I imagine them all turning to look at me . . . and stare . . . and . . . breathe, Vicky.
My pulse pounds in my ears. WHAT WAS I THINKING? I never meant for Vicurious to get this big. All I really wanted was to show Jenna that I wasn’t a nobody. That I could be fun and daring and interesting. To Jenna, not a million total strangers.
I’ll just delete the account. Simple as that. I’ll put this all behind me, and nobody will ever know. I frantically search the Instagram menu on my computer for a delete button. But there isn’t one. There’s only “temporarily disable my account.”
Click it, Vicky.
I move the cursor over the link, my hand trembling on the mouse. Everything will be so much easier if I just step away, go back to my simple, quiet existence. Be myself again, just Vicky. All by myself.
But I can’t stop thinking of the soon-to-be-a-million people who’ve come to me, and not because I wear a crazy wig and sunglasses and Photoshop myself into stupid pictures. It’s because they want to be seen. And because I saw them, people like Adrian Ahn and Ellen are seeing them, too.
What message would it send if I erased them, even temporarily? That I don’t want to see them anymore? That I never really cared in the first place?
I know how that feels.
I don’t want anyone else to feel it.
I move my cursor up to the corner instead, and click on the icon that takes me out to my home page. I toggle through my images. I stop to read comments, and reply to my followers.
I tag them, I thank them, I let them know that I see them. And I’m not leaving.
23
AT LUNCH PERIOD ON FRIDAY I’m relieved, as usual, that the weekend is near and I can get away from everything that makes me nervous. But I’m also realizing I’m going to miss Lipton, and the yearbook staff, too. I haven’t missed anyone since Jenna, or before, so it feels strange.
Beth Ann and Marvo and I are sitting there working and eating our lunches when Marissa bursts through the door crying. At first we all just stare at her, completely shocked and not sure what to do. Then Marvo holds his hands up like he’s under arrest, in case anybody was planning to blame him.
I try to work up the nerve to say something comforting. Beth Ann sighs and spins her chair to face Marissa’s. “What’s the matter? Adrian still ignoring you to save the world from all the lonely people?”
“Where do they all come from?” Marvo mutters.
Beth Ann tips her chin toward the door. “Beat it. It’s females-only day.”
“Since when?”
“Since I said so.” She glares at him, and he is gone in about three seconds.
Marissa sniffles. “We always eat lunch together on Fridays. It’s the one day, the only day.”
“And he blew you off.”
She nods. “He’s completely ignoring me, and if I get upset about it I’m being selfish and uncaring because he’s hanging out with some kid who doesn’t have any friends.”
“Yeah. Sucks that your boyfriend is a super-nice guy.”
Marissa scowls at Beth Ann. “Does he have to do it every single day? Can’t one day be for me?”
“There are lots of kids with no friends, I guess.”
“I just want him back,” says Marissa. “Preferably without Raj Radhakrishnan attached to his hip.”
Beth Ann laughs. “Hey, Raj is not so bad. And soon to be featured in the yearbook!” She points to the list on the wall.
Marissa moans.
“Gotta love it when the loners win the day though, am I right?” Beth Ann rolls her chair over to where I sit and puts a hand up to high-five me.
I can’t remember the last time I was high-fived, if ever. I lift my hand to meet hers. She slaps it hard, and I wasn’t holding it firm enough. Our hands bang against my forehead.
“Ow.”
“Oh, shit.” Beth Ann has a concerned look on her face, but is also giggling. Because who can’t high-five without getting bonked in the head?
“My bad,” I say.
“Are you okay?”
I nod. “I’m prone to high-fiving accidents, apparently.”
“You are so weird,” she says.
I blanch. What was I thinking, trying to act like I fit in here?
Beth Ann nudges my shoulder. “I meant that in a good way. You know that, right?”
I swallow. “Right. I knew that.”
Marissa watches the whole thing, pouting. Then starts crying again. Or is she laughing? “I should be having lunch with my boyfriend but instead I’m here, watching you two idiots.”
“What?” Beth Ann puts a hand to her hip. “And miss our stellar display of manual dexterity?” She tries to get me to high-five again and we keep missing each other.
Then Marissa joins in and we’re all laughing, slapping our hands together clumsily, purposely missing and stumbling around. I can hardly believe it, and I’m not delusional enough to expect it to last. But I’m here in the moment, I’m part of the action. It’s real, not vicarious.
And I am breathing just fine.
Mom keeps my phone all weekend. And I don’t really miss it, because the only person I ever called was Jenna. Lipton knows to email instead of text, and I can check Vicurious from my computer. But it still feels weird to be without it.
When I ask my mother if I can have the phone back on Monday morning, she just replies, “Password?” And I say, “Never mind.”
Same conversation on Tuesday. I try with Dad on Wednesday morning but he just shakes his head.
By Thursday, I stop asking.
Instead, I live in the moment. I exchange notes and smiles and awkward attempts at conversation with Lipton. I slip into Mrs. Greene’s office when I’m feeling overwhelmed, like when Beth Ann tries to high-five me in the hall and everyone sees me fumble it and starts laughing.
