“Speaking of Char,” I said, “I ran into him at a pizza parlor this afternoon.”

“What did he say?” she asked. “Did he apologize?”

“No.”

“Did he beg you to give him another chance?”

“No.”

She sighed noisily. “He’s such a waste of a good haircut.”

“Hey,” I said. “Do you know Char’s real name?”

Vicky didn’t even pause. “Sure. It’s Michael. Michael Kirby. Why?”

“No reason,” I said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

We hung up after that. Then I opened my computer, and I googled “Michael Kirby.”

I wanted to know who Char really was. No more personas, no more images, no more pretending.

It was easy—so easy that I had to wonder why I had never asked Vicky for his real name before. Within ten minutes, I had a whole picture painted of Michael Kirby.

He was nineteen years old, turning twenty next week. He’d grown up in Westerly, about forty miles from here, the middle of three kids. On the high school track team, he would occasionally, but not all that often, finish in the top five in the 400-meter. He was one of eight trombone players in his high school’s marching band. I watched a video of them playing at a county fair, but I had to watch it twice before I could tell which one of the blue-uniformed trombonists was him. Michael’s dad worked in construction and his mom worked part-time as a secretary for Russell Gold, DDS, “Where Your Smile Makes Us Smile.”

In Michael’s freshman year at state college, he’d joined the college radio station and lived in Hutton Dorm. There was a photo of him wearing pajama pants at a study break, with a caption reading, Michael’s special snack: Chex Mix! Now in his second year, he was only a part-time student; he spent the rest of the time as a server at Antonio’s Pizzeria. He maintained Antonio’s Web site, and when I clicked the “contact us” button at the bottom of the page, it opened an e-mail addressed to michael@antoniospizza.com.

That was Char. It was all laid out for me across the Internet. It was a simple portrait of a person, like a million other people, and I felt the magic of Char float off into the air, as if I’d blown on a pile of dust.

But you know better than anyone how the Internet sees everything and nothing, all at the same time.

After I had learned all I cared to learn about Michael Kirby, I looked up my own name.

Why do you do this? Why do you want to see what other people say you are?

I suppose it’s because old habits die hard.

The first two search results were the same as always. Elise Dembowski, MD. Elise Dembowski Tampa Florida school superintendent.

But the third result was different. Elise Dembowski suicide had fallen down on the list. The third thing that came up when I typed in my own name was Elise Dembowski DJ.

I stared at my computer screen for a long moment, and I smiled. Then I closed my laptop and got ready for Start.

20

“So you decided to show up after all, hmm?” Mel said when I arrived at Start later that night. “Just couldn’t stay away?”

“What can I say? The scene needs me,” I told him.

Mel laughed. “Atta girl.” Then he noticed who was behind me. “Hello,” he said, sticking out his hand for a shake. “I’m Mel.”

“I’m Joe Dembowski. Elise’s dad,” said my dad.

I closed my eyes briefly. Please don’t do anything to embarrass me, Dad. Actually, my dearest hope had been that he wouldn’t identify himself as related to me, period. Let everyone think he was just some lecherous old guy who enjoyed hanging out at warehouse parties on his own.

“You’ve come to see your daughter’s big premiere?” Mel nodded his approval. “You’ve got a good dad,” he said to me. “And don’t worry about it, Joe; I don’t need to see your ID.”

“You’ve been taking care of Elise?” Dad asked, looking Mel up and down.

Mel shrugged modestly. “When she lets me.”

Dad laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “I know what you mean,” he said. Then we entered Start.

“So this is where you’ve been spending all your time?” Dad asked, looking around the room. The party hadn’t started yet, so it was almost entirely empty. The bartender’s iPod was playing faintly on the speakers.

“Some of my time,” I said cautiously.

Dad shrugged, like he wasn’t impressed. Then he laughed. “You know what? You’ve come to enough of my gigs over the years. I’m glad to finally have the chance to return the favor.”

“I’m glad, too,” I said, and I was. Glad that we were back on speaking terms, glad that my dad understood what it meant to fall in love with music, glad that I had my own father and not Sally’s. I hugged him suddenly.

“I’m proud of you, baby,” Dad murmured. “Go out there and knock ’em dead.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “Now would you please sit over by the bar and act like you don’t know me all night?”

He nodded. “You got it.”

I headed over to the DJ booth and started setting up. Char had always taken care of this part before, so I went slowly, checking and double-checking to make sure that everything was plugged in correctly.

Just as I was plugging in my last cords, the Dirty Curtains arrived.

“Helloooo, Glendale!” Harry shouted, raising his drumsticks in the air. “How y’all doing tonight? Glendale in the hoooouse!”

“Harry,” Vicky said, a step behind him. “We’ve been over this. The drummer doesn’t get to banter with the audience.”

“What about the guitarist?” Dave asked, setting his guitar on the stage. “Does the guitarist get to banter?”

“No,” Vicky said.

Dave shrugged. “That’s cool. I didn’t want to banter anyway.”

“I did,” Harry said. He raised his voice again. “Glendale, get your hands in the air if you’re sexy! All sexy hands, in the air! Unsexy hands, you can just hang out.”

“I swear to God,” Vicky said, “I have the bantering under control. I will handle the banter. Just play your goddamn instruments.”

I stepped down from the booth and gave Vicky a hug.

“Okay, I am freaking out.” Vicky let go of me and took a step back. “Now tell me the truth: do these false eyelashes make me look like a My Little Pony?”

“Vicky!” I laughed. “Since when do you get stage fright?”

“Uh, since my whole life?”

“But you’ve performed in a zillion things. You were a cheerleader,” I reminded her.

“Yeah, and shouting, ‘Roosevelt Roosters, go go go!’ in a yellow-and-green unitard really prepared me for singing in front of Start. Anyway, this is the first time I’ve performed my songs. Songs that I wrote. Not to mention the first time the Dirty Curtains have performed anywhere, ever. Like, all of a sudden the Dirty Curtains are a real band, instead of a few dudes who play video games on my TV and shed beard hair all over my rug while I try to make them rehearse.”

I glanced over at the other two Dirty Curtains, who were plugging their instruments into amps and saying, “Testing, one two three,” and, “Is this thing on?” and, “Cocksucker cocksucker cocksucker” into their mics.

“They seem like a real band to me,” I said.

“I just don’t want you to regret asking us to play on your big night,” Vicky said. “We might suck. Are you prepared for people hearing us and, like, vomiting all over your dance floor?”

“Vicky,” I said, resting my hands on her shoulders. “Repeat after me. I deserve to be here.”

“I deserve to be here,” Vicky said, looking into my eyes.

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

“I don’t care if anyone thinks I look stupid,” Vicky echoed quietly.

“Okay.” I took my hands off her shoulders. “Do your stuff out there. Show no mercy.”

Then Vicky went to help set up, while I went to the booth and put on my headphones. I cued up the Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks.” Then the clock hit ten, Mel opened the door, and the crowd came pouring in. The night had begun.

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.