Текст книги "This Song Will Save Your Life"

Автор книги: Leila Sales

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6

Sometimes you just have those days. When you know, from the moment you wake up, that everything you touch you will break, so the less you touch, the better.

Thursday was one of those days.

My alarm didn’t go off, so I didn’t have time to shower before school. Dad was in a grumpy mood because his band’s show the next week had been canceled, and then he was in an even grumpier mood after I missed the bus and he had to drive me all the way to school. In Chem I realized I had forgotten my lab report, even though I had been working on it until midnight, so that was an automatic ten-point deduction. And then we had scoliosis testing.

For scoliosis testing, all the girls had to line up in the gym and then go behind a screen, one by one. It was unclear what happened once you went behind the screen. Presumably the nurse checked you for scoliosis, but it was equally possible that she made you recite the alphabet backward or perform an interpretive dance.

I wound up standing in the scoliosis line directly in front of Amelia Kindl. I could hear her sighing over and over, even though I didn’t look at her. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, so I put on my iPod headphones, but I could still feel her sighing.

I was prepared to ignore Amelia for the entirety of fourth period, but Amelia, apparently, had other ideas, and eventually she tapped me on the shoulder.

I took off my headphones and turned around. “Yes, Amelia?”

“Why are you doing this to me?” she demanded.

I stared at her. The last conversation that Amelia and I had had was on the phone, the night after the first day of school. Over the past seven and a half months, I had imagined her saying many things to me. All of them started with sorry. Sorry I made you clean up our lunch table and possibly drove you to self-mutilation would have worked. Sorry I freaked out and told 911 that you tried to kill yourself also would have done the trick. Sorry I couldn’t be the friend that you wanted me to be was what I was really holding out for. Why are you doing this to me? was not actually an option.

“Why am I doing what to you?” I asked.

“Acting like I’m some sort of criminal,” Amelia replied.

“I’m not,” I said.

Amelia played with the ends of her honey-brown hair and adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose. She took a deep breath and went on. “You’ve spent the entire year ignoring me or glaring at me like I’m a serial killer.”

I thought, for the zillionth time, about what a nice girl Amelia was. She was a nice girl with a nice life, so people were nice to her. In Amelia’s world, nobody ever ignores you or glares at you just for kicks.

If Amelia had to be me for even one day, I think she would just fall to pieces.

“And, you know, if that’s how you want to act, well, that’s fine. But now this?” she said. “Don’t do this to me, Elise.”

“I don’t know what this is,” I told her honestly.

“Oh, please.” Her voice cracked. I had no idea what I’d done to hurt her. Part of me felt bad about it, whatever it was, but then another part of me said, very smugly, Good. She cleared her throat and continued, “If you want to give me mean looks all through English class and cross to the other side of the hallway whenever you see me coming, that’s, you know, whatever. But stop spreading rumors about me.”

“I’m not spreading rumors about you,” I said, as the line moved forward. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I don’t actually care. Because you, Amelia … you betrayed me.”

I thought that this might be it—this might be the moment when Amelia said sorry—but instead she said, “That’s not true. We weren’t even friends; I can’t have betrayed you. I saved your life.”

I flashed back in time, and all of a sudden it was like I was right back in my bedroom in my dad’s house, “Hallelujah” playing on my computer, my left arm bandaged and pulled in close to my chest as I dialed Amelia’s phone number for the first and only time in my life.

I saved your life, she had said, and she kept looking at me now, blinking her soft brown eyes nervously.

“No,” I told her. “You didn’t.”

Then I went in to get scoliosis-tested, and it turns out I don’t have scoliosis, so that was one success. But also I wasn’t wearing a bra today, which Lizzie Reardon noticed as I was putting my shirt back on after the scoliosis test, so by the end of the day, everyone at school had heard that I was probably a lesbian. Because if there’s one thing we know about lesbians, it’s that none of them wear bras.

Anyway. I’ve had worse days in my life. But not many.

I needed Start that night more than I’d ever needed anything. I needed excruciatingly loud music, I needed strangers, I needed darkness.

