Single, Cool, and Fine: How to Get Laid as an Ex-Teen Idol Read online

  E.Y.: My butt is cringing at the memory. “Pam Daye”? He couldn’t find anything to rhyme with either name? I could only imagine what would’ve happened if her name was Edith Honkshoe. Now that’s a song I would’ve liked to hear. I vaguely remember one of the lyrics being, verbatim, “She’s from Utah.” Maybe it’s since become the new state song.

  CLAUDIA: I won’t hate on Pam Daye. I’m sure she’s got enough problems as it is, having a toilet paper of a song crafted in her name and honor. What I don’t get is why James Venora went through this half-assed attempt to show the fans he “cares.” Why not just make the membership to his website free? That would be a start.

  E.Y.: Agreed. No respectable adult musician makes his fans pay a fee for some “extra special” and stunningly dull behind-the-scenes videos and song demos that wind up leaked to the public anyway. That’s stuff only teen idols do, and here I thought James was trying so desperately to shed that stigma.

  CLAUDIA: I remember when he got bit by some chiggers and decided to rant about it during one of those extra-special videos. So basically, James has people pay forty bucks to listen to him whimper about his flea-bitten skin.

  E.Y.: That’s because James has a very weird culture of fans, most of whom enable his terrible marketing plans. Are they to blame? They did pay cash money for the doll he had made of himself. Remember that? My first thought was “Is it a Real Doll?” That would’ve made him millions but no, it just looked like a Monskey. I’d at least hoped it would’ve been the size of a Barbie. I wanted James to attend an orgy at the Dream House with the NKOTB, the cast of “90210,” and whoever else had dolls made of themselves.

  CLAUDIA: I recall when James sold romantic Valentine’s Day chocolates with the Venora logo on it via his website at twenty-five dollars for ten pieces. I would love to know who in the world actually bought them.

  E.Y.: Probably the same people who bought the Venora dress. Why did anyone choose to purchase a burlap sack covered in Venora song lyrics? It was designed by a man who committed every fashion faux pas in the history of the late twentieth century!

  CLAUDIA: Let’s come up with more Venora products that have nothing to do with music. How about a perfume or a diaper line? Or a series of semi-automatic assault rifles?

  E.Y.: I’d rather get to the bottom of why James is so weird, once and for all. Is it because he was a teen idol? Then again, Wade went through all that getting-famous-early nonsense, too, and he turned out okay.

  CLAUDIA: He turned out awesome.

  E.Y.: Maybe it’s because Wade eventually went out and did things on his own, like he stopped working so hard and granted himself some time to be a humble human being. But James never gave up the dream. In terms of his job, he’s always had a support group of people to do everything for him or with him, so he has no real experience in doing anything on his own. Most of us get jobs, find apartments, and write checks to pay the bills, but James has never done that. Can you imagine him working in an office for a day? Or buying a car or dealing with a landlord?

  CLAUDIA: That’s because he doesn’t know how to deal with regular people who don’t beg for his autograph, so he has to get Greer to take care of all the real-life stuff.

  E.Y.: Which brings me to the one thing that drives me most crazy about James Venora, and that’s him getting married when he was nineteen. First of all, it broke my teenage heart. The way I was acting when he got married, you would’ve thought he legitimately died. He might as well have. But mostly, my problem is that he’s always acted totally weird about it. Five years or so ago, an interviewer asked him why he got hitched so young, and James got strangely defensive about it, saying, “So many people push off marriage and responsibility until they’re older because they want to be selfish in their twenties, but I’ve been taking on responsibility since I was thirteen, so the idea of marriage wasn’t some burden or anything. Why would I want to put off having a more fulfilled, enriched life?” Blah, blah, blah. It’s like, “You got married to take a stand?” Never once did he mention Greer as a person. Never once did he say, “I got married because she’s awesome and I can’t live without her and I want to spend the rest of my life with this girl because she’s amazing.” No, he got married because he was so ready and so responsible. Lame! Who gets married because he’s so good at being responsible?

