I haven’t posted a photo today, so I quickly pop Vicurious onto the set of The Ellen Show, making it look like we’re dancing together. I didn’t even have to Photoshop anyone out, because Ellen is always dancing. I post it with #ellen and #keepdancing tags.
It’s comforting to know there’s someone out there with a following so huge, it makes mine seem tiny. She’s got to be bigger than most states, population wise. I look it up. And I’m right. Ellen’s fan base is greater than the population of California, which is the largest state in the country. It makes the target on my back feel slightly smaller.
But not for long.
machomike33 Are you a lesbo?
eeemojijen You only follow famous people. Not nobodies like me.
I block machomike33, then I nod at eeemojijen’s comment because it’s true. I’ve only followed famous people, and it’s not because I think they’re the only ones worthy of my attention. It’s more because I can disappear into their massive numbers of followers. They won’t even notice me there. I realize that doesn’t make sense for someone with 350,000 followers, but making sense is clearly not my strong suit.
If I could start this all over, I’d follow back every single person who followed me. I didn’t do it at the beginning because of my preexisting condition (the irrational fear of following people on social media). Now there are so many, it would take me weeks to click the follow button on them all, and I don’t want to leave anyone out accidentally.
Still, I don’t want anyone to feel like a nobody. Knowing the can of worms I’m about to unleash, I follow eeemojijen. Maybe it’s the “jen” in her name that makes me do it, which gives me an idea. I open my list of followers and search for anyone with “jen” or “jenna” in their username. A little voice inside my head asks me, Why are you doing this? It says, She’s not Jenna and neither is that girl or that one or that one. It tells me to give up already, she doesn’t want you anymore. But I do it anyway. Sometimes I do things without understanding why, and this is one of those times.
I find seventy-eight and follow them all. The last I click on is one of the first who followed me, and the first I ever replied to: justjennafied. When I’m done following Jens and Jennas, I wait.
I watch for new Jennas to show up, and they do. I follow them. Look, I tell my little voice, there are people on social media who follow only Justin Bieber. If I want to follow people named Jen and Jenna, what’s the big deal? It doesn’t have to mean anything.
Yet when none of the Jens or Jennas are jennaelizabethtanner, I’m disappointed, so I guess that means something.
Monday morning is Lipton’s presentation on the Battle of Thermopylae, and I’m nervous for him. You’d think I was the one about to stand in front of the class. Usually, I’m just glad everyone’s attention is focused on someone other than me.
But it’s Lipton. And I’m afraid for him. Or something. At least I anticipated this possibility and put on a second T-shirt beneath my sweater before I left the house, in case I soak through the first.
Mr. Braxley prolongs the agony by teaching through most of the period, saving the presentation for the end of class. Lipton looks like he might vomit. I notice he’s wearing purple socks, so I point to them when no one else is looking and give him a thumbs-up. He barely manages a weak smile, he’s so nervous. And Adam isn’t helping. He’s tapping his foot like he’s seriously overcaffeinated.
For once, I’m not the one trying to hold it together. This could’ve been me, though. And oh, so much worse.
Finally Mr. Braxley tells Adam and Lipton to start. Instead of plugging a thumb drive into the classroom computer, Lipton has brought his own laptop. He was worried his presentation software wouldn’t be compatible with Mr. Braxley’s and didn’t want to risk it. Still, he practically slumps with relief when his “Battle of Thermopylae” title page appears on the Smart Board in really huge letters. Adam starts talking, shuffling through his notecards. He gives an introduction, which is presumably leading us to the battle in question. It’s going fine until the title page dims, goes black, and a screen saver pops up. It’s a photograph of Taylor Swift wearing a bright pink miniskirt and matching crop top with silver sequins.
The class ROARS with laughter.
Lipton lunges for the computer. “It’s not mine! It’s my sister’s. I swear!” He hits the keyboard and the image goes away. “My sister did it. We share the computer!”
