The Third Wedding #3
He gives her the rundown about the conversations they’ll have so he can shape the song, then the two sets he’ll perform—one with favorites of theirs, one with the wedding song. They can incorporate the sets into their wedding wherever they see fit.
Celestia starts to flutter her hand in front of her face. Her eyes are tearing up.
“That’s just so...special,” she says. Then she looks to her side, sees someone, and gestures for them to come closer.
“It’s the wedding guy,” she explains to the person off camera. “You really liked that cab song of his, remember?” Then she turns to J. “Roger’s just gotten home. Roger, say hi.”
A guy in a suit comes into the frame. He puts a hand on Celes-tia’s shoulder and kisses her head. Then he looks at the camera, smiles, and says, “Just do whatever she tells you. That’s what I do.” Celestia swats at him playfully, he squeezes her shoulder, waves to J, and walks out.
“He’s a joker,” Celestia says. Then her eyes widen in revelation. “Write that down! That can be part of your song. How he jokes all the time. But only out of love.”
She looks at J so expectantly that he grabs a notebook and writes it down.
Joker .
Before J can ask anything else about their relationship, the presumably-assistant’s voice returns.
“Celestia, I’m so sorry. But your six-thirty is waiting.”
Celestia seems crestfallen to hear this.
“But we just got started! Why did you only schedule us for five minutes?” Then she looks to J. “I’m so sorry. But this is a start, right?”
Yes, he agrees. This is a start.
Ten minutes later, the definitely-assistant emails him with a revised offer that makes this the most lucrative gig J has ever had.
He accepts.
He texts this news to V, and then feels foolish for how often he checks to see if she’s read it.
It’s still unread as he falls asleep.
The next morning, there’s a response from her. But all it says is $$$$$ ?
He wants her to point out that the sum is more than enough for him to fly over for a visit.
He doesn’t need her to be happy for him, but it would be nice for her to be happy for that.
J considers the day in front of him; he doesn’t have a single plan.
In certain moods, he would find this liberating.
But in his current mood, he finds it depressing.
He realizes he should be taking this time without V to see some of the people she doesn’t particularly like.
There’s a roster of friends he sees maybe twice a year, one-on-one.
Why not use this as an opportunity to get some of these engagements over with now?
He texts Ginger, a woman who he didn’t date long enough to consider an ex and doesn’t see often enough to consider a close friend. She is an actress of great range and little depth, and one of the great attractions of dining with her is how little she demands, other than being listened to.
When the lunch is over, J walks to his car and writes a good morning text to V.
She replies, I’ve been up for hours .
J does the math in his head. It’s 8:44 there. And, really, the good morning was meant to reflect the time between the two of them, not empirical time.
He decides not to engage in this distinction, and instead texts, I just had lunch .
He waits for her to ask who with.
She doesn’t reply.
J realizes there’s no point in turning his head. If he wants to work on songs, he has to face what’s right in front of him.
Between your time zone
and my time zone
how do we find
our comfort zone?
That feels elementary.
No hugs, no kisses, no sex
You don’t even answer my texts
I’ll take heartbreak for 500, Alex
True, but where does it go next?
Love is the fifth natural force
Making rings on the ocean with its oars
Reshaping the planet to its core
Oh I just want things to be like before
Well, if anything’s worth melting the glaciers for
it’s you
Better, songwise. But depressing to think about.
He checks his email and there’s one from Celestia’s assistant.
Celestia is compiling her list, v. excited. Will have it to you next week. In the meantime, please sign the attached contract and NDA so we can proceed .
J isn’t sure what the assistant means by a list, but figures he’ll find out soon enough.
In the meantime, the contract and NDA are an astonishing thirty-four pages long.
J understands the bottom line is that he can’t speak of anything that happens at the wedding; fair enough.
He also sees that Celestia wants to maintain control of the song after the wedding; she won’t own it outright, but J will need her permission to record or perform it outside the wedding.
J decides for this price, he can agree to that.
It is only one song, after all.
If J’s week is somewhat formless, V’s appears to grow more and more intense.
The investors have been wooed, and now offers are starting to be made.
When he meets his financial suitors, Thor is savvy and strategic and enigmatic.
