This Song Will Save Your Life (25 page)

Dad gave a little laugh. “You wish. No, Elise, all I’m saying is: don’t let anyone else decide your life for you.” He stood up and straightened his tie. “Let’s go.”

Dad drove me to school. We met Mom in the parking lot, and then we headed to the principal’s office, united.

Of course, the principal wouldn’t see us. The principal never sees anybody; he is way too important for that. We met instead with the vice principal, Mr. Witt, most famous for his masterful handling of the Jordan DiCecca–Chuck Boening iPod Crisis. My parents showed Mr. Witt Elise Dembowski’s Super-Secret Diary and explained what was going on.

“What are you going to do about this?” my dad asked.

Mr. Witt suggested the following things:

1. Most likely, I
had
actually written this diary, but now that my parents had discovered it, I was just acting like I hadn’t so I wouldn’t get in trouble.

2. Even if somehow I didn’t write this blog, there was no reason to believe that the blogger was a student of Glendale High. It could have been anyone in the world! In fact, the blog might even be referring to a
different
Elise Dembowski!

3. Glendale High had zero tolerance for bullying, and therefore it was impossible that any one of the school’s 850 angel-faced students was the culprit.

“I hear what you’re saying, Mr. Witt,” Mom said, “but I have to disagree. I would appreciate your conducting a real investigation into this question. This
is
harassment. This
is
bullying. We need to know that the school is taking this as seriously as we are.”

“If any of our students is somehow running this blog, we will find out about it,” Mr. Witt promised, in the tone of someone who has only one week left in the school year and after that doesn’t have to give a shit about any adolescent problems until September.

After our meeting, my parents left matters in Mr. Witt’s capable hands and headed to work. “I’ll pick you up at three to bring you to Alex’s school fair,” Mom said before she left.

I blinked. “I’m ungrounded?”

“No way, José. You are definitely still grounded. But you’re going to that fair.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because,” she said, “you told me you wanted to be a good big sister. And
that’s
what a good big sister does.” She gave me a quick hug. “I’m sure Mr. Witt will sort this out.”

I was sure of nothing of the sort, but I put on a smile and waved goodbye.

*   *   *

As I headed to lunch a couple hours later, I braced myself for more questions about Start from Chava and Sally. But what I didn’t brace myself for was the dozen other kids who showed up at our table as soon as I sat down.

Emily Wallace slid in right next to me. A few of her friends joined her. And of course wherever Emily goes, boys follow. The guy who had once offhandedly called me a “lesbo” sat down next to Chava, who looked like she was maybe going to faint. A bunch of other guys in T-shirts, sweatshirts, track pants, and other gear that proclaimed
GLENDALE LACROSSE
gathered around, too.

“What’s going on?” I asked, looking around the table. Looking for escape routes. Looking for a lunch monitor.

“Nothing,” replied one of the girls. “Just eating lunch with you.”

And you might think I would be happy to have the popular kids sitting with me, like: This could be it! The moment when my fortune changes! Next stop is homecoming queen, student council president, and juggling three boyfriends at once!

But that wasn’t what I wanted. It never had been. Leave those dreams to Sally and Chava. I hadn’t wanted popularity; I had only wanted friends.

“Tuna fish,” said another girl, pointing at my sandwich. “Good choice.”

“For real,” agreed another. “I wish I’d brought tuna fish today.”

I looked at Sally and Chava and raised my eyebrows as high as they would go, to say,
This is weird, right?
But Sally and Chava were too busy beaming at all our lunch guests, like desperate hostesses who hadn’t been quite sure that their party would ever begin.

“I wish I had tuna today, too!” was Chava’s contribution.

Conversation continued in this vein for a few more minutes before one of the less tactful guys, who clearly couldn’t handle the suspense any longer, burst out: “I saw you in the paper!”

“Me, too,” I said, eating a bite of my sandwich, which, if the girls were to be believed, was the most miraculous sandwich ever to grace the Glendale High cafeteria. I tried to ready myself for what these people, these people who did not understand, would have to say about Start.

“Did you really go to that warehouse party?” asked another guy.

“Of course she did,” said the first one. “There was a
photo
of her there.”