It felt like it took my family forever to fall asleep that night. Neil woke up crying from a nightmare, and then right when I was about to leave the house, Steve came all the way downstairs to double-check that he’d remembered to turn off the oven. (He had.) I’d already put on my shoes and was standing by the front door, so when Steve saw me, I had to immediately pretend that I was double-checking to make sure the door was locked. (It was.)

By the time everyone was tucked away in bed, it was twelve thirty, and I was fighting to keep my eyes open. I thought about not going out at all. But that wasn’t really an option.

At the last moment before I left the house, I went up to the attic and pulled my unicorn boots out of the garbage bag where they had lived since September. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to wear them. But I needed a little bit of magic tonight.

When I arrived at Start, Mel was standing outside, as usual.

“Hi,” I said brightly.

He frowned and looked me up and down, and I felt my heart sink. Was he going to ask again for my ID?

But all Mel said was, “Elise, honey. Did we or did we not already discuss fixing up and looking sharp?”

I tugged my hair elastic out of my ponytail and shook my hair out so it fell into tangled waves down my shoulders. “Better?” I asked.

Mel rolled his eyes. “Here we put in all this effort to provide you with a life-changing experience, week after week, and you can’t even put in the effort to change out of your Old Navy henley shirt? Come on. Meet me halfway.”

I kicked my foot out so that he could see it under the door light. “Unicorns?” I said.

Mel nodded slowly. “You look like a five-year-old, but at least you’re trying.” He opened the door for me.

“How’s it going tonight, by the way?” I asked, in what was meant to be a friendly way.

Mel rolled his eyes. “It’s a shitshow.”

I saw what Mel meant as soon as I found Vicky, hovering near the bar. “Thank God you’re here,” she said, grabbing both my arms.

“I know.” I laughed. “I feel the same way.”

“No, I mean, I need you.”

“That,” I said, “is amazing to me.” I looked around. “Where’s Pippa?”

“Where do you think Pippa is?” Vicky asked.

“Uh, I have no idea. With Char?”

“Char!” Vicky hooted like this was the most ridiculous idea ever. “Please. Pippa is there.” She jerked her thumb to point across the room, and when the lights flashed, I could see Pippa’s tiny figure crumpled on a bench against the wall.

“Is she asleep?” I asked.

“That would be fantastic,” Vicky replied. “If Pippa were asleep in the corner of Start, that would honestly be ideal. I dream of that day.”

“Vicky—” I began.

“She’s drunk,” Vicky snapped. “She passed out.”

“Oh.” I looked across the room again. I guess that made more sense; Pippa’s half-upright position didn’t seem to be that comfortable for sleeping.

I didn’t know much about drunk people. Neither Mom nor Steve drank at all. Dad usually had a six-pack of beer in the fridge, and some nights he’d have one when he got home from work, but some nights he wouldn’t. I knew that kids at my school went to parties and got drunk and sometimes passed out, because Chava and Sally talked about this a lot. But obviously I had never seen that behavior in action, since no one had ever invited me to a party.

“Shouldn’t you take her home?” I ventured.

“Absolutely.” Vicky adjusted her big feathered earrings. “A good friend would unquestionably take Pippa home right now. Actually, a good friend would have taken her home an hour ago, and would have held back her hair as she puked, and would have made her drink a big glass of water, and would have tucked her into bed, and would have sent an e-mail to her prof to explain why she won’t be in class tomorrow.”

“But you’re not doing that,” I ventured.

“Correct. Because, Elise, do you see that guy there at the bar? The one who’s paying for his drinks?”

I followed her gaze to see a guy who looked to be in his thirties, wearing a button-down shirt and big sunglasses. He was holding a soda can in one hand and a pink drink in the other.

“He is a booking agent,” Vicky went on. “He books Start, and he books rooftop parties all over town in the summer, and he books bands for two of the big clubs downtown. And he wants to talk to me about the Dirty Curtains. That’s my band. And I am not leaving here until that has happened. Do you think this makes me a bad friend, Elise?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know enough about friendship to answer Vicky’s question with any degree of expertise.

“I know how to be a good friend,” Vicky went on. “And I know how to be a good musician. I don’t always know how to be both at once.”

“It’ll be fine,” I said. “Pippa’s awake again, so I’m sure you have nothing to worry about. See?”

