This Song Will Save Your Life (12 page)

As predicted, Dad said, “No, Tuesdays wouldn’t work, I have to be at the store until late.”

There was another pause.

“It’s just that there’s this new extracurricular activity I want to do,” I tried to explain. I stared out my bedroom window. “But it’s on Mom’s side of town, so—”

“Was this your mother’s suggestion?” Dad broke in.

“That I stay with her on Thursdays?” I asked, surprised. “No. She had nothing to do with it. It was my idea.”

“Oh,” my father said. “Well, if it was your idea, then that’s fine.”

“Really?” I squealed.

“This is what you want?” he asked.

“Yes! Thank you so much, Daddy. I’ll see you Wednesday. Love you!”

And that is how I got a weekly guest DJ slot at Start. It wasn’t pretty. But that’s how I did it.

*   *   *

There are some people who want to win at whatever they do, even if the things they do are not the sort of things one wins at.

I am one of those people.

When we had a gardening section in fifth grade science class, I wanted to be the
best
gardener. When I learned how to do embroidery at day camp, I wanted to be the
best
at embroidering. And I realized, during my second time playing music at Start, that I didn’t just want to be a DJ. I wanted to be the
best
DJ.

I played a half-hour set. Char was very encouraging—he helped me plug in my laptop, and adjusted the monitors for me, and reassured me that he wouldn’t leave the dance floor, not even to use the bathroom, so he would be right there if I needed him. And it went okay. I only tried to beat match twice, and both times the songs overlapped in a jarring, earsplitting way. The second time Char even climbed up to the DJ booth to help me, which was mortifying, so the rest of the time I focused on simply playing one song after another without leaving any moments of silence. I tried to read the crowd, like Char had told me, but all I could read was that the crowd did not like “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” It seemed like half the room filed outside to smoke when I played it. I couldn’t tell why. I had heard Char play that same song two weeks earlier, and everyone had danced.

Char relieved me at one thirty, full of compliments and encouragement. Then I packed up my computer and found Vicky, who was smoking outside, near Mel.

“Hey, lady,” she called when she saw me. “You were
awesome
up there.”

“I was all right.”

Vicky shook out her long, thick brown hair. “Please. Give up the false modesty and just take a compliment.”

With all the words I would use to describe myself,
falsely modest
had never been among them. “Thank you,” I said. “But I could do better. Char is better.”

“But you’ve been doing this for, what, a week?”

“Two weeks.”

“Right, and he’s been doing it for
years
. Cut yourself some slack. Anyway, Char’s a dick. Don’t aspire to be like him.”

I didn’t think Char was a dick, considering that he was not only teaching me how to DJ, but also letting me play at his party. But I could guess why Vicky might think so. “You mean because of Pippa?” I asked.

“Because of lots of things.” She exhaled a ring of smoke, and we both watched it swirl up into the night sky.

“Where is Pippa, by the way?” I asked. I hoped the answer was not “passed out on a bench” again.

“Manchester,” Vicky replied.

“Oh, cool. Will she be back for Start next week? I want her to see me play. I swear I’ll be better at it next time.”

“You were fine at it this time,” Vicky reminded me. “And, no, I don’t think she’ll be back next week.”

The way Vicky said that did not sound good.

“Her parents thought she was partying too hard,” Vicky explained, crushing her cigarette butt under the heel of her gray suede boot. “Her mom freaked out because she had given Pippa, like, two hundred dollars to buy a new winter coat, and then she somehow found out that Pippa spent all the money on alcohol and basically froze all winter long. So they made her take off the rest of the semester and go back home where they can ‘keep an eye on her’ or something.”

I wondered if Pippa felt about this the same way I felt about my parents’ stupid rule that I couldn’t stay in a house at night without an adult. As if that was going to help me. As if they knew exactly what my problem was and they were going to fix it.

“Do
you
think Pippa parties too much?” I asked Vicky. “I mean, you’re her best friend. You would know. They’re three thousand miles away.”

Vicky shrugged. “We’re eighteen. Everyone parties too much.”

But that wasn’t really an answer.

“What are you going to do without her?” I asked.

