“I saw a video of that actor- what’s his name? Singing along with The Downfall,” Sandy said a few days later. “It looked like it was at a party?”

  “Ted Behr,” I said. “Who posted it?”

  “Don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “It just popped up on my feed.”

  Curious, I asked him to see if he could find it again and send me the link. “When we have dinner parties, Emmy and the boys like to play a few songs just for fun. I guess Teddy Bear had talked to them about maybe him singing one, and there you go.”

  “He did it right,” Sandy said.

  “Yeah, he did, didn’t he?”

  “How do you guys know him?” Sandy asked. “I’ve seen him at Diamond Hearts a few times, but I’ve never talked to him.”

  “He’s one of my car buddies,” I said. “In fact, I just sold him my Aston Martin.”

  “No!” sandy protested. “I loved that car!”

  “Well, so did Teddy Bear- enough to pay me for it,” I replied. “Besides, I’ve got too many cars now, and I can’t drive them all.”

  “Rich people problems,” Sandy said, rolling his eyes.

  My question about who’d posted the video was answered the next day from a different source.

  “Hey, I posted a video of your friend Ted singing at the dinner party”, Jen texted me and Emmy. “Its gone viral. In just three day it got over 2 million views”.

  “Link?” Emmy responded.

  Jen sent the link to the Youtube video, so I clicked on it and watched it on my laptop. The quality was surprisingly good for having been shot on a phone with ambient light.

  “He is a better singer than I had expected,” Emmy commented as we watched the clip on our big screen downstairs.

  “Yeah, me too,” I agreed.

  “Are you going to have a dinner party next week? I want to ask you guys something”, Jen texted when I told her we’d watched it.

  “Why not ask it now?” I sent.

  “It’ll make more sense then than it does now”, Jen answered, somewhat mysteriously.

  “Hey, big star,” Jimmy greeted Teddy Bear at the gas station that Saturday morning. In response to the puzzled look Teddy Bear gave him, Jimmy said, “You’re internet famous, homeboy! The video of you singing at a party I was not invited to,” and here Jimmy turned and glared at me, “is off the hook! It’s been viewed like a bajillion times already! People are remixing it and shit!”

  “You know I was already famous,” Teddy Bear said dryly.

  “With old people! Now young people know who you are, too!” Jimmy proclaimed.

  “Jimmy’s right,” Geoff said, sipping his coffee. “Eileen showed me the video the other day.”

  “Eileen? Your daughter?” Teddy Bear asked. “Why would she care about the video? She was right there in the front row, like five feet away!”

  “Well, she showed it to me to show me that she and Ginnie were in the video,” Geoff admitted. “Yeah, it’s only the backs of their heads and their profiles when they turn to talk to each other, but…”

  “Dude bro,” Jimmy said. “This is social media gold, my brother! You need to capitalize on this shit!”

  While Teddy Bear huddled with Jimmy to watch the video, Geoff and I looked on with amusement.

  “You wouldn’t think appearing in some home movie on Youtube would mean anything to a guy who has so many IMDb credits to his name,” Geoff said.

  “Did you meet Jen? Lee’s girlfriend?” I asked him. “She’s the one who shot the video.”

  “Kind of a hipster chick? Brown hair?” Geoff asked.

  “Yeah, that’s the one,” I confirmed. “She’s been taking photos and shooting videos of the band ever since their first album. She’s been talking about eventually putting a book together- I guess after the band calls it quits or something, I’m not sure.”

  “Maybe a documentary would make sense, if she’s been recording videos,” Geoff said, thinking about it.

  “Most of her videos are ‘behind the scene’ type of things,” I explained. “Rehearsals, discussions about what to do with a song, or whatever. I don’t really know if it was her idea or maybe Lee’s, but in any case everybody just seems to expect it anymore.”

  “I could definitely see documentary material,” Geoff said, looking off in the distance, thinking about it. “Even if she never makes a full-length documentary, just posting some of that stuff online would be amazing for Downfall fans.”

  “Well, I mean, if what Jimmy is saying is right about the millions of likes on the video of TB singing with Emmy and the boys is true, then I guess so,” I agreed.

