by Lux Zakari
SINGLE, COOL, AND FINE:
HOW TO GET LAID AS AN EX-TEEN IDOL
Lux Zakari
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2015, 2012 Lux Zakari
Edited by Alissa Williams
Cover art by Lux Zakari
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, and actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Teaser
All your dirty teenage dreams are about to come true.
Gorgeous but awkward, talented but weird, James Venora is a twenty-seven-year-old struggling musician mired in the eternal stigma of having once been the stuff of Tiger Beat centerfolds. Getting married in his late teens also rendered him completely clueless when it comes to dating, a fact that comes to light when his wife surprises him with a request for a divorce. Now James has never felt the passage of time more strongly, and he decides to shirk his well-behaved habits and start wronging some rights. Unfortunately, he has no idea where to start.
Enter his brother Wade and his childhood friend E.Y.—both his biggest fans and biggest detractors. At their behest, James reads fan fiction written about himself to glean advice on how to live up to his potential—and instead discovers that what he wants most might be something he already has.
Dedication
For Lauren, my muse-in-denial and source of endless fascination. Thanks for wandering into my life.
And as always, for Casey, the best coconspirator in all the land and my guru forever more. You’re THE MOST!
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Kerri for the beta read, as well as to Robyn and The Roo for being really cool kids. I’m also grateful to Lis for giving me story structure wisdom, aspiring to make me rich, and loving all those boy bands with me once upon a time. I will always cherish that era! Another big “thank you” goes to Allen for being such a great sport—and the Fabio of the first edition of this book!
Blame James (blame_james) wrote,
@ 2012-06-13 17:26:00
Is the End Nigh?
E.Y.: So did you hear? James and his wifey are supposedly splitting up!
CLAUDIA: Where’d you hear that, that idiotic Post Secret rip-off site, Venora Underground?
E.Y.: Well, yes. But there’s always some grain of truth to a rumor.
CLAUDIA: If this is, in fact, a grain of truth, I’m not surprised. I bet Greer finally got sick of catching James in her tight girl jeans or using all her Nair on his nasty, patchy chest hair. The reasons are endless, really.
E.Y.: I never thought this day would come. Granted, divorce sucks, but this is still thrilling the teenybopper in me. I’d thought we’d lost James Venora forever the day he got married at nineteen ‘cause he knocked Greer up. But now, the Earth’s atmosphere has completely changed. Who knows what will happen now? At this rate, maybe he’ll even finally achieve total hotness by age twenty-eight.
CLAUDIA: And how do you see that unlikely event unfolding?
E.Y.: I’ll tell you. Picture this: The day the divorce is finalized, James has a breakdown in his dressing room after he finishes whining his way through one of his boring ballads. He screams at the backup musicians for no reason—“Don’t you know I’m under a lot of pressure?”—and they’re all, “We don’t even know you anymore, man.” When they leave, James looks in the mirror and whispers, “What’ve I become?” Then he smashes his fist through the glass in rage.
CLAUDIA: Smashing? Rage? Are we still talking about the same scrawny James?
E.Y.: Then James holes himself up in his dressing room, and the fans keep a vigil outside, lighting candles and singing like it’s Strawberry Fields on John Lennon’s birthday. Finally, after three days, a hush falls over the crowd as James exits the room with a cold look in his eye. Everyone waits for a speech, but he wordlessly brushes past the stunned fans and marches out.
CLAUDIA: Cut to the following month, when James has grown a Rip Van Winkle beard while living like a hermit in a cave. In between the bouts of self-pity, he thinks of his kids, who seem to be doing fine without him. His son, Noah, who, despite being only five, has already launched a solo career reminiscent of Justin Timberlake’s and now sports leather pants, a headset microphone, and a bowl cut. As for James’ daughter, seven-year-old Amie is hitting up the L.A. club scene with Sean Preston Federline and getting into public cat fights with socialites.
E.Y.: Then one day, James leaves his cave for some fresh linens only to see Greer with some other guy. This is The Turning Point. James realizes the time for total reinvention has arrived. Thus begins a montage of progress set to “Eye of the Tiger” as he lifts weights, jumps rope with a determined look on his face, and gets some new natural-looking highlights in his tousled blond mane. Then he rolls into his next record release party wearing a fur coat and pimp hat like Kid Rock, and the screaming wenches go super crazy now that he’s become single, cool, and fine. Mark my words, this needs to happen. You heard it here first on the Blame James blog.
CLAUDIA: Too bad your plan is flawed. For example, there’s no way James can lift anything heavier than a light-day’s tampon, let alone weights.
E.Y.: True. Okay, let’s change the strategy. James needs to go all Thoreau on us and live deliberately in the woods in order to learn that he has been what’s wrong with himself his whole life. He’ll look inward!
CLAUDIA: It’ll take a lot of inward looks in order to turn the hot mess that is James Venora around.
E.Y.: Maybe, but you never know. It’s a whole new world out there today. Anything’s possible now!
