Page 24 of My Own Kind of Person

“From Captain’s.”

“Oh.”

“I screen the calls. Listen, email me a video of one of your sets. Don’t make it more than five minutes because I’m only gonna watch thirty seconds.”

I try to figure out how to reply to this, and I come up with, “Okay.”

“The email is my name, Sal, at the website. Send something tomorrow and I’ll take a look. I don’t have time today and if you send it today I’ll forget about it.”

“Yes.” I try to add something else, and again I come up with, “Okay.”

He lets out a rough sigh. “Thank you, eh, Sean. Goodbye.”

“Good night! I mean—”

He hangs up.

I can feel the planet shift under my feet. A small shift, but enough to put me in a different place, in a different life.

Chapter 9

“I’d like to confirm the email address one more time,” Tony says from the passenger seat.

“I’ll write Sal,” I say.

The morning sun makes the strip malls and gas stations shine. A giant red pickup truck drives right behind me even though I’m already going the speed limit. I speed up.

“I’m your manager,” Tony says.

“But he called me.”

“And now it goes to me. Professionals don’t negotiate their own contracts.”

“Contract? He said to send—”

He raises his voice. “I will send him a private video link that will go active after he signs a nondisclosure agreement stating—”

“You cannot ask this guy to sign something.”

“You’re giving away your material now?”

The pickup speeds around and ahead of me. The bed of the truck is empty. Why do people buy these huge trucks when they don’t need to haul anything?

“It’s always the Dodge Rams,” Tony mutters.

I take a deep inhale through my nose. “You can email Sal a video but please do not ask him to sign anything.”

Tony taps a knuckle on the window. “Fine.”

From the back seat, Andi laughs. “You guys are sweet.”

We park at school and join the crowds exiting their cars. I wave to a kid I met in ninth-grade Tech, who waves back, and I do puffy cheeks at a girl from calculus, who laughs.

Tony holds his phone in front of me as we walk. He’s playing a video of a stand-up in the spotlight, tapping his chest as he leans into the mic. It takes a second to realize it’s me.

I stop. “You filmed this?”

“And edited, and did color correction and sound.”