“Chava and I drove her there last night,” Sally answered proudly. “She was grounded, so she snuck out of the house. I was the getaway car.”

“That’s cool,” a girl said to Sally, in a tone like she legitimately meant it. Sally beamed. Then the girl turned to me. “So you actually DJ there?”

I tried to smile as the walls I’d built between Start and school, my real life and my dream life, came crashing down piece by piece, battered away by lacrosse sticks and mascara wands.

“I went to see her once,” Emily butted in. All eyes snapped to her. “Guys, it was
so
much better than a school dance.”

Everyone murmured their approval and envy of Emily’s lifestyle.

“How did you get to do that, though?” one of the guys asked me. “I mean, why
you
?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Luck of the draw?” But that was a lie, and I couldn’t do it; I just couldn’t leave it at that. “And I’m good at it,” I added.

Oh, you think you’re so great. You think you’re so special. You think you’re so much better than everyone else.

But no one said that. Just my own mind.

“Here’s the bit I don’t understand,” Emily began, and again everyone turned to listen to her. “Why do you write that super-depressing blog about how nobody likes you and you hate your life, wah wah, when you get to be a
DJ
? I wouldn’t complain that much if I were you.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” I responded. “Because I don’t actually write that blog.”

Emily paused for just a second, and then she said, “Okay, that makes more sense.”

Mr. Witt couldn’t believe that someone would write a blog pretending to be me, because he is an adult, and adults don’t do things like that. And Amelia Kindl couldn’t believe it, because she is a nice girl, and nice girls don’t do things like that either. But Emily Wallace believed it immediately. Because she’s a mean girl. So she knew exactly the things that mean girls do.

“Who writes it, then?” asked one of Emily’s friends.

“I have no idea,” I said. “Mr. Witt is supposedly trying to figure that out.”

Everyone at the table snorted as one. “Oh, yeah,” said a girl. “I bet he’ll get real far with that.”

“Remember that time he thought I’d stolen Colin’s phone?” said a guy. “Mr. Witt doesn’t know shit about how this school works.”

“Anyway, Elise,” said one of the girls, “tell us more about the club. It was hidden in a warehouse, right? How did you even find out about it?”

So I told them, sort of. I talked about Start for the rest of the lunch period, but the safe parts: what kind of music we played, how people there dressed. I didn’t mention Char, or Vicky, or anyone specific. Sally and Chava delightedly shared their celery sticks with all our guests, and contributed to the story wherever they could, like by saying, “Yeah, Elise has always liked music a lot!” and so on.

It felt good, this sense of power. I had something, or I knew something, that these kids wanted. And for that reason, they were treating me with respect. They had seen I wasn’t the person who they’d thought I was, so now they were treating me differently, like the new person who they thought I was. Perhaps this was how it felt to be popular all the time.

But power was not friendship. And these people were not my friends.

When the bell rang, everyone got up to throw away his or her trash. But before I could leave the table, Sally and Chava each grabbed one of my arms.

“Thank you,” whispered Sally.

“That was the best lunch I’ve ever had,” whispered Chava.

I guess I had managed to give them something, after all. “Thanks, guys,” I said. “Me, too.”

*   *   *

Sometime during last period, the PA crackled to life. “Please send Elise Dembowski to Mr. Witt’s office,” the staticky voice said. “Elise Dembowski, to Mr. Witt’s office.”

Everyone in my history class went “Oooh,” which is pretty much the only appropriate response when one of your classmates gets called into the vice principal’s office.

I don’t know what I expected to find in Mr. Witt’s office. But what I know I did
not
expect to see was Amelia Kindl’s friend there. The one who had won the prize for making that documentary film about people at mummy conventions.

“Oh, hey,” I said to her, and, “Hello again,” to Mr. Witt.

He replied, “Elise, we have something important to discuss with you. Marissa, would you like to start?” He gestured toward the
Wrappers
documentary girl.

Her face was almost as red as her crocheted scarf when she said to me, in a mechanical tone, “I wanted to apologize. For the blog. Elise Dembowski’s Super-Secret Diary.”

“What?” I said.