  CLAUDIA: And despite all this, chicks still want to get all over that.

  E.Y.: Well, yes. What are you saying? That even though James is fine as balls, no one should pine for him because he’s been irreparably damaged by fame? Heck no, man. If anything, all the things we hate on him for are just things we can look forward to him changing now that he’s getting back on the market. He’s the best fixer-upper ever, and I can’t wait to see him all shiny and new!

  Chapter Three

  James leaned against the handle of the metal shopping cart with his arms crossed. He’d knotted one of his trademark lightweight scarves around his neck, and a black cap from a local auto-transmission business reading Get Your Shift Together partially hid his face. He figured he probably looked hung over, especially with all the microwavable foods and bags of chips crammed into his cart.

  Still, it was better than the truth—that aside from making dinner for the kids the last weekend he had them, he had no idea when the last time he used his kitchen was. It was Greer who had whipped up the meals, although she’d never been much of a chef. Their kids subsisted primarily on peanut butter sandwiches and chicken-and-stars soup; buttered noodles and cut-up hamburger patties; and chicken fingers paired with some canned vegetable the kids refused to eat. But she’d been the one to feed everyone, including him, and sometimes against his will by interrupting him in the studio. A pang of guilt struck him as he remembered the dinners she’d bring him that would go untouched atop the piano. He suddenly wished he’d eaten more of them.

  That was the past though. He straightened and squared his shoulders, pushing his cart with purpose, although what that purpose was, he couldn’t be sure. In terms of his food situation, he didn’t know what he needed more or less of. For instance, did he have ketchup? Should he get another bottle? Did he even have anything to put ketchup on? This was hopeless.

  Then he saw her: the redhead in the turquoise dress fondling the ground beef. Just the sight of her made him blush, especially when she leaned forward into the freezer, her bubble butt jutting into the aisle, begging for a squeeze.

  His reaction to her was unexpected. Rarely did he notice women in a sexual context; not only did his career keep him busy, but with Greer around, he didn’t really feel the need. She was gone now, though, and he was supposed to be moving on…

  James’ body burned hotter the closer he rolled his cart toward her. He had no idea what he would do as he neared her, wasn’t even sure why he neared her. It was like a magnetic pull. He wondered what he planned to do when he got there.

  Before he could decide, she stood swiftly with her meat and met his gaze. She even smiled. James opened his mouth to speak, tried to give a friendly grin, say hi, but nothing came out. His cheeks flamed and his collar became too tight. Rockets of paranoia shot through his legs, and all he wanted to do was leave. He picked up his pace and moved past her with a cough, hating himself as the distance grew between them.

  What was wrong with him? Here he was, a former teen idol who should’ve been an expert in women based on that credential alone, but he was anything but.

  Fear stung his heart. What in the world was he going to do?

  When he was seventeen, James didn’t have a concept of the type of girl he hoped to be with. He had no idea of what she would look or be like, no hair or age requirements, no skin or eye color preferences. He couldn’t even picture how this nebulous girl would fit into the chaos of his life, but he hoped that somehow she just could.

  However, he wasn’t sure how he would come across this relationship. All the screaming the fans did made it impossible for him to get to know them or want to. He had to meet someone normal, so
meone sane, in some old-fashioned, organic way. But how? His life wasn’t normal, old-fashioned, organic, and least of all sane.

  Then he met Greer.

  It happened backstage at a Venora show on August 8, 2002 in Augusta, Georgia. Seventeen-year-old Greer had been dressed in a green tank top and denim skirt that day. Her hair was a tangle of auburn waves, and her eyes the color of wet sand. She shook his hand and smiled when Venora’s then teenage bassist—who’d beenGreer’s then best friend’s boyfriend—introduced them, but overall she’d given no hint of romantic interest or longing. She’d asked him polite questions that were the typical first-date bullshit questions, but she remained aloof and out of reach.

