This Song Will Save Your Life

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, ru

“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 ca

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 Wa

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.”