Oh, did I not mention that I have friends now? Did I somehow leave that out? I have friends now. Surprise!
My friends are named Sally and Chava. They are both less popular than me, and I don’t know why, but I hope it’s because they are unbelievably boring. They have only one interest, and that is: what the popular kids are doing.
Sally and Chava follow the popular kids’ lives like soap operas. Brooke Feldstein cannot give one blow job to one member of the school basketball team without Sally and Chava knowing about it, discussing it on the phone, following up on it with an in-person conversation, soliciting eyewitness testimony from anyone else who might have been within a two-mile radius, googling it, and placing bets on what brand of lip gloss Brooke was wearing at the time.
I must note that Sally and Chava are not friends with Brooke Feldstein. I don’t think they have ever talked to her. They just follow her antics from afar. They are Brooke Feldstein’s silent but adoring fan base.
Today I was hungry enough from walking all night that starving in the library wasn’t an option, and Ms. Wu’s Friday class ruled out that one, so I was stuck with my dear friends in the cafeteria.
The big news of the week was that Jordan DiCecca had broken up with his girlfriend, Laura, for this other girl, Leah. Everyone knew this. But had he cheated on Laura with Leah before breaking up with her? That was the real question.
“He definitely did,” said Sally over lunch. “There is no way Jordan would have broken up with Laura if he hadn’t already tried out Leah to make sure that she’d, you know, put out.”
Chava chewed on her lip, looking doubtful. “He could have just asked her. Like, ‘Hey, Leah, if I break up with Laura, would you have sex with me?’”
“Come on, you know Jordan,” Sally said. We didn’t. “He would want some sort of guarantee on his investment.” Sally bit into a stick of celery. Sally and Chava eat only raw vegetables for lunch because they are trying to lose weight. Then they split a pack of Entenmann’s donuts for dessert. They have explicitly stated that they believe that if they were seven pounds lighter (Sally) or thirteen pounds lighter (Chava), then they would have popular friends and not have to sit at the loser table with each other and me. This sounds pathetic and delusional, but I let them continue to believe it because, after all, it’s no more pathetic and delusional than believing that you can make friends by sitting in the middle instead of the front of the school bus.
“Laura and Jordan were together for more than a year,” Chava said thoughtfully.
Sally nodded. “It was a year in February.”
“That’s forever. This is such a huge change. It’s really sad, you know?”
I could tell she wasn’t kidding. Chava looked like Neil and Alex hearing that we were getting a new sofa. I guess nobody takes change that well.
“You could stage a sit-in about it,” I offered.
Blank looks from my friends.
“You know. ‘We won’t budge from this cafeteria table unless Jordan and Laura get back together!’”
Sally and Chava looked way less enthusiastic about this idea than Alex and Neil had.
“I’ll make protest signs for you to carry,” I went on. “If that would help you any.”
Sally leaned forward, lowered her voice, and said, “I wonder how long he and Leah will last.”
You may wonder how I managed to make these friends. Well, I will tell you: making friends is actually not that hard when you drop every single one of your standards.
Our cafeteria tables are unofficially arranged with the most popular kids sitting in the center. As you work your way out to the edges of the room, the tables become filled with less and less desirable people. Amelia Kindl’s table, for example, is four rows in from the back row. Sally and Chava’s table is in the very outer rim of the cafeteria, directly in front of the bathrooms. In every regard, it is the worst table.
I was out of school for a couple weeks after I cut myself. Which wasn’t even as enjoyable as you might expect, since I spent the entire time worrying about going back to school. When I finally did, and I entered the cafeteria for the first time, I looked for a table where no one would have any clout to order me to move, or to ask questions that I didn’t want to answer, or to make me clean up after them. I sat down at Sally and Chava’s table, and they didn’t tell me to leave, so now they are my friends, apparently.
“I wonder what she’ll wear to the dance tonight?” Chava mused.
“Probably something new,” Sally said wisely. “Leah always gets a new dress for dances.” She turned to me. “Hey, do you want to come over to get ready for the dance together?”
“Um.” I swallowed a bite of my PB&J. “Is there a school dance tonight?”
“The Spring Fling,” Chava replied, and she didn’t even add anything like “Obviously” onto her answer. Chava is a little dumb and impossibly boring, but she is doggedly nice.
“How did you miss all the posters and the announcements and the ads in the Herald?” Sally asked. “Honestly, Elise, sometimes it seems like you don’t even go to this school.”
“Well, that is the goal,” I said.
“Anyway, will you come over before so we can get ready together?” Sally asked. “My mother said I’m allowed to wear body glitter, just for tonight.”
“Ooh,” Chava contributed.
Sally has the sort of parents who evaluate her every time she leaves the house to make sure she doesn’t look like a “streetwalker” (Sally’s dad’s word, not mine). This sounds like child abuse to me, yet Chava thinks Sally is the lucky one because Chava’s family is so religious that she’s not allowed to go out on Friday nights at all, regardless of what she’s wearing.
“I’m not allowed to drive, though,” Sally added. “Just in case someone spikes the punch.” Sally has her driver’s license, but her parents constantly come up with reasons why she’s not allowed to use it. That still puts her ahead of Chava and me, since neither of us can drive at all.