The class is absolutely howling. Adam walks away from the podium toward the windows. I’m afraid he’s going to thunk his head against the glass and hurt himself, but he just stands there looking out.
Mr. Braxley, chuckling, tries to calm the class. “All right, all right. Quiet down.” He coaxes Adam back toward the desktop podium to resume his remarks. Mr. Braxley bites his lip, pats Adam on the shoulder, and says, “Shake it off.”
Which starts the uproar all over again.
Mr. Braxley quiets the room a second time. He looks sheepish, having made the joke that set everyone off. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Adam, Lipton, we’re laughing with you, not at you.”
I really, really hate when people say that.
Adam reads the rest of his introduction in a weak monotone. “Now we have a video we created to illustrate the battle.”
Lipton manages to say, “Could someone turn down the lights?”
And the video begins.
They’ve reenacted the Battle of Thermopylae on Minecraft. There’s one huge army (the Persians) and one small one (the Greeks) at the foot of the huge cliffs by the sea—all constructed with bitmappy blocks. The soldiers have cubed, bearded heads with rectangular bodies and limbs. They’re holding shields and swords.
The battle commences with ominous music in the background, dramatically narrated in a deep voice that is clearly Lipton trying to sound intimidating. The soldiers start attacking, their little swords clanking against one another. It sounds like several dozen people clicking their pens. Each time a soldier is struck and killed, red chunks of body parts fall to the ground.
“’Tis but a scratch,” Jeremy says in a high-pitched voice.
His friends start laughing. “It’s just a flesh wound!” They’re shouting out lines from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Mr. Braxley makes Lipton stop the video until everyone settles down again. “I’ve got a nice stack of detention slips for anyone who talks for the rest of the presentation. Everling? You hear me?”
Jeremy nods, smirking.
I don’t even want to turn around to see Lipton’s face. I’m pretty good at imagining worst-case scenarios, but even I couldn’t have dreamed this nightmare.
The video resumes, and Lipton’s deep narrator voice says, “The Greeks fought valiantly, holding off the much larger Persian army for two days, until . . .”
I do my best to ignore the fact that everyone is squirming visibly, trying to keep from laughing. The video is actually really impressive once you get past the funny sounds of the swords clashing and the chunks of body parts flying around. It must’ve taken hours to create a geographically accurate landscape around Thermopylae, and generate all those little soldiers and swords and arrows.
The whole thing comes to a dramatic conclusion when a traitor to the Greeks reveals a secret passage, allowing the Persians to enter the city. Lipton’s voice gets more and more animated. Our classmates wrap arms and hands around their mouths to keep from laughing as Leonidas and the last few Spartans are slaughtered by tiny arrows that hail down on them from the cliffs above.
The video ends. The bell rings. The class rushes out so they can release the laughter they’ve been holding in. I remain at my desk, Lipton somewhere behind me. Silent. Adam lifts his head from the podium.
“Told you,” he says.
Lipton doesn’t try to catch my eye as he packs up his computer. I shuffle out. That’s what I would want, if it were me. To be left alone. To not have to speak of it, or have it spoken of, or even share facial expressions that acknowledge its existence at all.
> Kids are still making fun of the presentation in the hall, and I’m almost overtaken by an urge to run at them, bring my arms down on theirs and make them stop. It’s a new feeling, wanting to confront the humiliation. To stop it. When it happens to me, I only want to hide.
I make it through my next two classes, then slip into the girls’ bathroom at the beginning of lunch period instead of heading directly to yearbook. My usual stall in the corner is empty, so I lock myself in and pull out my phone. Even before opening the screen, I can see Vicurious has been busy today. I navigate to my notifications and scroll through them.
Half are people named Jen or Jenna thanking me for following them. The other half are people not named Jen or Jenna, begging me to follow them.
And there’s one from justjennafied, a comment on the image of Kat in the Vicurious wig, which says, simply:
Nice cat.