Outside these meetings, he is a complete mess, suddenly paralyzed by the notion that he could make the wrong choice and doom the whole endeavor to failure.
Rather than talk it out with V, he runs off to be with his new love, Meta, and their new dog, Macdougal (Mac for short).
It has been left to V and the chief financial advisor, an American named Grant, to play the potential investors off each other to get the best offers possible.
J has pieced this narrative together from shards of quick conversations.
Since V is always at work, he is always catching her at work.
Time and time again, he offers to stay up for her, to be ready when she is done, even if it’s three or four in the morning, his time.
But in response he always gets the same refrain.
Don’t stay up.
I’m so tired.
Don’t stay up.
I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
At one point he gently suggests that maybe she needs to take a break, take a few hours for herself.
“You just don’t understand,” she tells him.
“What don’t I understand?” he asks.
“This. Work .”
As soon as she says it, she apologizes, says it came out wrong. She tells him she is only getting three or four hours of sleep each night, and even her dreams are work-related nightmares.
“Is it worth it?” he has to ask.
“When they give us tens of millions of dollars to do this site the right way, it will be worth it,” she tells him.
Then she says she has to go. Another call is coming in.
He finds himself at strange hours (day or night) doing a deep dive into Celestia’s social media.
Nothing that she’s talking about—skin-care regimens, the right amount of cleavage, self-enhancement—are of particular interest to him.
But he is fascinated by the balance that Celestia strikes between sincerity and the sell.
He believes that she believes in what she’s doing, and that belief is something he can’t help but admire.
..even if it scares him a little. Because the intimacy is an illusion of intimacy—she’s not confiding or conversing, she’s broadcasting .
But judging from the comments section, many of her followers believe it’s a two-sided interaction. That’s why they keep coming back.
As promised, celestia’s list of “song elements” (J is impressed with her phrasing) arrives via email.
You see, V ? J thinks. Work .
The only thing that can be said about the list is that it is most definitely a list, with twenty-eight numbered items. What the items have to do with Celestia, her husband, and their marriage is much less clear, even for someone who’s recently spent a good deal of time on Celestia’s social media.
A few are clearly either nicknames they have for each other or the names of their pets.
Many others are designer brand names. J is familiar with a few from magazines, and others he just assumes are brand names because they are capitalized and seem to go along with names like Gucci and Balenciaga.
In fact, the only nouns that aren’t proper nouns are toaster, bedtime, and ambition .
At the end of the list, there’s a note with a phone number:
If you have any questions, just call!
J calls.
“Celestia Enterprises, Mikhail speaking,” a lilting voice answers.
J explains who he is and why he is calling. Mikhail explains he is on Celestia’s communications team, and that he should be able to answer any questions J has.
“Is it okay if I just go down the list?”
“Please.”
“So...Salty and Pepper?”
“Those are Celestia’s poodles.”
“Safe to assume that one’s a white dog and one’s a black dog?”
“Oh—Celestia does not use that word.”
J thinks for a second about what he’s just said, then has to ask, “Which word?”
“The d-word. One of Celestia’s hallmarks is her specificity . Salty and Pepper are always to be referred to as poodles. Not...you know.”
“I do know. Thank you. Next one—the Queen. Is that a reference to Sweden’s queen? England’s queen?”
“That’s a reference to Celestia herself.”
“I see.”
“It’s what Roger calls her. Though, between us, I think she came up with it, so I wouldn’t give him credit if you can avoid doing so.”
“How about bedtime ?”
“They have a running joke about their bedtimes, since they’re often so wildly different. Celestia’s day often starts much earlier than Roger’s, for reasons I can’t disclose. So she’s trying to go to bed earlier.”
J figures he understands why ambition is on the list, so he asks about toaster .
Mikhail is silent on the line. Finally J has to ask, “Are you there?”
“Sorry. I was just texting Belgravia on my other phone. She’s on Celestia’s appearance team. If anyone knows, she will.”
“Well, I can just ask Celestia when I do my interview for the song,” J says.
Mikhail actually laughs. “Oh, I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible. I think it’s a miracle you got this list. Celestia’s calendar is insane for the next two weeks—even for her. Getting married creates so much demand.”
J is disappointed by this, but not that disappointed.