She looked at Mr. Witt and he nodded. “I wrote it,” she muttered.

“You…” I stared at her. She was short, with a bob cut and cat-eye glasses. Her fingernails were stubby, with chipped nail polish, and the toes of her Converse sneakers were scuffed.

“
You
wrote it?” I said. “Why? You don’t even know me. I didn’t even know your
name
until two seconds ago.” I took a breath. “How could you not even know me and still hate me enough to do something like this?”

She drew herself up to her full height, which still left her a couple inches shorter than me. “It’s postmodern,” she explained, drawing out the word as if she were speaking to someone who had only recently learned English. “It’s a piece of experimental art.”

“It’s not art,” I told her. “It’s my
life
.”

“Watch that tone, Elise!” Mr. Witt murmured.

“Oh, you want to hear a tone?” I asked. “Here’s one for you. ‘Nobody likes me. Why would
anyone ever
really like me?’ Does that
tone
sound familiar to you?”

A feeling was welling up inside of me, so strong that I felt it spilling out of my eyes and mouth and nose. It was strong, but it was nothing I was accustomed to, so it took me a moment to identify it.

I was angry. Not at myself. I was angry at someone else.

“It’s an exercise in storytelling,” Marissa appealed to Mr. Witt. “Trying to get in the mind-set of someone else, trying to see the world through their eyes.”

“Don’t you
dare
tell me what my mind-set is,” I said.

“I’m using the blog as part of my application for the Gutenstein arts fellowship,” Marissa said to Mr. Witt. “They really like this sort of thing. Giving voice to the voiceless. I’m sorry you didn’t like the writing, Elise, but you have to remember it’s not really about
you
. It’s about a character who just happens to share your name.”

“Marissa,” Mr. Witt said, “this is bullying, and here at Glendale High, we take bullying very, very seriously.”

This was news to me.

He went on, “I’m going to call your parents so we can discuss how to proceed. But for now, I can tell you that you’re suspended, and this will go on your permanent record. You will take down the blog and replace it with an explanation and apology post, to be approved first by me. You will not be allowed to attend the graduation ceremony or the Freshman/Sophomore Summer Formal. And the school will no longer support your application for the arts fellowship.”

“What?” she shrieked. “Are you serious?”

“Very,” he said. “Now I’m going to let Elise get on with her day, while you stay here and we sort this out. But before she goes, is there anything else you want to say to her?”

Marissa stood still for a moment, her mouth moving, like she was trying to figure out what words to form. At last, she settled on, “Nobody at this school appreciates artists.”

“Give me a break,” I said, and I walked out.

And what I realized in that moment, as I turned my back on the voice of Fake Elise, is this:

Sometimes people think they know you. They know a few facts about you, and they piece you together in a way that makes sense to them. And if you don’t know yourself very well, you might even believe that they are right. But the truth is, that isn’t you. That isn’t you at all.

The final bell was minutes away from ringing, so I didn’t see any point in going back to class. Instead I walked outside to wait for my mother to pick me up. I stood for a moment on the wide stone front steps of the school, turning my face up to the almost-summer sunshine. And I smiled. Because I had met Fake Elise. I had seen her face-to-face. And she was
nobody
.

I heard a voice behind me. “Did Mr. Witt talk to you?”

I turned around to see Emily, alone. Two words that do not go together. “Yes,” I said.

“Cool.” She stepped out of the shade of the building and immediately pulled her Gucci sunglasses down over her eyes. “I told him,” she added.

“Mr. Witt?”

“Yeah. I told him who wrote that blog.”

“You knew?” I asked, surprised that someone like Marissa would discuss her insane creative pursuits with someone like Emily.

“Of course not.” Emily made a face like she’d taken a bite of raw meat. “I’ve never talked to that girl before. She’s weird. I just found out.”

“How?” I asked.

“What do you mean, ‘how’? The same way anyone knows anything. I ask. People tell me stuff.”

“Well.” I cleared my throat. “Thank you, Emily. That was really … like, surprisingly kind of you. I appreciate it.”

“You’re probably wondering what I want in exchange,” Emily said, immediately undermining any credit I had given her for surprising kindness.