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“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 sca
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 fu
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 gri
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 ca
“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 ski
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 Wa
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 wa
I shook my head, feeling myself blush. “I don’t really dance.”
Char furrowed his brow. “Why not?”
“I … I don’t really know how.”
Char started dancing then, making weird jerking motions with his arms and stomping his feel at awkward intervals, like a spasmodic soldier. “Can you do better than this?” he shouted over the music.
I nodded, smiling despite myself.
“Great! Then you know how to dance.” He stopped doing the soldier moves and grabbed my hand in his. “Just follow my lead.”
“But I don’t know—”
He just shook his head and sang along in a loud falsetto: “So when the night falls, my lonely heart calls.”
He bent his elbow to pull me in toward him, then pushed me back with his arm. It was so fast that I didn’t have time to say anything before, suddenly, we were dancing. He twirled me in toward him, then switched hands and spun me back out the other way. He passed our arms over my head and then around my side. And the whole time he was doing some crazy, complicated footwork. His legs looked like spider legs.
“Watch my face!” he shouted over the music. “Not the floor!”
“I can’t help it!” I shrieked. “I don’t want to fall.”
“You’re not going to fall!” he shouted.
“I feel like I’m on a roller coaster!”
Char stopped spi
He led me into the DJ booth. It was only a few feet off the ground, but I felt suddenly like a god, looking down at the party from on high. The wall behind the booth was covered with Post-its on which people had written song requests or notes. Play some Sabbath! Something with a beat. Do you have anything by the Bluetones? DJ This Charming Man ROCKS! I watched Pippa and Vicky, just below us, still dancing like maniacs. Vicky was jumping up and down and punching the air, while Pippa swayed on her heels, rolling her shoulders and head around. Pippa stared at me for a moment, narrowing her eyes as if sizing me up for something—though for what, I could not have said. Then she tossed her hair and returned to ignoring me.