Vicky’s hand reached toward her pocket, as if for another cigarette, then she shook her head and clasped her hands instead. “I have no idea,” she said. “Homework?”

“Yeah…” I said doubtfully.

“I could clean my room,” Vicky suggested. “That would take a while.”

“Another great plan, sure.”

“Shopping!” Vicky announced. “I will go shopping. For every day that Pippa is away, I will buy something new to make me happy in her absence.”

“How many days could you keep that up for?” I asked. “Without going broke, I mean.”

“I think … two. Maybe three, if I’m buying, like, socks. It’s fine. This is what credit cards are for. Do you want to go shopping with me?”

“Um,” I said, at the same time that Mel said, “Yes.”

We both turned around to look at him. He stood a few feet away, blocking the doorway with his bulk. “Oh, how rude of me,” Vicky said. “Mel, darling, do
you
want to go shopping with me?”

Mel snorted. “Thank you, Vicks, but I have all the dangly earrings and studded belts that I need for this season. I was answering on Elise’s behalf. Just in case you weren’t sure, Elise, the correct answer is
yes
.” I opened my mouth, but he just waggled his finger and admonished, “Remember, honey, fixing up and looking sharp is not optional.”

“I thought you said it
was
optional,” I reminded him.

Mel sighed. “For the love of God, will you just respect the wisdom of your elders for
once
?”

“Fine.” I turned back to Vicky. “Yes.”

“Excellent. Let’s do Sunday!” Vicky jumped up and down a little. “You ready to go back in?”

Mel began to edge the door open for us, but I said, “I’m leaving, actually. I’m tired, and I have to wake up so early tomorrow. See you Sunday, Vicky!”

And I walked home.

I hadn’t lied to Vicky—I
was
tired, and I
did
have to wake up so early, but that wasn’t why I left early. I left because I wasn’t ready to be done DJing yet. I wanted to keep doing it and doing it and never stop until I had mastered it all. When I got home, I stayed awake in my bedroom, my headphones on, practicing with my DJ equipment for hours, until the sunlight began to seep through the dark, wiping away the stars, and turning the sky from black to navy to gold.

9

Teachers do not talk to me very often. They talk to troublemakers. They talk to Chuck Boening all the goddamn time. But the last time a teacher said, “Elise, may I speak with you?” it was eighth grade and my social studies teacher wanted to know if he could submit my essay on Hitler Youth to a Facing History and Ourselves writing contest. (For the record, I said yes. For the record, I got an honorable mention. Also for the record, the principal announced this award during the next assembly, and no one looked up from their cell phones for long enough to acknowledge that this had happened, except for two boys whose names I didn’t even know, who hollered, “Boo!” and then got kicked out of the assembly.)

So you can understand why I was surprised when Ms. Wu pulled me aside after math class on Friday. I tried to figure out if there was some sort of Facing History and Ourselves math essay contest that she wanted me to compete in, and if I could come up with a gentle way to tell her, “Absolutely not.”

But that wasn’t what she asked. What she asked was, “Elise, is everything all right?”

I blinked at her. She was sitting behind her desk, and I was standing next to her. My math class had already filed out, so we only had a few minutes before the next group of students arrived.

“Do you want to sit down?” Ms. Wu asked, pulling a chair up next to her.

“No, thank you.”

Ms. Wu pressed on. “Elise, I wanted to talk to you because lately you’ve seemed a little … off. Less engaged than you used to be. Maybe even exhausted. Is there anything you want to talk about? Any problems at home?”

This woman. This horrifying woman. With her muted sweaters and her sensible heels. All those times I had eaten lunch in her classroom, watching videos of Mandelbrot sets on her computer, she was secretly, insidiously, monitoring me.

Any problems at home?
Please. Sally has parents who won’t let her read any books with sex in them, and everybody knows that Emily Wallace’s mother made her get a boob job when she was a freshman; meanwhile, my dad buys me DJ equipment, and my mom wants only for me to be an educated member of a working democracy—yet
I
get asked if I have any problems at home?

I bet I do seem exhausted, Ms. Wu. I bet I do seem less engaged. I was up all night, doing something that
I really love
, and I’m sorry, but I just didn’t reserve enough energy to fully participate in this miserable, mandatory little exercise in public education.