  Honestly, he initially liked Greer because it had been convenient to like her. Not only could his bassist vouch for her character, he was lonely, inexperienced, and afraid of always being lonely and inexperienced. Once confirmed as not a psycho, Greer became his most viable opportunity to avoid those three things.

  But as he spent more time with Greer, she became more than just convenient. She grounded him, but not in a bad way. Through her, he had his first taste of a normal life. When he was with her, he behaved like an average teenager—and at last got to experience a brand of misery everyone else his age apparently did. It was something he would’ve rather not known, but that was probably neither here nor there anymore.

  Greer played her cards right, he realized now in retrospect. She’d rarely—if ever—called him. She never seemed to get jealous. She was perfectly easygoing when they were together—but when they weren’t, he wondered if she thought about him at all. It was how he got to thinking about her. It was so aggravating and uncomfortable, all this mystery on where they stood, that his seventeen-year-old self wanted to break up with her every time he saw her just to end the guesswork. But then she’d be so sweet and warm, like a cookie right from the oven, that it was like he’d imagined the whole thing.

  But in the end, it was more than just a few dinner-and-a-movie combos that had truly sold James on Greer—at least at the time. It was when he would catch the extremely infrequent, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpse of her own quirks and oddities. He loved when she’d unconsciously lapse into a slightly British accent when she spoke to certain people and how she was OCD about covering every inch of her bagel or bread with a condiment and making wishes at 11:11 a.m. or p.m. He also found it cute when she’d giggle to herself when drawing in a notebook, lost in her own world. She was actually a really wonderful artist, leaning more toward illustration than realism. Her work was cartoony and lighthearted, reminiscent of the “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” cartoon Amie and Noah loved. He remembered when, before their daughter was born, she used to draw cards for her friends and design Geocities websites using her creative knowhow. Those moments made him think, “Okay, we’re on the same page here. That’s great.”

  But artsy endeavors faded from her life, and God forbid that she ever drop her guard around him. After those rare occasions, she would then turn mortified and crispy cool, punishing him for catching her be human. The longer they stayed together, the more remote she became. She was always so together and in control. No matter how much noise he seemed to make, she acted like he bored her and was nothing more than an ignorant, hyperactive child. She was a queen and he was the village madman, dressed in rags and offering free hugs to frightened passersby. He was, by many standards, famous and rich, yet he was hopelessly overmatched. What was wrong with that picture?

  “I don’t know what happened.” James stretched out across the length of E.Y.’s sofa in her living room, realizing with some horror that every day it became more like a therapist’s couch. Playing Rock Band in front of him were E.Y. and Wade, two of the worst headshrinkers he could ask for. “That woman in the grocery store—she smiled at me but I just froze up. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to be normal, but I freaked out and—”

  “Girls don’t want to bone normal,” E.Y. interrupted as the Lady Gaga song came to an end, and she lowered her drumsticks. “They want to bone James Venora.”

  “Right.” Wade swung the microphone upward by its cord and caught it with true rock star finesse. “You need to capitalize on what little celebrity you have.” Their Rock Band scores—both more than ninety percent—displayed on the big screen, and he and E.Y. high-fived. “That was some fine drumming I heard.”

  E.Y. bowed while remaining seated behind the plastic drum kit. “And your lyrical interpretation was inspiring.”

  “When you’re both done congratulating yourselves,” James said dryly, “I could use some help here.”

  “This is ridiculous.” E.Y. tossed the drumsticks on the carpet and stood. “I never thought I’d see any musician who sold more than one record crying about how he can’t get women. Are you serious?”

  “It’s not that simple.” Heat crept into James’ face. “I just—”

  “It’s not that he can’t get women.” Wade wrapped the microphone cord around his forearm. “It’s that he doesn’t know how to get women.”

  “That’s even more bizarre. There is no ‘getting’ women when you’re famous. I’m a fucking nobody and I know this.” E.Y. slugged the rest of her coffee from the mug she’d left on the coffee table twenty minutes ago. “All you have to do is capitalize on who you are. Or rather, who the public thinks you are. Then you can nail anyone you want.”