  “I like to think my singing is pretty good, but if it was just me singing all by myself or something like that it never would have gotten any traction,” Teddy Bear said as he joined us. Clearly he’d heard at least part of our conversation. “I think there are a couple of things going on, right? First is that it’s me, and unlike Hugh Jackman I’m not known for singing, so that makes it interesting. More important, though, are two other factors. First, The Downfall are playing the music, and they have tons of really passionate fans. For them to see the band playing and Emmy singing backing vocals, that gives me a… a kind of stamp of approval, right?” We all made noises that indicated we agreed, so he continued. “And here’s the second thing, and it might be even more important. Jen panned around the room a couple of times, and there are a handful of recognizable faces, but a lot of unknowns, too- even a few kids who got to sit in the front row. It’s like the dinner party everyone wishes they could get invited to, and seeing some pro football players and well-known actors sitting right next to ordinary people gives the viewer a kind of hope that they might get invited next time, right?”

  “You just came up with that?” Geoff asked, impressed.

  “I got the idea from reading some of the comments,” Teddy Bear confessed. “At least half are people saying they wished they were there. A lot of comments pick out the recognizable faces, you know, but yeah. Lots of comments about how awesome going to a party like that would be.”

  “Makes sense,” Geoff admitted. “I don’t tell people anymore that we get invited over to Emmy De Lascaux’s house for dinner. Every time I did mention it, it sounded to me like I was name-dropping like some sort of star-struck asshole.”

  “Do you tell people you hang out with me?” Teddy Bear teased.

  “No, but that’s because I want people to have at least a tiny shred of respect for me,” Geoff replied.

  “Ow! Hurtful!” Jimmy exclaimed. “Dude,” he said to Teddy Bear, “You’re gonna need some medical attention for that burn!”

  “Something something ego takedown something good for you something,” I said.

  “Yeah, something like that,” Teddy Bear agreed with a laugh.

  “Watchu talkin’ about, Willis?” Jimmy demanded.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Teddy Bear said dismissively. “It was just a conversation Leah and I had maybe six months ago, that’s all.”

  Darius arrived very early for the dinner party on Wednesday. “It’s my turn to sing tonight,” he explained when I asked him why he showed up so early. “Em and Lee and Jax- they wanted me to come early so we could practice my song a few times,” he said, looking both a bit proud and nervous at the same time.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you and Em about today,” Jen said, looking up from where she was cutting vegetables in the kitchen. “I wanted to ask you guys if we can make this a regular thing. Everybody loved the Teddy Bear video last week, and when Lee told me Darius asked if he could sing tonight, I thought maybe it could have legs.”

  “Don’t put it on Youtube if I fuck it up,” Darius pleaded.

  “You won’t,” Jen assured him. “I mean, you’ve got a great talking voice, right? That means you probably have a great singing voice, too.”

  “Thanks,” Darius said, still a bit self-conscious.

  As it turned out, Jen was right. Darius did an amazing job on that old Simon And Garfunkel song ‘Cecilia’. Of course, Jackson and Emmy singing harmony helped, but still- for an amateur he did a great job.

  The conversation afterwards turned to what song everybody would sing if they took a turn at ‘Downfall Karaoke’, as Stephen dubbed it and everybody else started using the term.

  “Nobody wants to hear me sing,” Andy said as we relaxed on the deck. It was a cool evening but nice and clear, so a lot of us were out there under the heat lamps.

  “But if you were going to give it a try, what would you sing?” I asked.

  “Oh, God,” Andy groaned, thinking about it. “Maybe ‘Heart shaped box’ by Nirvana?”

  “Is that the one where he sings, “Hey, wait, I’ve got a new complaint’? I asked.

  “Yeah, that’s the one,” Andy said. “Forever in debt to your priceless advice.”

  Emmy went with me to San Jose the next day, even though it meant she’d be stuck in the condo for the most part while I spent a couple of workdays in the office. When I asked if she wouldn’t rather stay in Los Angeles and get in some good studio time she replied that she didn’t want to spend any nights away from me and that two days of sitting at home and working on her songs was not a waste, anyway, so I stopped protesting that she’d just be bored.

  The valets at the steak house hopped to attention when I pulled into the lot in my distinctive baby-blue M3- even more so when they saw that Emmy was in the passenger seat.

  “Good evening, Tobe, Joaquin,” I said to the valets as I handed them my key fob. “Park it in the back- we’re going to be here all night.”

  “You got it, boss!” Joaquin said, palming the fifty dollar bill I slipped him.

  The girl at the podium (Jessica, if I remembered correctly) spotted us immediately as we walked in, her eyes going wide. She had no clue what to do about the handful of people crowded around trying to check in for their reservations and accommodate us as well, so I just gave her a ‘we’re heading to the back’ signal, which got me a grateful smile.

