We talk about (shout about) Nour above rap music mashed up with a house beat. I learn he’s known her since they were seven, during their parents’ tenure as part of the Muslim Association of Paris. Bodies crowd into the area, bumping against me when someone calls to Hugo. A girl shrieks with laughter to my right. A stranger’s sweat slimes across my cheek in a YMCA move to the love ballad playing, and the scene tilts away from me. I steady myself on a random elbow and focus on the ceiling’s lattice of flashing lights to calm my breathing in the suddenly cramped space. In out. In out. The neon filters provide enough visual clarity to find Hugo and say goodbye. He cozies up to a cute boy with glitter across each cheekbone, probably the bare minimum age to enter the club (eighteen). We do the kisses on each cheek, then the boy reclaims him. Purple nails claw Hugo’s pants pockets.

As I pick my way to the front entrance from this side of the club, I have a view into the deejay’s booth. Her fingers dance across the dials of an electronic board, turning settings up and down, before she preps the next track on the tablet she holds in her small arms. Neon makeup, like war paint, accentuates big eyes, high cheekbones, and makes bright-green lips pop. Asymmetrical black hair sways beneath giant headphones. She pops her head up from her board and waves to someone in the crowd. She must be five feet tall.

“Hugo? Hugo!” I turn back and grab his shoulder. “Who is that woman?”

“The deejay? That’s DJ Chyn-noisette. A legend! She’s been spinning since the eighties, on actual turntables. Owns a ton of property in Paris, worth a billion dollars. I met her in the tunnels once!”

Hugo spins back to his dance partner, leaving me to gape openmouthed at Madame Chang. She leads the crowd in punching the air to a slowed-down remixed version of the Will we be admirable will we be detestable song I heard earlier, masterfully bringing the energy down low only to turn up the bass and speed and make everyone jump and dance with more excitement than before. Without Coke-bottle glasses, she looks thirty.