Page 356 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

You get five minutes, and you pick interview question number one.

Across the ballroom, Andrew’s got his back to me, straightening liquor bottles until every label faces forward, wiping already-clean counters to keep himself busy.

Beside him, there are large floor-to-ceiling windows, and right outside is the Rockefeller Tree lit up under snowfall.

It’s all magical, really⁠—

Teddy Vale, a walking poem, next to me,

The Rockefeller Tree,

jazz…

“Hey? I’m serious,” Lirrah says. “Everybody always gives some tortured-genius answer that says absolutely nothing.” She lays a hand on Teddy’s sleeve. “And Teddy, you’re basically the king of romantic suffering and the only real, authentic thing left in music.”

A small laugh rips out of Teddy, and he presses a tongue into his cheek to stifle it.

“Thank you kindly,” he says. “But that’s the whole industry right there, isn’t it?” He lifts his glass with a head tilt. “Everybody says they want ‘real’ ‘til somebody’s bein’ real.”

Nice, nice, nice…

So Teddy Vale has thoughts.

Pretty mouth,

melancholic eyes,

old-soul thoughts.

My crush on him has been manageable

when he wasn’t a real person.

Now he’s real…

Real fuckin’ perfect.

He laughs into his glass as he continues, “Be authentic… long as it doesn’t make anyone uncomfortable.”

“A-fuckin’-men,” Garrick toasts.

Lirrah pops her hip. “Huh. Another tortured-genius answer,” she teases.

Clyde laughs.

Teddy looks over the crowd, then lifts a finger off his glass. “Alright, sweetheart.” He throws back a sip, clears his throat. “Answer’s bad timing. That simple.”

“Oh, c’mon,” she whines.

He turns his head in her direction, gestures to the room with his drink. “Two people meet at the right time and they’re not sittin’ in studios ‘til three in the mornin’,” he says, unrushed, voice soft-Chicago. “They’re off somewhere doin’ Marvin Gaye activities, producin’ babies, not records.”

A laugh buckles behind my pressed lips,

then breaks free, joining the others.

My eyes sprint to the bar

just as Andrew starts to turn,