  Once we took our table and Theo served us our usual drinks, Emmy asked, “Is it always this crowded this early in the evening?”

  “Nowadays it is,” I told her, sipping my Old Fashioned. “Going in, I figured this place had a three, maybe as much as a five year lifespan, but we’ve passed the three year mark and it only seems to be becoming more relevant.”

  “Only three to five years?” Emmy asked, surprised.

  “That’s better than the industry average in the restaurant and nightclub business,” I said with a shrug. “This place was predicated on it being new, hip and exclusive, right? I figured some new hotness would displace it before too long.”

  “What has changed?” Emmy asked, fascinated.

  “It’s been embraced by the Valley’s heavy hitters,” I said. “More handshake deals happen here than anywhere else in the area. See those guys over there? The table near the stage?” I asked.

  When Emmy looked over at the table I mentioned and nodded, I said, “That’s Facebook's head A.I. guy talking to two of the top A.I. guys from Google. I don’t know who the fourth guy is- I should find out. That sort of industry networking needed a place outside of the office- out in the real world, those guys are competitors, right? In here they can talk off the books. This speakeasy has become the place for that to happen. Everybody knows it and agrees on it, and so it self-perpetuates.”

  Just then some of the regulars came to the table to say hello, stopping any response Emmy might have had. The regulars told Emmy that they were terribly sorry for our loss and that Angela was a true shining light and she was sorely missed.

  “I miss her so much,” Emmy admitted to them. “But I can only be happy that we had her in our lives as long as we did.”

  Once the guys were gone, Emmy asked about it.

  “Angela was beloved around here,” I explained. “She would circulate and say hi to the regulars whenever we came. Like Seth there said, she lit up the room and everyone loved it. My first night back here- when you played in San Francisco, remember? This table was covered with flowers.”

  “Everyone loved Angela,” Emmy agreed. “She was a precious jewel.”

  “We loved her most of all,” I said, resting my hand on Emmy’s.

  “And she loved us,” Emmy said, her voice subdued. “If she had not, she would still be alive today.”

  “There is never any guarantee of that,” I contradicted. “We can’t know what would have happened. Maybe she would have returned to Colombia after Antonio got arrested and maybe that Carde?o asshole would have killed her. I mean, who knows? All we know is that when she was with us the three of us had the best life possible.”

  “We did, did we not?” Emmy replied, a sad smile on her inky-black face.

  Emmy begged off coming to the club the next night, saying she wanted to rest. When I suggested that I could stay home at the condo with her, she insisted that I go without her.

  “I will take a long, hot bath and then go to bed early,” Emmy said. “You should ask your friend Ashley to go with you. Give her a call.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. Emmy’s suggestion had completely blind-sided me- I had no idea how to respond.

  “She is your friend. You have told me that she enjoys the club,” Emmy said, as if that explained everything.

  “Em,” I started to protest, but then stopped myself. Ashley was a friend, and I did promise her I’d take her to the club next time I went. If this was another attempt of Emmy’s for me to find another lover it was going to fail, but that was a topic I didn’t want to bring up if it wasn’t what she actually meant. Sighing, I pulled out my phone and gave Ashley a call.

  As it turned out, her track season was over and she was in town. When I asked if she’d like to go to the club with me that night, she immediately said yes.

  “Wear something nice,” I advised her, hoping she wouldn’t wear that semi-transparent mesh dress again.

  When I knocked on the door of her apartment one of her roommates answered. “Ashley’s getting ready,” she said, ushering me in to the small living room furnished with Ikea’s finest.

  “So, like, you’re Leah Farmer, right?” asked the roommate.

  “That’s me,” I agreed.

  “You’re married to Emmy Lascaux, right? But it was a poly marriage with that girl that got-” she said, realizing that she was treading on thin ice.

  “Yes, we had three of us in our marriage,” I agreed.

  “How did that even work?” the girl asked.

  “Katie, you know that’s none of your goddamned business,” Ashely said as she joined us in the living room.

  “I was just curious, that all,” Katie said, defending herself.

  Turning to the roommate, I said, “It was heaven.”

  “Sorry about Katie,” Ashley said on the drive to the club. “She has no sense.”

  “It’s alright,” I said. “She was just curious.”

  “Still rude,” Ashley huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Like I said, I don’t mind.”

  “Still,” Ashley grumped, her Virginia accent strong.

