding a way to make his music exclusive somehow.
Transform it from tap water into...well.
Maybe not a bottle of Acqua di Cristallo, but at least a bottle of Evian.
So when times have been tight, J has found himself playing for some entrepreneur who talked to him endlessly about the music they’d heard at Burning Man.
He’s played for a very sweet couple who had at least one arms dealer in the audience.
He’s played for a “struggling artist” whose father was listed in Forbes as the eighty-first richest person in the world.
At that wedding, every guest got their own Tiffany bracelet to commemorate the day.
As an afterthought, J was given the bracelet of a man who hadn’t shown up.
He didn’t feel bad selling it for a nice profit.
When J scrolls through the post-column invitations, he finds one invitation in particular that dangles a sum equal to about half a year’s salary as a barista. He almost spills his coffee over his laptop when he sees this.
J emails this couple first.
As he waits for a response, he does a little googling and discovers that the groom-to-be works “in finance” (which is to say, he does something involving lots of theoretical money that J will never even try to understand).
The bride-to-be owns a boutique named after herself.
Its logo is her name in cursive leopard-print.
She has far more Instagram followers than a boutique owner would ever ordinarily have, especially in Sweden.
It’s from this that J deduces she is of that strange breed known as influencer —people known for being known who leverage their known-ness exquisitely.
These should be warning signs, but the dollars signs block them out.
J hears back from the bride-to-be’s assistant within an hour, even though the particular hour is midnight. He wonders if the assistant is in another time zone or if she is always on standby.
A video interview is set up for the following Tuesday, at precisely 6:15 p.m.
J has no idea whether he is going to be the interviewer or the interviewee.
Since he is up after midnight, J calls V.
“Oh, hello,” she answers.
“You sound surprised it’s me,” J observes. “Didn’t you see my name before you answered?”
“I just figured it was late there. I’m surprised you’re awake.”
J can hear voices in the background.
“Are you still at work?” he asks.
“It’s only eight here. Of course I’m still at work.”
Male voices. There are male voices in the background.
“Is Thor there with you?”
V sighs. “No. He’s out with Meta.”
“Meta?”
“I told you about Meta. The NYU student?”
J sincerely can’t remember any NYU student being mentioned. But he doesn’t always remember everything V says when the conversations happen after midnight.
“I’m not sure you’ve told me about Meta,” he confesses.
“Well, Thor’s in love. With an NYU student. Named Meta. In her defense, her name predates Mark Zuckerberg’s appropriation of the word.”
“So she’s old-school meta, then. How’d they meet? A warehouse rave?”
“They met in the park. Thor was walking his dog, and Meta is, apparently, a sucker for mutts, so they started talking and now they’re out at Momofuku while I’m still at the office.”
J knows it’s not the point of the story, but he gets stuck on one of its secondary facts.
“Thor has a dog?” he asks.
V sighs again. “Yes. He adopted a dog from a shelter last week. He’s still trying out names, to see which one she likes best. We have a betting pool. I chose Cherry. I’m not even sure why. She just seems like a Cherry.”
“Is she a small dog or a big dog?”
“She’s a medium-size dog, but she’s still growing. Why does that matter?”
J tries to control his breathing. “V,” he says, “nobody—not even someone as cloud-headed as Thor—adopts a dog if he thinks he’s going to be moving back home in a few weeks. He’s not planning on coming back.”
This time V doesn’t sigh. But J can sense her shaking her head.
“Is this why you called? To have this conversation?”
“No! I didn’t know anything about the dog when I called. I was going to tell you about this couple that wants me to sing at their wedding. But now you’ve mentioned Thor’s dog and there’s no going back.”
“Have you been drinking?”
In his most sober tone, J says, “No, I have not been drinking. Do I sound like I’ve been drinking?”
“No. You sound tired. Go to sleep and we’ll talk tomorrow.”
“You haven’t argued my point.”
“What?”
“You haven’t said, ‘No, just because Thor’s adopted a dog, it doesn’t mean we’re going to be staying here.’”
“Do you seriously need me to say that? To prove to you that Thor’s impulsive behavior is never an indication of anything?
The fact that Thor adopted a dog means that, at one singular moment, Thor wanted a dog.
It’s not a part of a grand plan. Thor doesn’t have a grand plan.
That’s why he has the rest of us, to turn his impulses into a grand plan. ”
“And the grand plan still involves you returning here in a few weeks?”
The sigh returns. Were V a tire, she’d be out of air by now.
“I don’t know when I’m returning,” she says. “It might be a few weeks or it might be a little longer than a few weeks. But I know for sure we’re not moving here so Thor can keep his dog. Okay?”
J says it’s okay.
But it doesn’t feel okay.
Neither J nor V is a fan of any particular sport. J will turn on the World Cup, maybe. V thinks the Williams sisters are incredible, but she never got much thrill from watching them play full sets. Highlight reels were enough.
Still, even if neither of the two people involved in this conversation is sport-inclined, a sporting truism occurs to each of them at this point.
It’s actually one of the most basic truisms in all of sports: You don’t get much of a game if both sides are on the defense.
Pride might be saved, but the match won’t be won.
It stands to follow, then, that if you’re both going to be defensive, you might as well save the energy and leave the field.
“You know what,” J says, “you’re right. It is late. I am tired.”
A soothing tone returns to V’s voice. “I know. And I’m super stressed and, frankly, sick of working late every night.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“Good luck with the rest of your night.”
“Sleep well.”
J knows he is not going to sleep well. He knows he shouldn’t have been the first one to say “I miss you” because the “I miss you, too” is never, ever as satisfying to receive. All V needed to say was “I can’t wait to come back to you, whether or not Thor has a dog.”
J loves that V will always avoid being an outright liar. But that makes it harder when there’s a truth he wants her to confirm and she steps away from it rather than addressing it.
J feels alone in his apartment and stuck in his aloneness. Because the only person he wants to call is the person he’s just hung up with.
At 6:14 p.m. the next evening, J clicks the video chat link.
At 6:15 p.m., another box appears without its camera on.
“Please hold for Celestia Vaughn,” a voice—presumably the assistant’s?—intones.
J waits. And waits.
At 6:28 p.m. the shades of another virtual window are drawn and he’s face-to-face with a woman who can only be Celestia Vaughn.
She is no doubt younger than J, but already has the semi-android look of someone who is using surgical means to tame all the personality from her face.
While J is at his kitchen table, lit by the usual lighting fixtures, Celestia is ring-lit, in a study where the book spines have been arranged into striped patterns.
Books with small titles have been deliberately chosen, since longer titles would interfere with the effect.
None of this is particularly unexpected. What is unexpected is when Celestia opens her mouth and takes the tone of an early teenager who’s had a little too much fruit punch at the slumber party.
“Oh my god, it’s so amazing to see you!” she launches with.
“I’m honored, really. I’ve been listening to your albums nonstop since I read that article, and the fact that you’d be willing to even consider our wedding—I can’t tell you what that means to me.
Truly. I was telling Roger, ‘You have to listen to this guy. He knows things about love that you and I really need to learn.’ The fact that you write songs for couples—what a kind way to share your talents. A gift. Like, totally a gift.”
J doesn’t know what to say to any of this except “Thank you.”
“Now, before we get into it, I also have to apologize to you for the sum we quoted in our initial email. That was before I heard your music. Roger would hate me for saying this, but we’re definitely willing to go higher.”
Again, J finds himself thanking her. The weird part being: He can tell she’s not bullshitting. She actually listened the songs, and they meant something to her. That means as much as the money, although the money of course is more helpful when he’s out in the wider world.
“So tell me, how does it work?”