Vicky glanced across the room. Pippa had roused herself enough to talk to two guys. They were a lot taller than her, and she was standing up to speak with them, but she kept swaying and having to grab on to their arms to stay upright.

“Swell,” Vicky said.

The booking agent approached us then. He held out the pink beverage to Vicky, and she took it.

“Hello,” he said to me, holding out his now-empty hand to shake. “I’m Pete. Welcome to my club.”

“Elise.” I shook his hand and tried to avoid his gaze, like he would see in my eyes that I was only sixteen.

“Hey, Elise, I’m sorry to ask,” Vicky said, “but would you mind just giving us a minute?”

I smiled and moved away, but I didn’t really know where to go. I tried to dance by myself for a song or two, but it wasn’t as fun alone. I did a slow pass around the room. Char was up in the DJ booth, but he looked too busy to talk, and, anyway, I felt too shy to just go up there and start a conversation. I didn’t know how Pippa managed to do that.

Thinking of Pippa, I glanced over at her. One of the tall guys who had been talking to her now had her pressed up against the wall. He was grinding into her, holding her head upright.

I went back to the bar to find Vicky. She was with Pete still, but they’d been joined by another guy and girl, and Pete seemed busier talking to them than to Vicky. She stood a little bit apart, like she was waiting her turn.

“Vicky?” I said.

She gave me a quick smile. “Sorry to banish you earlier. I’m just trying to … I don’t know, if he would just talk to me…”

I shook my head. “I’m fine. It’s Pippa.”

Vicky looked over to where Pippa’s rag-doll body was stuffed between a wall and a guy groping her chest. “Shit,” she said, and in about two seconds she was across the room grabbing the guy, pulling him off of Pippa. I stayed a step behind her.

“Get your hands off of her!” Vicky screamed over the music.

The guy stepped back and Pippa sagged to the ground, unbalanced without his support.

“Whoa!” He put up his hands. “What’s your problem? She was fine with it. Right?” he said to Pippa. Pippa did not reply.

“This is not what ‘fine with it’ looks like,” Vicky retorted. “Girls who are ‘fine with it’ are able to keep their eyes open without help, and they can speak in full sentences. I guess you haven’t had much success with that kind of girl, and I can see why. You’re a pervert.”

Vicky hauled Pippa to her feet. “Help me, okay?” she said to me. Together we dragged Pippa over to the DJ booth.

“Char, I need to talk to you,” Vicky called up to him, shaking his leg.

“I’m kind of busy, Vicks,” he called back. “I’m working. Write it on a Post-it, okay?” He gestured at the pad of stickies near us.

Vicky adjusted herself so more of Pippa’s dead weight was leaning against me, and then she shouted to Char, “Put on a goddamn long song and come talk to us.”

Char must have been able to tell that Vicky wasn’t kidding, because he transitioned into “A Quick One, While He’s Away,” a song by the Who which is about eight and a half minutes long. He jumped down from the DJ booth. “Is everything okay?” he asked us.

Vicky shook Pippa’s body at him. “Does everything look okay?”

Pippa’s eyes fluttered. “Chaaaaarrr,” she slurred. “I ffffancy you.”

“You should take her home,” he told Vicky.

“I have brought her home so many times,” Vicky said. “I just want this one shot, Char.”

“You’re talking to Pete?” Char asked.

“I was. Until this happened. Will you take her?”

“No way,” Char said. “I’m working. If you need to stay with Pete, just call a taxi and send her home in it.”

“Great idea,” Vicky said sarcastically. “Last time I did that, she paid the taxi driver three hundred dollars in cash and passed out in her elevator. Someone needs to go with her, and it should be you.”

“No,” Char said.

“It should be you,” Vicky repeated. “Don’t act dumb; it doesn’t suit you. She wouldn’t be like this right now if it weren’t for you.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Finally Char sighed and said, “You know I’d take her, Vicky. But I have to DJ until two o’clock. What do you want me to do, just throw on a mix CD and walk out the door? This is my job. And of all nights, Pete’s here. How fast do you think I’d get dropped if he saw me just put my iTunes on shuffle and take off?”

“I could DJ,” I offered.

They both looked at me.

