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writing.”
    “This is unbelievable. Keep going,” Tom said, fascinated.
    “Well, at first I said clever things kind of naturally, but Robert couldn’t always count on that. I might say something that could make him and Greta look bad.”
    “Like at the baseball game?”
    “Exactly,” I said.
    “Right. So about your speeches?”
    “Robert or Larry give me lines to say, or if it’s something they think is really important, they hire writers to write for me.”
    “I thought that was just for the time you testified before Congress,” Tom said, still having trouble grasping what I was telling him: that my public persona was almost entirely scripted.
    I shook my head. “Usually it’s just a line or two, like when I was seven and we went to the premiere of this science-fiction movie set in the future when there was no water. If anyone asked, ‘Joe, what did you think of the movie?’ my line was ‘It made me thirsty.’”
    “Pretty funny line,” Tom said.
    “It should be. A friend of Robert’s whose job it is to make unfunny comedies funny told me to say it.”
    “Yeah, I’ve heard of people like that. They’re kind of like ghost screenwriters.”
    “One time, when I was older, I think around ten, I told Robert that I felt like a phony saying all those lines I supposedly thought up myself.
    “‘Everything we give you to say is based on who you are,’ Robert said to me. ‘We just want to make sure you’re being yourself when we go out in public.’
    “‘How can I be myself if everything’s written for me?’ I asked him.
    “‘Because it’s your best self,’ he said. ‘Based on your personality. People love you, Joe. Don’t you like that?’”
    “That is so messed up on so many levels,” Tom responded.
    “They hired you, didn’t they?” I said, shrugging.
    Tom nodded. “They sure did.”
    A worried look was on Tom’s face.
    “What?” I asked.
    “If Robert is expecting this book to be about the you the public sees…” Tom broke off.
    “What?”
    “Nothing,” Tom said. “Come on, let’s go downstairs.”
    “What about practicing my speech?”
    “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

    The band had already played a full set when Robert and Greta took the stage and thanked everyone for coming to their party. Robert introduced me by saying, “Our son, Joe, wanted to say a few words to you all.” He then looked at me; I was positioned at the side of the stage. “Joe, come on up here.”
    When I got onstage, I wanted to say,
My dad’s a big phony…. So is my mom, and so am I.
But instead, I gave my short, prepared speech, about being grateful for America and Americans like my mom and dad, and closed with “Everyone should forget their diets for the rest of the day, because the food is really expensive.”
    That, of course, got a big laugh, and everyone applauded when I jumped off the stage.
    “You’re good,” Tom said, laughing and shaking his head.
    One of the highlights of the evening was supposed to be Guava singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” complete with tap-dancing and sparklers. Her act would lead into the fireworks display. It was a highlight, that’s for sure.
    At dusk, the music to “Yankee Doodle Dandy” came through the expensive sound system. Guava came onstage dressed like Uncle Sam, except with short, sequined pants. The crowd applauded loudly. Guava had a mike on the lapel of her Uncle Sam coat and loudly sang out the words to the song, strutting from one side of the stage to the other.
    When she went into her tap dance, she reached into her coat and pulled out little firecrackers. This must have been her own idea, because all the color drained from Robert’s and Greta’s faces as Guava lit the first firecracker, tossed it onto the stage, and tap-danced around it until it exploded. The crowd went wild. She repeated this action four or five times; the audience was eating it up.
    Guava then lit another firecracker and tossed it onto the stage as before, only to