Chapter One
James jogged up the three flights of stairs that led to the apartment’s small back porch and yanked on the screen door’s handle. Locked. He took a deep breath in an effort to calm himself, only to fail miserably. He pressed his face to the screen, cupping his hands around his eyes to see inside. “Open the door.”
“First state your name and business,” he heard his brother call from down the hallway.
“It’s me, and my business is punching you in the face.”
“‘Me’? I don’t believe I know a Me.”
“Yes, and I’m not too sure about Me’s agenda, either,” chimed in someone with a smoky, feminine voice. “I don’t invite people who want to punch faces into my home. It doesn’t sound smart.”
James pounded on the metal doorframe and gave it a kick for good measure, his frustration mounting.
“On second thought, go see what Me wants,” said the second speaker. “I’m sure whoever it is will be easier to reason with than my landlord when I’m forced to explain the dented back door.”
“Ugh, fine.” Wade exited a room at the end of the hall with a tremendous sigh, moving at the approximate speed of a glacier. He’d put on a few pounds since the band Venora had first burst on the music scene in 1998, a fact accentuated by his baggy, dragon-patterned button-down shirts and cargo pants. His smooth-cheeked days were behind him; stubble now always graced his jaw, chin, and upper lip. His dark brown eyes, however, had retained th
eir faint look of amusement and boredom, and his mouth still remained on the verge of a perpetual smirk. Yet despite Wade’s obvious lack of vanity, his female fans continued to crave him and lamented on the internet about his apparent lack of interest in women, which didn’t imply an interest in men. Wade could care less about getting laid. Wade cared only about Wade.
“Oh, it’s just James,” Wade called as he approached the door and flicked the latch.
“James?” echoed the second speaker. “Then why did he say his name was Me?”
“Guys, just shut up, all right? I’m not in the mood for your little mind games today.” James pushed past his brother and headed for the room his brother had left—the home office.
E.Y. sat before her desk, one leg curled beneath her as she twisted back and forth in her computer chair, playing with the ends of her black-dyed bob. She wore orange gym shorts and a dingy white tank top that declared The Devil is a Jerk. A cloud of smudged gray liner surrounded her giant brown eyes, and the bottoms of her bare feet were a blackish-brown from the dirty plastic flip flops she always wore. After years of stuffing herself into suits and skirts for her previous in-house editing job, she now worked on manuscripts from home and took full opportunity of the anything-goes dress code.
“You’re never in the mood for any kind of games.” Wade followed him and sank into a green beanbag chair. “You live in a state of perpetual lameness.”
“Yeah, I know.” James crossed his arms. “I read about it on your blog all the time.”
“You read Blame James all the time?” E.Y. clapped. “That’s awesome. Are you a subscriber?”
“You’re deliberately missing the point.”
“Deliberately? How do you know?” Wade stretched his feet, clad in holey Converse sneakers, in front of him and yawned. “You can’t truly know what she’s thinking or what she means. No one can. We’re all mysteries to each other.”
“I don’t care who’s a mystery and who isn’t. I just wanna know why you guys think it’s so much fun to air my personal business on the internet.”
“If you’re talking about the divorce, the announcement was in yesterday’s newspaper,” Wade said. “Are you calling The Times, asking them why it’s so fun to air your personal business, too?”
“Greer left me. My kids—your niece and nephew—are in the middle of it, and it’s one big joke to you?”
E.Y. shook her head. “Divorce is not a joke to us.”
“You, on the other hand…” Wade trailed off with an exaggerated wince.
James squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his temples. He felt dangerously on the edge of a breakdown or a migraine, but he knew his brother and E.Y. would find it hilarious and blog-worthy, a fact that made him even more furious. “I would just appreciate it if you would back off right now. This is a really rough time for me.”
“You’re always going through a rough time,” Wade said. “It’s always something with you. You need to relax. Try hot yoga. I heard it’s the shit.”
“Hot yoga.” E.Y. exploded with laughter. “I’m so adding that to the list of James Venora Can’ts.”
“James Venora Can’ts?” The question escaped James before he decided he really didn’t want to know.
“It’s an ongoing list of things we can’t picture you ever doing,” Wade said. “Your weird ways make normal, everyday living impossible.”
“You said you read our blog all the time,” E.Y. said. “If that were true, you’d already know about James Venora Can’ts.”
“Yeah.” Wade glared at his brother. “Why’d you just lie right to our faces?” His expression lit up and he snapped his fingers at E.Y. “I got a Can’t for you. How about ‘have a happy home life’?”
“God.” James retreated to the kitchen to help himself to one of E.Y.’s sodas while she and Wade cackled across the hall. Those two together hurt his head. A conversation with them—if that was what one could call suffering through their constant riddles and ridicule—was like something straight from Wonderland. As he often did, he wondered why he continued to speak to either of them at all. Still, Wade was his brother, and E.Y. was like family—definitely the closest thing he had to it these days, maybe ever.
Besides, who knew what they’d write about him should he cut them off?
He returned to the office, cracking open a Coke. “How many people read that blog?”
