Bruce Mandalay, Matthew’s agent. Bruce Mandalay was the person who’d discovered Matthew at the Stone Pony. It came as a surprise because although there were always agents and managers and record producers at the Stone Pony (thanks to Springsteen and Bon Jovi), they were normally easy to pick out. They had slick hair and diamond earrings; they wore suits. Bruce Mandalay looked like a manager at a box factory; he was ordinary. Paunchy, balding, with rimless glasses and a mustache and sturdy wing-tip shoes. He was soft-spoken, nonthreatening to the point of invisibility. Matthew had signed with him because he was serious, smart, sensible. Bruce thought the song “Parents Know” could be a single; he offered to put the money up himself to have Matthew record it professionally in New York. Matthew did so, and then, almost immediately, Bruce hooked him up with Columbia. Just like that, Matthew shot toward the stars.
When Matthew went to New York to record the single, he’d insisted Claire come along. She rode in the back of Bruce’s Pinto from Wildwood to Manhattan. Bruce had treated her nicely, better than she had thought a tagalong girlfriend would be treated. At a rest stop, Bruce bought her a cheeseburger and a Coke; he asked her about college. She told him, “RISD,” and he said, “Impressive.” He had five daughters himself, he said.
But as Matthew became more important to Bruce, Claire became less important. When she showed up backstage at the Beacon Theatre eighteen months later (Max West was opening for the Allman Brothers), Bruce didn’t recognize her. Was she that forgettable, or were there just so many girls by then that Bruce couldn’t keep track? Claire had been out of touch for so long now that she might have to remind Bruce who she was, but that was okay. There had been hundreds of girls for Matthew, possibly even thousands, including two wives and one unfortunate mistress (the most famous actress of modern times), but Claire had the distinction of being the first girl, the one Matthew had loved before he was famous.
“Hello? Bruce Mandalay.”
“Bruce?” Claire said. “This is Claire Danner calling.”
There was a pause. Well, the request for tickets had been two years ago. And it was possible that Claire had an inflated view of her importance in Matthew’s history.
“I’m Matthew’s—”
“Yes,” Bruce said. “Claire, yes, hello.” His voice sounded the same, very calm and metered. He was a nonagent agent; nothing got him excited or riled up. Being Max West’s agent must have made him a rich and powerful man, but you would never know it. Claire wondered about his five daughters. They had been younger than Claire, but by now they were all grown. Bruce might even be a grandfather. Claire didn’t have time to ask. She had to pick up the kids from school in fifteen minutes.
“I have a favor to ask, Bruce.”
“Tickets?” Bruce said. “Max is in Southeast Asia. He’s not playing in the States again until spring.”
“It’s not tickets,” Claire said. It was so much more than tickets that she wasn’t sure how to ask. A free ninety-minute concert on a baseball diamond for a thousand wealthy summer people who might not even dance. She’d eaten a salami sandwich for lunch, and now she had heartburn.
“No?” Bruce said, and his voice sounded both interested and wary.
“I’m the cochair of a benefit here on Nantucket,” Claire said. “It’s called the summer gala. It’s cocktails and dinner for a thousand people. And traditionally, there’s a concert.”
Silence.
“It’s a charity event,” Claire said. “A thousand dollars a ticket, and all the money goes to this organization I’m involved with called Nantucket’s Children.”
Silence.
“I want Matthew—Max, I mean—to play it.”
Silence.
“For free.”
Had Bruce hung up? She wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.
“It’s August sixteenth, a Saturday,” Claire said. “Here, on Nantucket. Nantucket is off the coast of—”
“I know where Nantucket is.”
“Okay,” Claire said. She took a deep breath. “What do you think?”
She heard the shuffling of papers. Bruce Mandalay cleared his throat. “Hollywood Hospice, Doctors without Borders, Save the Children, the United Way of Orange County, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dade County SPCA, the Druckenheimer Center for the Elderly of Saint Louis, the Kapistan School for the Blind, the Red Cross, the Seattle Symphony, the Redbone fishing tournament for cystic fibrosis, the Home for Retarded Citizens of Rock City, Iowa, the Conservancy Project at Estes Park, the First Baptist Church of Tupelo, the Jackson, Mississippi, Botanical Gardens, the Cleveland Clinic, Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis and Education,