Mostly I feel bad for Sally and Chava, but sometimes I’m jealous of them. Their parents clearly screwed them up for life, or at least for high school, so they have someone to blame for their uncoolness. I don’t have that luxury. I can only blame myself.
I picked apart my sandwich crust and tried to figure out how to reply to Sally without hurting her feelings. I recognized her invitation as a sign of friendship—honestly, I did. This was Sally’s way of being friends with me. But the thought of going over to her house and dressing up in whatever teenagers are supposed to wear to school dances, and being given permission to wear a certain amount of body glitter, and getting a ride with Sally’s parents back to this same building, where we could stand near these same people who would continue not to talk to us, only this time my least favorite music would be blaring in the background … I mean, you could not pay me enough money. And, in fact, no one would be paying me any money. On the contrary, I would have to pay five dollars at the door.
“Thanks, Sally,” I said, “but I’m not going tonight.”
“Oh, no!” Chava said, like something really bad had happened.
Sally wrinkled up her nose. “Don’t you like to dance?”
I thought about last night, about the flashing lights and the thrumming music and Vicky and Pippa, jumping up and down, their feet always hitting the floor at the exact same time. “Dancing is okay,” I said.
“So, you should come then,” Sally determined.
“No,” I said again. “But you have fun. Hey, I wonder who will ask you to dance tonight?”
And that distracted them. No one ever asks Sally to dance at these things, but that doesn’t stop her and Chava from thinking that someone might, someday. Tonight could be the night. The body glitter could make all the difference.
Maybe I should feel worse for Sally and Chava than I do for myself, but I am not that generous. Okay, they live in a fantasy world, but at least their fantasies give them a nice protective cushion. I have fantasies, too, like the one about Pippa and Vi
cky appearing in the middle of my history class to rescue me from my life. But, unlike Sally and Chava, I know that my fantasies are not going to come true.
* * *
That night, while Sally and Jordan and his new girlfriend and his ex-girlfriend were all at school, partying it up, I sat at home, making a springtime playlist in honor of the Spring Fling. I called it “Get Out of the City and into the Sunshine.” I left the window open, so my room smelled like fresh air, and I felt happy. I felt happy because everyone else was at school, while I, for the next fifty-eight hours, could be wherever I wanted to be.
At midnight, I laced up my sneakers and headed out, retracing my steps from the night before. Following my path back to Start. In addition to my iPod, I stuck a comb into my back pocket. You know, just in case I ran into any of them again—Pippa or Vicky or Char—I might want to fix my hair.
But I didn’t run into any of them. I reached the block where Start had been twenty-four hours earlier, and it was nothing, just an empty, ugly street. After walking back and forth and back again, I managed to identify the alleyway where I had trotted behind Pippa and Vicky. But it was just an alleyway. No Mel at the end of it, no party to guard.
I stood uncertainly in the middle of the silent street, dwarfed by warehouses. The school party had ended hours ago. And Start had never even begun. The nighttime offered nothing for me.
So I turned my back on where Start should have been, I turned up the volume on my headphones, and I returned to my home, alone.
5
I didn’t see Pippa or Vicky again for two weeks. If Start wasn’t on Friday nights (or Sunday nights either, as I discovered when I walked over there again, just to check), I thought it might happen again on another Thursday. But the next week I was staying at my dad’s, which is what the Elise Calendar says to do pretty much every single Thursday. My dad lives on the other side of town from Start. Even for me, that would be way too long a walk.
But the Thursday after that, Dad had to stay at work late to staff an in-store concert, so I was back at Mom’s house, where everything was the same except for the couch. So much for the power of civil disobedience. After Dinnertime Conversation (topic of the day: fossil fuels. Fossil fuels is always Mom and Steve’s default topic), and after finishing my homework, I walked over to Start.
And it was back. The street was as deserted and dark as always, but Start was happening behind those windowless concrete walls. I could sense it.
Sure enough, when I turned down the alleyway between the warehouses, there was Mel, looming in front of the door. He was talking to some girl in a fur shrug.
“Honey,” I heard him saying to her, “did you kill that thing yourself?”
She muttered a reply.
“Listen. Here’s when it’s okay to wear a dead animal: When you killed it yourself. Or when you are a drag queen and it’s wintertime. Neither of those situations apply here.”
The girl sighed and removed her shrug. Mel stepped aside to let her into the club. “Meat is murder!” he called after her.
I stepped forward. “You’re a Smiths fan?” I asked him. Meat Is Murder is one of my favorite Smiths albums.
“That’s my generation,” he said. “I was going out to parties like this one back when the Smiths were still releasing new material. Yes, I am that old.”
“So, wait,” I said, “do you actually not allow fur coats?”
Mel leaned down to be on eye level with me. “To be honest, we don’t have a dress code here. That doesn’t stop me from enforcing the standards I want to see, but it’s not an official rule. The flyer just says ‘fix up, look sharp.’”
I looked down at my tennis shoes, jeans, and long-sleeved shirt, already a little sweaty from my brisk walk. “I didn’t do that,” I said.
“No,” Mel agreed. “You could stand to fix up and look a little sharper. But I’ll let it go this time. ID, please.”
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?”
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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.”