It makes me catch my breath, because that’s what Jenna—my Jenna—always used to say whenever Kat would hiss at her or refuse to be petted by anyone but me. I click over to justjennafied’s page to see if there’s any sign she’s my former best friend. But she’s only been there for a couple of weeks, and hasn’t posted much. No selfies. There’s a view out a dirty bus window, the scenery blurred. A photo looking straight up at the sky through a canopy of trees. Another pointing down at a leaf-clogged gutter. She puts a single tag on her photos: #lost or #sad or #dirty.
It can’t be her.
Just in case, though, I comment to justjennafied the way I always used to reply to Jenna.
She knows who feeds her.
I tag justjennafied to make sure she sees it among the hundreds of comments on that post, and am about to leave my bathroom stall when two girls walk in. I hug my backpack to my chest and lean against the wall to wait them out.
It’s excruciating. They’re talking about what they’re going to wear to a friend’s party on Saturday. It’s a strange dance in which one girl’s wardrobe must not outshine the other’s. They must complement each other, but without being matchy-matchy. In the end, they pick essentially the same outfit in slightly different colors.
I hope they’re done because I really have to leave for class, and I’ve been quiet way too long to all of a sudden walk out of the stall.
“Let me just check my Instagram,” one says.
I suppress a groan.
“How many followers are you up to?” the other asks.
“Two hundred fifteen.”
“Following?”
“Three twenty-eight.”
“I’m two thirty-seven, and four eighty-five. I need to stop following people who don’t follow me back.”
“Like Vicurious?”
I suck in my breath, but the sound is covered by the other girl’s laughter. “Yeah,” she says. “Or change my name to Jen.”
“Maybe call yourself JenJennaJennyJenniferJenniest.”
“It wouldn’t work. She hasn’t followed anyone new since the weekend. Not even the ones who changed their names.”
“Whatever. I still love her.”
“Me too.”
“Me too. Me too. Me too!”
My eyes widen at their repetition of “me too.” Like it’s a thing.
I am so focused on their conversation that I forget I’m holding my backpack, and it slips. It doesn’t hit the floor, but the sound of me struggling with it is enough to stop the girls from talking.
“I didn’t know anyone was in there,” one says quietly.
“Me either.”
“Who’s in there?”
I want so badly to say, “It’s me, Vicurious!” But I gather my things and unlock the stall instead. I shuffle out to a sink.
“Eavesdrop much?” It’s Mallory, from biology. The one who thinks Hallie Bryce isn’t human.
I close my eyes. Pretend I’m three years old again and if I can’t see them, they can’t see me.
The other girl says, “It doesn’t matter. She’s . . .”
I can’t hear what she says I am, or if she says anything. But it’s easy enough to fill in the blank. Maybe she made the international crazy gesture, twirling her finger at the side of her head. Or mouthed something, like “nobody.”
They leave, and I stare at myself in the mirror.
How can they love Vicurious and be so dismissive of me? Of anyone? They’re just like the kids in class who took Lipton down without a thought as to how that made him feel. Knowing I have followers like that makes me want to hurl. Or shout “YOU SUCK!” really loud.
Instead, I swallow it down, like I always do. Take a deep breath. And stomp (as quietly as possible) to class.
21
ON THE BUS, I CHECK Jenna’s Instagram. My Jenna, jennaelizabethtanner. She hasn’t posted anything in more than two weeks. Nothing since that last photo of her with Tristan. I switch to justjennafied’s page. Her first post was a little over two weeks ago. I toggle between them. Jennaelizabethtanner stopped posting about the same day that justjennafied started.
The annoying little voice in my head says Why do you even care what Jenna does after the way she treated you? And I don’t have an answer, except that I’ve tried to stop caring about Jenna and obviously, I can’t. It’s not a switch that turns off that easily. She was my best friend for twelve years.
Mom is waiting with a smoothie when I get home. “Apple, strawberry, mango, and a little spinach,” she says.
I sit. Stare at it. The spinach and strawberry combo does not make for a particularly pleasing color.
