Leila Sales - This Song Will Save Your Life

It felt different, DJing a party that was all my own. The whole success of the night rested on me. If I messed up, I didn’t have Char there to save me. But there was something about it that I liked, too. Because if the night was a success, I didn’t have Char there to take the credit. That was all mine.

And by midnight, I was ready to say it: the night was a success. The dance floor was full, a pulsating mass of bodies moving to every track I played. Char had talked about reading the crowd like you’d read a book, but tonight I had moved beyond even that. It felt like invisible veins and arteries ran between me and every person in that room, communicating information between us instantly and noiselessly. It wasn’t like reading a story. It was like I was writing a story.

And everyone was there. I saw the Dirty Curtains, of course, flitting through the crowd, and Pippa, Pete, Flash Tommy, Emily Wallace and her friends, my dad.

Everyone was there, except for Char. His absence still hurt me. But it hurt less now than I had thought it would.

Shortly after midnight, Vicky showed up next to the DJ booth. “Ready?” she asked me. The Dirty Curtains were up on stage, Dave strapping his guitar over his shoulder and Harry adjusting his mic stand.

“So ready.”

She flashed me a grin, then hopped up on the stage. I faded out the music, and Vicky shouted into the mic, “Ladies and gentlemen of Start, I have one question for you: Are you ready to party? ”

“Woo!” a few people shouted, moving closer to the stage.

“Hit it!” Vicky said, and the Dirty Curtains began to play.

They were extraordinary.

I say this not as Vicky’s friend, and not as the girl who booked the band to play, but as a DJ who has listened to thousands upon thousands of bands, who lives with earphones on, who attended her first live concert at the age of eight months because, as my father said, “Even infants like James Brown, right?” I’ve heard it all and I’m hard to impress.

But Vicky’s band blew me away.

In a flapper-style dress and gold heels, she strutted around the stage like Tina Turner on steroids, her hair cascading down her back, her eyes flirting with the crowd, her voice never faltering. Behind her, the guys played their instruments madly, building a wall of sound for Vicky’s vocals to rest on top of.

Everyone in the club pressed closer to the stage, and the cameras came out. The room filled with bright sparks of light.

Vicky marched to the front of the stage and held the mic up to her bright-red lips, almost like she was kissing it. The words came out of her like a cannon shot.

“Hey there. Yeah, you. You with the eyes.

Do you like what you see?

Do you like my chest?

Yeah, do you, do you?

Do I pass your test?

Yeah, do I, do I?

Do you like my hair?

Well, here’s the thing, baby…”

Here she leaned forward, like she was about to tell the audience a secret, and she snapped out the last line:

“I don’t care!”

The room filled with whoops and cheers as the Dirty Curtains slammed through the final chords of the song. When it was over, Harry was visibly covered in sweat, and Dave chugged about half a bottle of beer, his hand shaking. But Vicky looked as crisp as if she’d just emerged from a day at the spa.

“Hey, Start,” she said into the mic, batting her false eyelashes. “We’re the Dirty Curtains. And we like you.”

“We like you, too!” shouted a voice from the back of the room.

Vicky chuckled. “Well, you’re about to like us just a little bit more. Boys, let’s go!”

Harry smacked his drumsticks together, and they were on to the next song.

I was so captivated by Vicky’s performance that I didn’t even notice Pippa approaching me until she was standing right next to me in the booth. She was wearing a black slip dress and a large hairclip with jewels and feathers. She had a cocktail in her hand, which made me suspect that whatever sort of anti-partying ethic her parents had tried to instill in her over the past few weeks hadn’t worked that well.

“Hi, Pippa.” I felt my heart beat faster.

“Hiya,” Pippa replied, blinking rapidly. “Um, Vicky’s doing great, isn’t she?”

I nodded and waited for her to go on, because no way Pippa had come over here just to tell me that Vicky was “doing great”—which was, by the way, the understatement of the year.

“Look, Elise, I just wanted to say … well, thank you.”

“For what?” I asked.

“For this.” Pippa gestured around the room. “Thank you for giving Vicky the chance to play.”

I shrugged. “I’m not doing her a favor or anything,” I said. “She’s incredibly talented. She deserves this.”

“Obviously,” Pippa agreed. “But people don’t always get what they deserve.” She shifted her weight from foot to foot. After a pause, she spoke again. “Vicky is my best friend. I’d do anything for her. Anyone who makes Vicky this happy is good with me. No matter what.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly. “And I’m sorry,” I added, “about the whole Char thing.”

“Oh.” Pippa’s cheeks flushed a little. “Yeah.”

“But you know,” I went on, hoping that Pippa could handle a little honesty, “it wasn’t all my fault. Char kissed me first. I just kissed back.”

Pippa’s face drooped, like the idea of Char kissing me physically hurt her. “I know,” she said. “I mean, I figured. I guess I told myself it was all your fault so that I could keep believing it wasn’t what Char wanted. I think I just … wanted him to be something that he isn’t.”

“Me, too,” I said. “But he isn’t.”

“But I really think,” Pippa said, perking up, “that he could be . You know?”

“What?”

“Obviously Char made mistakes. And so did I, and so did you. But I just know that if I give him some time to think it through, and explain to him why he hurt me, he will be better next time.”

“Seriously?” I said.

Pippa’s eyes were bright with feverish intensity as she said, “Listen, Elise. I have met a million guys, and I have never felt about any of them the way that I feel about Char. Everything about him is perfect. I mean, except for some of the things he’s done to me. But I honestly, honestly believe I can fix that part.”

I said nothing. Because I didn’t believe that at all. People are who they are and, try as you might, you cannot make them be what you want them to be.

Side by side, Pippa and I watched the rest of the Dirty Curtains’ set together. Vicky had the audience in the palm of her hand. She shone brighter than any camera flash in the whole club.

When the last song drew to a close, the room burst into applause. Vicky pointed at me and shouted into her mic, “Thank you, DJ Elise, for booking us to play, and for being Glendale’s hottest DJ!”

I blushed and rolled my eyes, but the applause somehow grew even louder as all eyes and cameras turned to me.

“We love you, Elise!” Vicky called.

The crowd picked up the cry. “We love you, Elise! We love you!”

I let this go on for another few seconds before I started up the turntables again and pressed play on the Pulp song “Common People.” There was a collective shriek of excitement, and then the room exploded back into motion.

I looked out over the crowd and breathed in deeply. All this was mine.

In a way, Amelia Kindl had been right when she once said to me, “I saved your life.” She was right, but not in the way she meant it. When she saw the suicide note on Elise Dembowski’s Super-Secret Diary and called my father, she set into motion the chain of events that led to me being in the DJ booth tonight. And that, in a way, had saved my life.