Since discovering Start, I had felt, for the first time in years, like good things could happen to me. I felt
happy
. Yet somehow, for the first time in years, someone was bothering to ask me what was wrong. Where were you in September, Ms. Wu? Where were you last spring? Where were you when I needed you?

“Ms. Wu,” I said, “I appreciate your concern. But I’m fine. I had a late night and didn’t get much sleep. I’m sure I’ll feel better on Monday.”

“All right,” she said. “But if there’s ever anything you want to talk about, you know where to find me. You’re a real talent, Elise, with a bright future ahead of you, and I don’t want to see you throw that away.”

I looked at her sharply, wondering if this was a reference to the time I cut myself. But how could it be? Ms. Wu didn’t know about that. Nobody at school knew, except for Amelia. Amelia, who now thought I had done something to hurt her, apparently. When all I had ever wanted was for her to just be my friend.

Don’t think about Amelia.

“I just want you to know that I’m on your side,” Ms. Wu went on. “I believe in you.”

You and Char both,
I thought. “Thank you,” I said, and I made a mental note to stop eating lunch in Ms. Wu’s classroom.

I left for my next class. Opening the door, I nearly collided with a guy who was running to beat the bell. I’d seen him before, usually recruiting people for the lacrosse team. The only other things I knew about him were that he had beautiful green eyes and seemed to wear Adidas sandals all the time, even in the winter.

“Watch it, lesbo,” he snarled, lunging out of my way and down the hall.

I steadied myself on the door frame, almost bowled over by the irony. What’s wrong with
me
, Ms. Wu? What’s wrong with
everybody else
?

*   *   *

“I think we should give you a makeover,” Vicky declared. It was Sunday afternoon, shortly after we had met up at Calendar Girls, a consignment shop downtown. I’d told my mother I was going shopping with my new friend, Vicky, a girl I’d met at my favorite record shop, which was plausible if not 100 percent
true
.

Now, as we pawed through cheap bracelets and belts, Vicky suggested making me over like she had just had the most brilliant and original idea in history.

I instantly snapped back, “No.”

Vicky raised her eyebrows. “Why not?”

I opened my mouth to respond. Because, I wanted to explain to her, in eighth grade, Emily Wallace’s friends all chipped in to split the cost of an ad in our middle school yearbook that said,
ELISE DEMBOWSKI: LET US GIVE YOU A MAKEOVER! YOU DESERVE IT!
Because a whole bunch of pretty girls saved up their allowances just so they could call attention to my ugliness. The yearbook adviser let the ad run because—Emily explained to me later, in her syrupy-sweet tone—he thought it was so kind that the popular girls were being generous with their beauty expertise.

Everyone saw that ad. Even Alex, who couldn’t really read yet then, but who knew her letters well enough to point to my name and beam and marvel, “Look, Elise! You’re in the
yearbook
!”

“Because,” I said to Vicky, “I don’t need a makeover. I’m happy with myself the way I am.”

That’s the sort of thing the psychiatrist at the hospital told me to say, even if I don’t believe it. It’s called an
affirmation.

“Obviously you are,” Vicky said, holding a fur coat up to herself in the mirror. “You’re Glendale’s hottest young DJ. I’m saying that now you can
dress
like it. That’s the whole point of being a DJ, is getting to dress up like a DJ and not look like a total poseur.”

“I’m not sure that’s the
whole
point of being a DJ…”

“Fine, maybe it’s, like, 30 percent of the point.” She grabbed a pair of bejeweled red-and-purple pumps off the shelf. “Most of my closet is filled with rock star clothes, and I’m not a rock star yet.”

“Are you really that good a singer?” I asked.

“Yes,” Vicky said simply.

The way Vicky said it reminded me a little of Alex.
“Are you really a unicorn, Alex?” “Yes.”
Or it reminded me of myself, before I knew better.
“Are you really going to build that entire dollhouse from scratch, Elise?” “Yes.” “Are you really going to make all your own clothes by hand, Elise?” “Yes.” “Are you really going to make everyone at Glendale High suddenly stop hating you?” “Yes.”

“So why
aren’t
you a famous rock star?” I asked.