“Thanks, Elise,” Char said, running his hand through his hair, “but you don’t … I mean, you did a great job playing that one song last week, but that doesn’t mean you can DJ an entire party for an hour, or however long it takes me to get Pippa home and get back here.”

“I can do it,” I said again. I felt my heart slamming against my chest. “I got turntables and everything. I’ve been practicing.”

“Come on, Char,” Vicky said. “She’ll be fine. Start can handle itself for an hour. Pippa cannot.”

Char kept shaking his head.

“Remember how you believe in me?” I said.

“Fine,” he said. “Get up there. When this song is over, transition out of this and into something else. If you can do that, then maybe I will accompany Pippa home.”

“No problem,” I said. I climbed up into the DJ booth, which felt so much farther from the ground than it had last week. I could feel Char’s eyes on me. Focus, Elise.

I lightly touched the dials and the knobs on Char’s mixer, acquainting myself with each of them. I brushed my hand against the turntables. I looked at the computer. A minute and a half left of “A Quick One, While He’s Away.” A minute and a half to cue up the next song.

I had practiced this for three nights in my bedroom. That’s not a lot of practice. Char had been doing this for years. Still, I’m not precocious for nothing. As “A Quick One, While He’s Away” came to an end, I crossfaded into “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” Suddenly everyone in the room was pogoing up and down and speeding through the lyrics as one.

“See?” I called down to Char, trying to catch my breath.

He heaved a sigh. “Fine. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He gave me a look that clearly said Don’t screw this up, then put an arm around Pippa’s narrow shoulders and guided her out of the room.

“Yes!” Vicky pumped her arm. She turned to go back to the bar, but then she looked back to ask me, “Are you actually okay up there?”

“Um…” I was scrolling through Char’s song list as fast as I could. “Hard to say.”

Vicky nodded, gave me a little salute, and went back to find Pete.

Time from there passed not in minutes, but in songs. I didn’t look up from the DJ equipment once, and I barely ever took off Char’s enormous headphones. I didn’t think about Char, or Vicky, or Pippa, or Amelia, or Lizzie—I thought only one song to the next.

Fifteen, twenty songs later, I felt a hand on my back. I spun around to see Char. “You’re back,” I said.

I took off the headphones and held them out to him, but he waved his hand. “You might as well finish up,” he said.

I rubbed my eyes. “Finish up? What time is it?”

“Nearly two.”

I didn’t know what answer I had been expecting. I had lost track of the night a long time ago. I played a couple more songs, all the while aware of Char standing right behind me. At five minutes to two o’clock, I put on “Wonderwall” and I took off the headphones and set them down on the table. I leaned against the railing and massaged a crick in my neck.

“Shall we dance?” Char asked me.

I shook my head. “I’m tired.”

“That’s not a good reason.” He held out his hand.

I took it, and we climbed down from the booth. We danced together, but it wasn’t like dancing to “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” Less fancy footwork, more swaying. The song was slower, the night was almost over. Around us I saw people gathering up their jackets and bags. Char grabbed both my hands and leaned back, and we spun around and around until I could see nothing but Char’s face framed against a blur of colors.

When the song ended, the lights came up on a mostly empty room. The few people left were finishing up their drinks and moving toward the door. Char let go of my hands and went back to the DJ booth to pack up his equipment.

“If you can wait a few minutes, I’ll give you a ride home,” he said to me.

I could have walked, but I had to wake up for school in four and a half hours, and it had been a very long day. I slumped on a bench, pulled my knees up to my chest, and watched Char. In the full light, he looked paler than I had expected. Paler and plainer. I probably looked paler and plainer in the light, too.

I looked around for Vicky but didn’t see her anywhere. An Irish goodbye, no doubt. I just saw the bartenders counting money and a couple still making out against a wall, until Mel came in and shooed them out the door.

“Ready?” Char asked. His equipment was packed in a big messenger bag slung over his shoulder.

We walked out of the lights of the club and down the moonlit, empty street until we reached his car. It was small, almost too small for Char to fit his long legs into.

“Where to?” he asked, starting the motor.

“Harrison and President. I’ll direct you.” We drove down the street in silence for a moment. “How’s Pippa?” I asked at last.

“She’ll live.”

