This Song Will Save Your Life

In that moment, paused between a booth that sold papier-mâché flowers and a booth advertising mud sculptures, I knew this, suddenly but finally: I wanted to DJ my party tonight. Not to prove Char wrong, not to put Emily and her friends on the guest list, not for anything like that. Simply because Alex deserved to be the best that she could be. And I did, too.

*   *   *

After the fair was over and all the booths had been broken down, Mom and Steve took me, Alex, and Neil out for pizza.

Pizza is a rare treat in the Myers household, reserved for special occasions like wi

“Let’s get it with pepperoni,” Alex said as we headed to the parking lot.

“Let’s get it with maple syrup,” Neil said.

“Let’s get it with pepperoni and maple syrup,” Alex said.

We would get it plain, and with soy cheese. We always did.

Alex and Neil rode in Steve’s car, while I traveled to Antonio’s Pizzeria with my mother.

“Mom,” I said as we left the school, “I know I’m still grounded. But—can I be a little ungrounded?”

“Tell me what that means, and I’ll tell you yes or no.”

I took a deep breath. “Can I get, like, a furlough, just for one night? Tomorrow I swear I’ll go back to being grounded. But tonight I’m … supposed to DJ a dance party. At that warehouse where Dad picked me up last night.”

Mom sighed. “I know.”

“You do?”

“Your father told me he saw it listed in the paper.” She glanced at me sideways, and my face must have conveyed my surprise, because she said dryly, “Just because we’re divorced doesn’t mean we don’t know how to exchange a civil e-mail, you know.”

“So can I?”

Her fingernails drummed against the steering wheel, and her voice was tense as she answered, “You shouldn’t be out of the house that late at night. You’re way too young to drink—”

“But I don’t drink,” I protested.

“—and I can’t have you hanging out with drunk people either. Especially not ever drunk people who are driving you somewhere.”

“I don’t,” I said. “I wouldn’t.”

“It terrifies me to think of you wandering the streets alone at night, because you’re a sixteen-year-old girl and you’re an easy target. And I don’t want you spending your time with so many people who are so much older than you, because I worry they are going to take advantage of you, just because you’re young. I don’t think you appreciate how recklessly you’ve been acting, and how lucky you’ve been so far. I can’t let this kind of behavior go on.”

So this was it, then. The moment when my mother forbade me to go back to Start. I wanted to feel shocked, but instead I felt only sadness.

And now, what would I have?

Well, I would have Sally and Chava. And that was something worth having; at least, more worth having than I had known.

I would have the respect of Emily Wallace and company. I didn’t expect that they would ever honestly like me, but that was okay; I didn’t expect to like them either. But I also didn’t believe that they would offer to give me a makeover any time soon.

I would have Vicky and Harry, and maybe someday, if she could ever forgive me, Pippa, too. They weren’t nightlife friends. They were real-life friends.

I would have memories of when I was golden.

I would have less than I had two weeks ago. But more than I had in September.

“But,” Mom was saying, as she turned onto the street that Antonio’s was on.

“But,” I repeated, coming back to the present.

“I’m not going to tell you that you can’t go.”

I blinked. “You’re not?”

She sca

I felt tears pricking my eyes, but not the same sort of tears that I had cried last Thursday night, coming home from Start. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“One condition,” Mom said, finding a spot and backing into it. “Your father will need to drive you there and home.”

I rubbed my eyes to clear them. “You’re kidding, right? You think Dad actually wants to hang out in a warehouse nightclub until, like, three a.m.?”

“No,” she said. “In fact, I know for sure that he doesn’t. But he wants to know you’re safe. We both want to know that you’re safe, always. And if that means your father stays up until sunrise sometimes, then that’s what we’ll do.” I opened my mouth, but she said, “Don’t even try to argue, or you’re not going anywhere.”

“Okay,” I said in a small voice. “It’s a deal.”

She turned off the car and faced me. “I’m really disappointed in you, Elise.”

“I know.”

“Not just because of how you treated Alex. I really believe you’re in the process of making that right, even if it takes time. But because of how you treated me. If you want to do something like go for a walk in the middle of the night, or party at a nightclub, tell me. I know I’m your mother, but I’m a reasonable person. I think we can work these things out.”

I brushed my hair out of my face. “You can’t always make me safe,” I said. “Just by having a parent home with me every evening, or grounding me, or giving me a chaperone every time I want to go out past nightfall. That’s not how it works.”

There are dangers everywhere, I wanted to explain to her. On the school bus, in the cafeteria, at Start, inside of me. No parent—no one at all—can step in and vanquish every one of them.

“I know that,” Mom said. “But I want to always make you safe.”

We got out of the car and joined the rest of the family in line at Antonio’s. Neil can handle standing in line for roughly three seconds before he gets bored and starts roaming and twirling around poles. Alex quickly convinced him to play a game where they pretended to be lions who were being harpooned by hunters, so they started crawling on all fours, stepping on other customers’ feet. Steve said reasonable things like, “Champ, the floor’s pretty dirty. Do you really want to get dirt all over your hands?” while I pulled out my iPod and pretended like I had never seen these people before in my life.

At last we got to the front of the line. “What can I get for you?” asked the guy behind the counter.

I looked up. I knew that voice.

It was Char.

The guy taking our pizza order, the guy in a tucked-in white button-down shirt and an apron, the guy speaking to my mother right now, was Char.

When he saw me, his eyes widened. He opened then closed his mouth.

“Roooawr!” Alex shouted from underfoot.

“One plain pizza, please,” Mom said to Char, fumbling in her purse for her wallet. “With soy cheese.”

It had been just over a week since Char and I had last spoken, since he had told me he didn’t want to see me anymore. A week isn’t very much time. Weeks often go by where nothing much happens at all.

But so much had changed in this past week. Even Char, here in the fluorescent lights, with his tomato sauce–stained apron, did not look quite the same. And while a week ago losing him cut me to the bone, today I saw him and just felt sad. I was sad that Char was never going to be the person I hoped he would be.

But I was never going to be the person he hoped I would be either. And I was just fine with that.

“Do you take credit cards?” Mom asked.

“Sorry, we’re cash only,” he replied.

This wasn’t how I imagined things going. But imagination is so often no match for the absurdity, the randomness, the tragedy of reality.

“So what brings you all to Antonio’s today?” Char asked as he made change for my mother.

“Just celebrating our kids,” Mom answered. “That lion on the floor just had the best booth at the second-grade fair.”