“You were killing it up there,” he went on. “Right, Dave?”

The beard guy nodded. “Killing it.”

The younger guy turned back to me. “I loved it,” he said earnestly.

“Aw, who’s a little fangirl?” Vicky sang.

He blushed a little. “Shut up, Vicky.” To me, he said, “I have this terrible habit of saying exactly what’s on my mind at any point in time. Right now, what’s on my mind is—how cool is it that we’re hanging out with the DJ?”

“Char’s the DJ,” I said. “I’m, like … the guest.”

“I’m Harry.” He shook my hand. “And you’re great.”

“Oh, right,” Vicky said. “How could I forget the formal introductions. This is Dave, and he’s on guitar.” She pointed to the guy with the beard.

“Yo.” He jutted his chin upward.

“This is Harry.” Here she pointed to the chatty guy. “He’s on drums. His name is Harry because of his eyebrows. You know. They’re hairy.”

“And her name is Vicks because she smells like Vicks VapoRub all the time,” Harry immediately responded.

Vicky stuck a hand on her hip. “His name is Harry because when he came out of the womb, he was so terrifyingly ugly that Mom shouted, ‘Scary!’ But she was crying so hard about how ugly her baby was that the doctor thought she said ‘Harry,’ instead.”

“Her name is Victoria because she’s like Queen Victoria,” Harry began. “You know. A virgin.”

“First of all,” Vicky said. “Queen Victoria wasn’t the Virgin Queen. That was Queen Elizabeth. Second of all, are you actually talking about my sex life? Ew. Do you want me to throw up that entire sixteen-ounce milkshake all over you?”

“Let me guess,” I broke in. “You’re brother and sister.”

Harry and Vicky both blinked at me, like they’d forgotten they had an audience. “It’s that obvious?” Harry asked.

Dave snorted.

“Okay, but here’s the real question,” Harry said. “Who’s older?” He and Vicky both posed.

“Vicky is,” I said without hesitation.

Harry let his arms fall to his sides. “Drat. You know all our secrets.”

“Harry’s sixteen months younger,” Vicky added. “He’s still in high school.”

“Our mom liked to get pregnant a lot,” Harry said.

“Ew again!” Vicky shouted.

“Everything that’s on my mind,” Harry said to me. “I’m telling you. It’s a curse.”

“He usually isn’t allowed to come to Start,” Vicky explained to me. “You know, because it’s a weeknight, and Mom and Dad say he has to go to school in the morning and all that.” She put on a high baby voice and pinched Harry’s cheeks. “Don’t you, my itty-bitty baby bwother?”

He jabbed her in the stomach, and she let go of his cheeks.

“So why are you here tonight?” I asked.

“Teacher training day tomorrow,” Harry replied. “Thank God.”

I had school the next day, so Harry obviously didn’t go to Glendale High.

“I’m at Roosevelt,” he said, before I asked.

“Oh, yeah. They’re our rivals, I hear. In football.”

“Boo,” Harry said.

“Yeah. Boo back at you.”

“Sorry to break up this pep squad interaction,” Vicky said, “but can we please dance? So we’re not listening to Robyn for nothing?”

So we danced. Sort of. Mostly I hopped from foot to foot, and sang along, and flailed my arms a little.

“How do you do it?” I shouted at Vicky.

“Do what?” she asked, shimmying her shoulders a minuscule amount and somehow making every guy in the room look over at her.

“Dance!” I said.

“Oh.” She laughed. “First, stand up straight.”

“I am.”

“No, babe. You’re not.” She pulled my shoulders back and tipped my chin up, like I was a rag doll. Harry seemed to be trying not to laugh as he looked on. “Now,” Vicky went on, “repeat after me.”

“I don’t want to repeat after you,” I said.

“Only people who repeat after me will learn how to dance like me,” Vicky announced, her nose in the air.

“I’ll repeat after you,” Harry volunteered.

“Thank you, Harry. Elise, feel free to join in. Repeat after me: I deserve to be here.”

“I deserve to be here!” Harry and Dave declared, and I mumbled along with them.

“No one can take my dance space away from me,” Vicky intoned, and the three of us repeated her words.

“And finally: I don’t care if anyone thinks I look stupid.”

“But I do look stupid,” I pointed out, as Harry yelled out his affirmations.

“So do I,” Vicky said. “But I don’t care.”