I watched the shadows flashing across his face as he watched the road. “Why did Vicky say that Pippa wouldn’t be like this right now if it weren’t for you?”

“Because Vicky likes to blame other people for her best friend’s drinking problem.”

“Seriously, Char.”

“Oh, you were asking seriously? Well, in that case, there is a possibility that Pippa might be … mad at me.”

“Why?”

“She has rage issues. Just flies off the handle. It’s really quite sad.”

I rolled my eyes. “Do I have to ask you every question twice in order to get a straight answer out of you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then, for the second time, why is Pippa mad at you?”

Char leaned back against his seat and kept his eyes on the road. “Because I slept with her.”

I blushed. I’d never heard anyone say something like that so casually before. More than anything else tonight, it made Char seem older than me. “Why did that make her mad?” I asked. “I thought she liked you.”

“She did. It’s complicated.”

“Just try me,” I said. “I love complications.”

He laughed. “Okay, look. Pippa and I hooked up after Start last week. This week she showed up expecting me to … I have no idea. Ask her out? Be her boyfriend? Play ‘Chapel of Love’ and get down on one knee in my DJ booth and propose to her? Needless to say, I didn’t do any of that. And I made it pretty clear to her that I don’t intend to. So then she got mad. And then she got drunk.”

“Do you like her?” I asked.

“Has anyone ever told you that you ask a lot of questions?” he said back.

“You know, it’s possible that one or two people have mentioned that to me over the course of my life. Do you like her?”

“Of course I like Pippa. But I don’t like her like that.”

I thought of Pippa, her high heels and stunning dresses and adorable haircut and winning dance moves and charming accent. “Why not?” I asked.

“Because she’s not…” He paused, searching for the reason, then shook his head. “I just don’t want to be tied down like that.”

“So then why did you have sex with her?”

“Because she’s hot.”

There was a long silence. I stared out my window.

“I told you it was complicated,” Char said at last.

“It’s no worse than trigonometry,” I muttered.

Char cleared his throat. “In other news, I don’t think I thanked you for taking over the turntables tonight. Thank you.”

“It was fun. Well, it was hard. But it was fun, too.”

“You were good.”

It was a very small compliment, but it came from someone who mattered, about something that mattered. I felt a smile spread across my face. “Really?”

“Yeah. It was cute. How did you learn to play?”

“I just taught myself last weekend.”

Char choked a little. “You’re joking.”

“I’m sorry; I can teach myself anything. Well,” I corrected myself, “almost anything.”

He glanced at me. “That’s a weird thing to be sorry for.”

“No, it’s not. Take this right here, and then it’s two lights on.”

“Your transitions could use some work, though,” Char went on. “You don’t know how to beat match at all. And you looked kind of freaked out the entire time.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed. “I’ve had, like, eight hours of practice. Give a girl a break.”

“If you want, I could teach you.”

“Really?” I said.

“Of course really. It’s probably more interesting than teaching yourself. Let me give you my number. Just text me over the weekend if you want to come over to my place and practice.”

I programmed his number into my cell, and then I stared at it for a long moment. Char had a phone number. He had a home. He probably had a job or a college and a last name and parents and all of that, too. He didn’t just spring into existence late on Thursday night and then blink out again at two a.m. He was a real person.

I wasn’t sure I liked that.

“Is it this turn here?” he asked.

“Oh, you can just leave me at the corner. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to let you wander the streets alone at this hour.”

I considered telling him, It would not be the first time. But all I said aloud was, “Fine, then take this left. It’s that white Colonial across the street. Number 77.”

Char coasted to a stop and stared out the window at my house. I was glad to see that it was as dark and quiet as I’d left it. Although my parents had never yet caught me sneaking out, that didn’t mean they never would.

I tried to see the house through Char’s eyes. The gingham curtains in the living room. The welcome mat. The swing set in the yard. The two low-emissions cars parked in the driveway.

“This is a nice house,” he said.

“Thank you.”

He looked at me then like he was really seeing me for the first time. “What’s a nice girl like you doing at a warehouse nightclub at two a.m. on a school night?”

“It’s complicated,” I said. And then I got out of his car and went inside.

Sometimes you just have those days where everything goes wrong. But sometimes, and totally unexpectedly, something can go right.