  “I am who I am,” James insisted. “I always have been.”

  “Ugh.” Wade made a face. “There’s your problem.”

  “If that’s true and you’re still not successful, then try being who the public wants you to be,” E.Y. said. “It’s simple. Act how you think girls would want you to be around them. You gotta tap into their crazy fantasies.”

  James chewed his lip, his confusion and worry mounting. He had no idea what to do with this information or even how to interpret it, but seeing Wade and E.Y.—his biggest critics—staring at him so expectantly, waiting for him to understand, he decided to keep this information to himself. He nodded with what he hoped was conviction. “All right, I get it.”

  E.Y. cocked an eyebrow. “No, you don’t get it. You don’t get it at all. This is tragic. Women have been throwing themselves at you for more than a decade and you have no idea why. Jesus, why don’t you read all the fan fic about you and just go from there?”

  “‘Fan fic’?” James looked from E.Y. to Wade, uncomprehending.

  “Oh dear.” E.Y.’s eyes bugged. “You have no idea people write fan fiction about you? Wow, your mind is about to be blown.”

  “My mind is already blown. I don’t even know what fan fiction is.”

  E.Y. let out a low whistle and left the room without another word.

  “Basically, people write stories with you as the protagonist and post them on the internet.” Wade unwound the microphone cord from around his arm and turned off the game. “Sometimes it involves elements of your real life, like that you’re a musician and going on tour or whatever, and sometimes it takes place in an alternate universe where you’re, like, the emperor of France.”

  “Oh God,” E.Y. called from the office. “I’d love to read fan fic starring James Venora as the emperor of France. That just got me hot.”

  “Well, you were always one for period-piece erotica.”

  “Wait,” James said. “People are writing stories about me?”

  “You, Wade, Buffy, Angel, Harry Potter, the gang from Twilight, Alf, everybody. Try to keep up.” E.Y. reentered the room and dragged James off the couch and into the office. She gestured to the monitor, which displayed a website titled Very Venora. “Here we have an entire site devoted to stories all featuring you.”

  James peered at the screen, his gaze flickering over the titles. The list seemed endless. “And they’re all about me? How is that possible? These people don’t even know me.”

  “That’s why it’s called fan fiction, dumbass.” Wade collapsed into his unofficially reserved spot in the beanbag chair. “Not fan
investigative reporting.”

  “But why would anyone do this?”

  E.Y. sat in her computer chair and tapped a finger to her bottom lip. “Plenty of reasons. Some writers become so passionate about a show or a star that they have to get their own ideas, fantasies, and imaginings into the world. Some writers use fan fic as a way to strengthen their storytelling skills and gain a fan base by infiltrating someone else’s with their AU stories. AU—that’s ‘alternate universe’ for those who aren’t in the know. And other writers…” She shrugged. “They just love taking James Venora and doing whatever they want with him.”

  “And what do they want to do with me?”

  E.Y. smirked. “You name it, it’s been done.”

  “I read a particularly riveting one once,” said Wade. “You fell in love with a homeless girl you met on a snowy street and brought her on tour, and she introduced you to the world of meth. Eventually you flipped out, totally lost yourself, and choked to death on your own puke in a bathtub.”

  James’ eyes widened. “Oh God.”

  “Okay, you need to sit.” E.Y. sprung from her chair and pushed James into it. “It’s time for a crash course in fan fic, especially that which concerns you.”

  “Oh good,” Wade said. “We’re about to be intellectually stimulated.”

  “That’s a fact, and you’ll both be better men for it.” E.Y. settled on the futon. “I’ll start with the basics. James, as you’ve just learned, girls write about you. They’ve been doing it since the dawn of your career. Many of the early fan fics were written by horny, barely literate teenagers, so they involved some very youthful key themes. For instance, the troubled, outcast girl would move next door to the Venora fam, and she and James would become best friends and do a lot of smooching in your tree house.”