“Every one of your fans,” Wade said. “So about eleven.”
“Actually, we have about five hundred subscribers, and that’s not counting the casual commenters or longtime lurkers,” E.Y. said. “If it makes you feel any better, though, there are a lot more of your fans who hate us. They think we’re unfair and too hard on you.”
“But they’re still reading the blog, so…” Wade spread his fingers and shrugged.
“Right,” E.Y. said. “They get off on what cruel, ghastly thing we’re going to say next, and then they have the time of their lives, blogging about what wretched beasts we are.”
James pointed to Wade. “And you pose as a woman?”
“Well, yeah, man. A guy going on and on about James Venora like I do? That’d be weird.”
“Why do you have to go on and on about me at all?”
“Don’t you get it? Generating interest in you generates royalties for me. The public catches wind of it and is like, ‘James Venora? Hey, I remember that guy. He was that little kid in that band who did that song!’ Then they go buy it on iTunes, and I get to stay undeservingly well off.”
James fought to remain calm as he rubbed his temples again. His brother made fame such a bitch. Actually, Wade had always made everything a bitch. As the eleven-year-old drummer in Venora during the late ‘90s, Wade would often monopolize interviews by sharing embarrassing anecdotes about his brother, interrupting James’ poignant points by screaming gibberish, and harassing reporters with deliberate misinterpretations, turn-of-phrases, and otherwise all-around theatrics.
The fans, of course, had loved Wade; they still did. Even though he was often open about how “retarded” he thought they all were for condoning and enabling his rude behavior, that only made them worship him more, and he hadn’t been in the professional music scene for years. Instead, he played drums in a cover band called Space Pharaohs between living off royalties and doing odd jobs here and there. It had been obvious from the start Wade had never taken music seriously or wanted to make it his career, his life—but James did. Why couldn’t Wade see that? Why couldn’t he respect it?
E.Y. was no better, but she was a different breed altogether. Christened Ellen Yablonsky at birth—and rejecting that name probably not too long after—she was a complicated mix of merciless detractor and enduring fan. The neutralization likely stemmed from the fact she’d grown up knowing the brothers since she was James’ son Noah’s age. When her family moved into their cul de sac, his parents invited them to join their Bible study group. It was a night that had resulted in the stunned adults stumbling upon the three of them in the Venora family rec room, in hysterics as they traded glimpses of their privates.
Ever since then, E.Y. and Wade had been inseparable. Thanks to E.Y.’s tall build and slightly androgynous features, they even looked somewhat alike, a fact E.Y. hadn’t failed to capitalize on for her own amusement. Back in 1998, she would dress like a boy, go to a Venora show, and sign autographs for young fans, posing as Wade. Instead of taking offense, Wade found it hilarious, and their bond only intensified as they crafted plans to make fun of the world around them. Thus, she’d become like the annoying little sister James had never wanted but had grudgingly come to love—the kind of sister who would occasionally hit on him for sport. He would never be able to explain her.
“So, James.” E.Y.’s voice cut into his reverie as she tore open a pack of cloves and lit one with a colorful lighter she’d designed herself out of a blank Bic and couple of Lisa Frank stickers. “Let’s quit the complaints and get down to business regarding your return to single, cool, and fine.”
<
br /> “My what?”
“Jeez oh man.” E.Y. slammed her fist atop her desk crowded with style guides and curios. “Why did you say you read the blog when you obviously don’t?”
“He just likes to get riled up about nothing,” Wade said. “You know James.”
“Yeah, I do, and it’s high time he stops whining about nonsense. You know who’s got real, actual problems? The quagga. It’s extinct, gone forever, and no one cares.”
James drew in a slow, aggravated breath, praying for patience.
“Basically, it’s a yellow zebra from South Africa that’s been extinct for more than a century,” Wade added, as if he and E.Y. did nothing but research and discuss the plight of the long-dead quagga when they weren’t defaming him on the internet. “E.Y. has decided to be up in arms about this today.”
“It liked to sleep on grass.” A stricken look sprang to E.Y.’s eyes. “Isn’t that the cutest, saddest thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Are we really talking about this right now?” James asked. “You guys are seriously screwing with my life. I don’t have the capability to care about the Endangered Species List right now.”
“The quagga’s not endangered, it’s extinct,” E.Y. said.
“Yeah.” Wade turned to his brother, his brow furrowed. “Weren’t you listening?”
“And for the record, we’re not ‘seriously’ screwing with your life,” E.Y. said. “We don’t do anything seriously. It’s all for funsies.”
“For funsies?” James turned to Wade. “How would you like it if I made a blog about you, going into detail about all the dumb things you do?”
“I wouldn’t like it at all,” Wade said. “You’re really unfunny. It’d be a total failure.”
“He’s right,” E.Y. said. “Half the time we can’t even talk to you because you don’t understand the concept of a joke.”
“Half the time I don’t talk to you because I am your joke.”
“What do you expect, considering the things you say and do? Exhibit A—you told the world you hate sex.”
