Shit. This thing again.
“I … don’t have my ID on me.”
Mel shrugged. “No ID, no entry, honey.”
I stared at him. He stared back at me. This had been so easy when I was with Pippa and Vicky that I hadn’t thought about how hard it could actually be. Of course you need an ID. Of course, as always, there is an arbitrary, invisible fence in place. You can’t see it, but it will always keep you out. It will always encircle happiness and keep you out.
“Are you crying?” Mel asked, his eyebrows knitting together.
“No.” My voice came out higher and more nasal than it was supposed to. “I’m just … Do you remember me, Mel? I was here a couple weeks ago?”
He looked at me for another long moment before his eyes lit up with recognition. “You’re friends with Pippa and Vicks.”
“Yes.” My knees felt weak with relief, and I didn’t tell him that “friends” wasn’t quite accurate.
“Why didn’t you just say that? They’re already inside. You can go on in to meet them.” He went to open the door, then turned back to me. “How well do you know those girls?” he asked.
“Not well,” I admitted.
He nodded. “Then I’ll tell you this: Vicky’s got talent, and Pippa’s got issues.”
“Okay.” I didn’t know what he meant, and I made a move for the door.
“Which do you have?” Mel asked, blocking the entry with his body. “Talent or issues?”
I paused for a moment, thought about this. “Both,” I said at last.
Mel laughed and opened the door for me. “Good answer.”
Inside, “Blue Monday” was blasting from the speakers, and the dance floor was even more crowded than last time. I tried to figure out how many people were packed in there. A hundred, maybe? Two hundred? It was impossible to tell through the flashing lights and everyone constantly moving around and around.
I scanned the crowd and eventually spotted Vicky and Pippa—my friends! Mel called them my friends, so it’s just like they’re my friends!—next to the DJ booth. Vicky was wearing a colorful, flowery dress that looked like a really stylish muumuu, and pink boots that made me briefly long for my unicorn boots. My horribly, horribly uncool unicorn boots.
Pippa was dressed all in black, and her legs went on for miles between her improbably high heels and her improbably short dress. She was clutching a tumbler filled with ice and a brownish liquid. The two of them were posing with their hands in the air for the photographer guy with the big camera.
I pushed my way through the dancing crowd until I reached them. “Hi!” I said, then wondered if maybe they had forgotten me, just as Mel did. Isn’t that funny, to think that the people who have lived in your daydreams for the past two weeks, the people whom you’ve drawn in your chemistry notebook, to think that those people might not even know who you are?
But I needn’t have worried. Vicky recognized me immediately. “Elise!” she shrieked. She even gave me a hug, like she was my mother or Alex.
Basically what I’m saying here is, the only people who ever hug me are the people who share 50 percent of my genetic code.
“Where did you go last time?” Vicky demanded, holding me by the shoulders. “We turned around and you were just gone!”
I brushed my fingers across the inside of my left arm and tried to think of a way to answer Vicky, other than just saying, Sometimes I get overwhelmed.
“You totally pulled an Irish goodbye,” Vicky went on.
“What’s an Irish goodbye?” I asked.
“It’s when you just take off suddenly and don’t tell anyone you’re leaving,” Pippa spoke up. “And it’s a racist thing to say.”
Vicky rolled her eyes. “One, no it’s not. Two, you’re not even Irish, Pippa. You’re English.”
Pippa shrugged. “They’re still part of the empire.”
“The empire?” Vicky screeched. “Now that is racist!”
“Hey,” I interrupted, “who is that guy who was taking your photo a minute ago? With the camera that looks like it’s worth more than my life?”
Vicky laughed. “That’s Flash Tommy.”
“Not his real name,” Pippa contributed.
“I think Tommy is his real name,” Vicky said.
“Tommy isn’t a real name,” Pippa said. “It’s a nickname.”
Vicky turned back to me. “Flash Tommy is a nightlife photographer. He goes out and takes photos of parties and then posts them to his Web site.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because that’s his job,” Pippa said, like this was a real thing, like, “Oh, yeah, any functioning society has got to have its doctors, its teachers, and its nightlife photographers.”
“It’s because somebody has to document our glory days,” Vicky said.
The DJ transitioned into a Strokes song.
“I told him to play this,” Pippa said. “I did this. That’s the best part about being friends with the DJ. You always have somewhere to stash your coat, and sometimes he’ll play songs for you.”
The DJ hopped down from the booth to join the three of us. “Hey,” he addressed me. “You were here a couple weeks ago, right? You look familiar. What’s your name?”
“Elise,” Pippa answered for me. “Like the Cure song.”
I totally saw what Vicky meant when she told me that Pippa loooved the DJ. The way she had jumped in to reply to his question, even though it wasn’t directed at her. The way she fluffed her hair. The way she smiled at him. Maybe Pippa read the same study that I did, about how people like you more if you smile at them.
“Hi, Elise-like-the-Cure-song.” The DJ grinned and stuck out his hand. “I’m Char-like-the-Smiths-song.”
I stared at him blankly.
“You don’t know the Smiths?” he asked.
“I know the Smiths,” I snapped, because lord knows you can launch any kind of criticism at me, lord knows I’ve heard it all before, but don’t you dare doubt my musical knowledge. There’s not much I can do right, just this one thing, but you cannot take this one thing from me. “I love the Smiths,” I went on. “I just don’t know a Smiths song called ‘Char.’”
“It’s his DJ name,” Vicky explained, rolling her eyes. “DJ This Charming Man.”
“But that’s such a long name,” Pippa continued. “We just call him Char. Short for Charming.” She batted her eyelashes at him.
“Huh.” I narrowed my eyes at him. He was wearing a fitted, unbuttoned sport coat and a skinny blue-and-white-striped tie with dark washed jeans and spiffy white sneakers.
He nodded. “I know what you’re thinking, and I agree. Charming is a bit of an overstatement. But at least it gives me something to aim for.”
Pippa giggled. “Who wants to go up for a drink?” she asked, but she wasn’t asking me or Vicky.
Char shook his head. “I have to change the song. Sorry.”
He climbed back into his booth and put his enormous headphones back on. Pippa stayed where she was, like she had changed her mind about the drink. A second later, Char transitioned out of the Strokes and into Whitney Houston, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me).”
Pippa and Vicky squealed at the same time and started madly dancing. It was obvious to me that Pippa was putting on a show for Char, but when he climbed down from the DJ booth, he made eye contact with me, not Pippa.
“Do you want to dance?” he asked, holding out his hand to me.
“I wanna dance with somebody,” Whitney sang, “with somebody who loves me.”
I shook my head, feeling myself blush. “I don’t really dance.”