“You’re not hungry?” my mother asks when I don’t pop the straw in my mouth immediately.
The thing is, I’m never hungry when I get home. My stomach is still unclenching from the day. But Mom always insists I eat something, and I do it so she won’t think something’s wrong.
But not today. I’m smoothied out.
“Actually, I hate smoothies,” I say.
“Since when?”
“Since you make them for me every single day and if I have to drink another one I’m going to scream.”
She jerks her chin back. “Why didn’t you say so? I thought you loved smoothies.”
“I did.”
She glares at me. “But not anymore.”
“Nope.” I realize too late how rude I’m being. I can never seem to find the correct balance between sharing my feelings and keeping them to myself. “Sorry.”
She whisks the offending smoothie away from me and starts scurrying around the kitchen, pulling things out of the fridge and trying to come up with an alternative snack. “I could put some cheese and crackers out, or—”
“I’m really not hungry.” I stand and push the chair in. “I think I’ll just have a nap.”
Her face goes all knotty. My mother has two gears—either she’s totally ignoring me, or she’s obsessing over me. “Are you sick? Is anything the matter?” She reaches to put a hand to my forehead.
I gently push it away. “Just tired.”
“You rest, then,” she says, like it was her idea. “I’ll let you know when dinner’s ready.”
I get to my room and pet Kat for a while. Nice cat. Lots of people say that, probably. It doesn’t mean justjennafied is Jenna. It just means she likes the photo of my cat. Still, I log in to see if she left another comment. There are so many in my notifications, it’s almost impossible to identify ones sent by a specific person. There’s no way to search by name. I go to the Kat photo and scroll down to the comment I left, and continue from there. Other people like my cat, too. They ask what her name is. They say, “Our cats should totally hang out!” They try to direct me to the link on their profile pages where I can find a photo of their cat.
“You’re famous,” I say to Kat.
She licks my pinkie knuckle with her sandpapery tongue. I poke around my Instagram for a few more minutes. Almost all of my photos now have comments like that. “Come to my concert, Vi!” or “Hang out with us!” or “Seamos amigos, Vicurious!” which I think means they want to be
friends. I click on links from a few profile pages to see what sort of fun Vicurious may be missing.
Most of the photos they share are selfies with two or three or ten friends smashed together in a group hug, all grinning their super-cute faces at the camera. These are people who would never be draping their arms over my shoulders in real life. Like the girls in the bathroom. Or the “Friends!” section of the yearbook.
I scan the backgrounds. Every now and then, I notice someone like me, standing alone. Watching from the edges. I save those to a file on my computer. When I have a dozen or so, I set up my little photo studio and get into my Vicurious costume. Then I pose. Arm out from the shoulder, bent a bit at the elbow, and hand hanging from the wrist as if someone’s standing there, and my arm is draped around their shoulders. I do a bunch like that, then try some where my head is tipped to the side, like I’m leaning on someone. I even take a few with my arm hanging close to my side, my fingers cupped as if I’m holding someone’s hand.
Then one by one, I go through the photos people sent me, and I find the person lingering in the background. The girl looking wistfully toward the kids featured in the photo. The boy pretending he’s waiting for friends. The guy with his hands shoved in his pockets, leaning against a fence. The girl peeking around her hair.
All these people deserve to be noticed. But I also know how terrifying it is to receive unwanted attention. Thrusting them into the public eye, in front of almost a half-million Instagram followers? That would be ten times worse than my mother’s attempts to force me into social situations. I can’t do that to them.
But I want to let them know that I see. I want my followers to look for people like them—the unseen and ignored.
So, I drape my arm around them. I hold their hands. I lean my head on their shoulders. Then, to protect their privacy, I turn them into simple silhouettes, each a different solid color but shaded so they seem almost ghostly. Invisible. And completely unrecognizable to anyone but themselves.
I crop the photos so they’re square, but otherwise leave them alone. I don’t zoom in or anything. I want people to have to work a little to find us, like Where’s Waldo.
How to Disappear Page 15