  “Hey, don’t worry about it,” I said, tapping Ashley’s bare thigh, not wanting her bad mood to ruin our evening.

  “You know, you can keep your hand there,” Ashley said saucily.

  “I thought we were past that,” I groaned.

  “I thought so, too, but then you went and touched one of my erogenous zones,” Ashley said, making me laugh.

  “Don’t ever change,” I told her, still chuckling.

  “Don’t worry- I ain’t gonna,” Ashley replied. “Hey, wanna see my panties?”

  “What?” I asked, surprised by the question.

  “Well, if you do, you’re gonna have to turn around. I left ‘em back home.”

  Laughing as I pulled into the steak house’s parking lot, I said, “No, you haven’t changed at all.”

  “Same old me,” Ashley admitted with a grin.

  Ashley ordered grilled salmon with garlic-roasted Brussels sprouts, almost daring the waitress to say that they weren’t an option, but got no such pushback. For me, I ordered the filet with asparagus and a Caesar’s salad.

  “I still can’t get over how you can order any damned thing, but you pick stuff off the menu from the front,” Ashley said, sipping her Singapore Sling, which she was apparently old enough to order now.

  “I like the food they serve,” I said. “I mean, I did set up the menu, right?”

  “I guess,” Ashley admitted.

  Imogen and James arrived just as the evening’s music stared. They said hello to a few people on their way over to our table.

  “No Emmy tonight?” Imogen asked.

  “We heard she came with you last night,” James clarified.

  “She was feeling tired this evening, so she suggested that I bring Ashley here,” I replied, giving Imogen cheek kisses.

  “Ashley, good to see you again,” Imogen said, taking a seat next to me, leaving the spot next to Ashley for James.

  “You, too,” Ashley replied. “Have you two had dinner yet? If not, I’d recommend the salmon. It was really good.”

  “Yes, we’ve eaten,” Imogen said, “but I wouldn’t mind some of that bone marrow gremolata.”

  “Theo, could you send the waitress by?” I asked as he set down the Athertons' drinks.

  “Right away,” Theo replied.

  “So, Leah, how was Colombia?” James asked.

  “Really good,” I said. “We bought a house down there and everything.”

  “A house?” Imogen asked, surprised.

  “Yeah, we’ll be spending a lot of time there, with the Castros and my non-profit,” I replied. “As nice as it is to stay at Mamá and Papá’s house, we really need to have our own place.”

  “I don’t think you’ve mentioned a non-profit before,” James said. “What are you doing in Colombia?”

  “It’s geared towards education and health programs in underserved communities down there,” I replied. “We’re building some schools and medical clinics, as well as developing trade and jobs programs.”

  “In Colombia?”

  “Well, we do it here in the US, Canada and Mexico, too,” I said. “Colombia is just our gateway into South America,” I said.

  “Really,” James said, looking thoughtful.

  Our conversation was interrupted by the waitress, who took Imogen’s order for appetizers to share.

  “You say Canada and Mexico,” James said, returning to the topic. “Where, exactly?”

  “All the major cities in Canada, and Tijuana, Juarez, Monterrey and Mexico City in Mexico. We’re pretty much built out in Canada, but still expanding our operations in Mexico. From there we’ll continue into Central America.”

  “I had no idea,” James admitted.

  “We don’t publicize it at all,” I said with a shrug. “It’s all really low-profile.”

  “Building schools is low profile?” Imogen asked.

  “It is if you don’t make a big deal about it outside of the community you’re helping,” I told her.

  “So much altruism is performative,” James agreed. “It’s refreshing to hear you say that you’re not in it for the positive image.”

  “I’d like to think my image is very positive among those we’re helping,” I said with a grin, trying to lighten the conversation.

  “Ashley, I don’t think I asked last time we met,” Imogen said, running with the deflection. “How do you know Emmy and Leah?”

  “I’ve never actually met Emmy,” Ashley said, glaring at me. “Just talked to her on the phone a couple of times. I met Leah when I was out running,” she said, going on to explain how we met, leaving out all the spicy details, to my relief.

  “So now when Leah is in Palo Alto she calls me up and we hang out. We talked about getting together in New York, but that never happened,” she said, giving me another significant look.

  “Have you been to their brownstone?” Imogen asked. “I really love what they’ve done with it.”

  “No, I haven’t… yet,” Ashley said, probably giving me another meaningful look, but I’d turned to face Imogen, ignoring Ashley’s none-too-subtle hints. “But I’d like to spend some time there.”