Then Vicky walked us through some of her tricks for preserving her dance space. “If someone comes up behind you, you elbow them.” She demonstrated. “It looks just like a dance move, but no one likes an elbow in their kidney. Or you jump up and land right on their foot.”

We all practiced jumping up and down.

“Basically, just throw your arms around a bunch and take big steps, so everyone knows which part of the dance floor belongs to you. People are not going to make room for you. You have to make room for yourself.”

A random guy approached Vicky, but she didn’t even elbow him or step on him. She just ignored him and kept dancing. After a moment, he moved away.

“I’ve kissed way too many boys at Start already,” Vicky confided to me, sounding world-weary. “I’m over them. They’re all in bands.”

“But you’re in a band,” I pointed out.

“Exactly. So why would I need them?”

Harry grabbed my hand and twirled me around. I laughed, and he twirled me again, looking very pleased with himself.

Char was a great dancer, but Harry wasn’t. He seemed at a loss for moves, and after standing still for a moment, he just twirled me around once more. This time, I caught Char’s eye as I spun. He made a come here motion with his fingers.

Harry opened his mouth, as if to say something to me, but before he had the chance I said, “One second, okay?” I dropped Harry’s hand and made my way to the DJ booth.

“Is everything okay?” I asked Char when I reached him. “Do you want me to take over for a while?”

“Everything’s fine. I just thought you could use some rescuing.”

I looked back across the room. Harry had returned to dancing with Dave and Vicky. “I was doing okay,” I said to Char. “But thanks.”

“Do you want to stay up here?” Char asked. “We can go one-to-one until the night’s over. It’s quieting down.”

I slid in next to him. “Sounds great.”

Char and I alternated songs for the next half hour or so. I played some oldies; the Contours, James Brown, stuff like that. That was my dad’s favorite sort of music to play, and I wondered how he had spent a Thursday night at home without me. Char was playing more eighties: Prince, Edwyn Collins, Transvision Vamp. He put on New Order’s “Temptation,” and we both took off our headphones and relaxed for a moment, leaning against the booth’s railings. “Temptation” is a long song.

“This one could be about you,” Char said, looking at me.

I tilted my head. “Why?”

“Because it’s about a girl whose eyes are green and blue and gray all at the same time. Just like yours.”

“They’re usually blue,” I said. “Bluish gray.”

He stared into my eyes deeply, unblinking.

“They only look green when I wear a green shirt,” I said. “So it’s not really like this song.”

“This song is about never having seen anyone like you before. And I haven’t ever seen anyone like you,” Char said.

“I haven’t seen anyone like you either,” I said.

We both fell silent and looked at each other for a moment.

And then he kissed me.

I pulled away almost instantly, as if I’d received an electric shock. “What did you do that for?” I demanded, my hand flying to my mouth.

Char reached out and gently removed my hand from my face. “Because I wanted to,” he answered quietly, and, still holding my hand in his, he kissed me again. This kiss lasted longer than the first, and I didn’t know what to do with my lips. But Char knew exactly what to do.

When he leaned away from me, I stared at him for a moment, my heart thundering so fast in my chest that I thought I might throw up, or just collapse to the floor, if he weren’t still holding on to me.

“You know, I’m not going to have sex with you.” The words flew out of my mouth. I immediately felt myself turn bright red. You never know when to shut up.

But Char laughed and laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “I never thought you would.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, unable to tell if he meant that as compliment or criticism.

“What about Pippa?” I asked.

His face was unreadable, and his eyes kept straying to my lips. “This isn’t about Pippa,” he said. “This is about you.”

“But—”

“Come here,” Char said. “It’s okay.” He opened his arms to me. I slowly sank into his embrace, and he rocked me back and forth. Dimly I was aware of the song fading out, the silence that followed, the lights coming on overhead. I slid my arms around him and pressed my face to his chest, trying to hear through his thin T-shirt if his heart was pounding as hard as my own. But his heart seemed fine.

“Come on, Elise,” he said after a time, softly into my hair. “Let me drive you home.”

11

When my alarm went off on Friday morning, I woke up in my mom’s house, not my dad’s, which still felt a little crooked. I could hear Alex downstairs, banging around with her poetry castle construction project. I could hear Chew-Toy scratching at my door. But I stayed still for a moment, just thinking about last night—five hours ago, really. Me playing songs. Strangers dancing. Char kissing me. Me kissing Char. Char and me kissing each other.