Marissa mopes around the yearbook office, and Adrian forms a lunch table with kids who usually sit by themselves. I want to make her feel better, but I don’t want him to stop.
“I could walk through the cafeteria naked and he probably wouldn’t notice,” she says on Thursday. “I even messaged Vicurious to see if she’d post a photo of East 48 for their gig this weekend.”
“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?” says Beth Ann.
“Yeah.” Marissa flops into her chair. “Something like that.”
When I get home from school, I see that Marissa has put up some new photos on the East 48 website. She’s dancing right out front in most of them, the center of attention. But there’s one where she’s in the background, by herself. Nobody’s watching her. It’s perfect.
If I do this, maybe Adrian will realize that she needs to be seen, too?
I can’t check my direct messages to find hers, because the computer version of Instagram doesn’t show them. But I can pretend I did. I can post a photo and thank Marissa for inviting me. Adrian would be psyched, Marissa would be happy, and Vicurious would be . . . a student at Richardson High School?
I brush off the risk of exposure. I Photoshopped myself into lots of random pictures from followers in my #Iseeyou series. Why not one more? I’ll do some others in the next few days so it doesn’t seem strange.
In a matter of minutes, Vicurious is dancing with Marissa DiMarco in the background of an East 48 concert. Now I just need to figure out how to post the photo from my computer, since Instagram only makes that possible from handheld devices. But there’s an app for everything. I quickly find one that not only enables me to post from my desktop but also lets me schedule the image to appear at a specific time. I set it for 12:15 tomorrow. Lunch period. I’ll be in the yearbook office working diligently. They’ll never think it’s me.
On Friday morning, Lipton is extra fidgety in class. He drops his pencil three times, then flings it halfway across the room trying to catch it before it falls a fourth time. He and Adam exchange a series of eye-bulging facial expressions, like they’re trying to impersonate lizards.
I wait for him to pass me a n
ote, but nothing comes.
After class, he follows so close behind me out the door that he gives me a flat.
“Sorry. Sorry,” he says.
“It’s okay.” I stumble to pull my shoe back on.
Adam is standing nearby, rolling his eyes.
“I, um . . . was wondering,” says Lipton, “if I could have a word with you.” He sounds like the principal inviting me to his office for a detention slip.
“Okay.” My heart rate ticks up a few notches.
Lipton cups his hand under my elbow and guides me to the same little alcove I crouched in that day I was pretending to tie my shoe. He releases my arm and sweeps a hand through his hair, which immediately falls back into his eyes.
“I wanted to ask you.” He swallows. Sweeps his hair again. “I was wondering if you might like to go to a concert. East 48.” He pulls a postcard promoting the gig from his pocket, probably the same one Adrian gave Raj, and shoves it into my hands. “There. That.”
“Saturday?” I say.
“Yes, Saturday. Did I forget to say that? Saturday. Tomorrow.”
I smile at Lipton. A weird thing is happening. His nerves seem to have a calming effect on me. The more awkward he gets, the less I am.
“Adrian Ahn invited me,” he says. “It’s his band. He’s the drummer.”
“Yes,” I say, though I can’t believe I’m saying yes to attending a concert. I may come to my senses later.
Lipton seems puzzled. “Yes, you know who Adrian is? Or yes . . .”
“I’ll go to the concert with you.”
“You will?” His whole face smiles.
I nod, pretty sure my whole face is smiling back at him.
“Um, okay. I’ll pick you up,” he says. “Well, my mom will pick you up. But I’ll be in the car, of course. I mean, my mom will drive us. If that’s okay. I don’t have my license yet.”
“Sounds good,” I say, very cool and collected. “I’ll see you then.”
“Okay, great!” Lipton starts backing away from me, hands clenching his backpack straps near his shoulders, like a farmer tugging at his overalls. “See you then.”
He turns around and walks straight into the side of the drinking fountain, which hits him square in the crotch. It buckles him over a bit, but he just shuffles sideways and around the fountain, and continues down the hall and into the boys’ bathroom.
Adam comes up beside me. “Does he know where you live?”
“I don’t think so,” I say.
He laughs, and I’m hardly anxious at all. I write down my address and give it to him.
“I’ll make sure he gets this. And you should know, he’ll probably be ten minutes early to pick you up. He’s always ten minutes early.”
“Okay.” I love that I’m having a conversation with Adam and barely sweating, but the hall is clearing and the bell is going to ring soon and I don’t want to be late for class. “Thanks.”
He sighs. “Just don’t mess with him, okay? He really likes you.”
I watch Adam turn and go, then hurry to my own class. The terror of going to a concert with Lipton doesn’t hit me until halfway through my next period. I breathe in and out and try to focus on small details instead of the hugeness of it, like what am I going to wear? But that only makes me more anxious.
You can do this, I tell myself.
I run through all the things I’ve done in the past few weeks that seemed impossible a month ago. I’ve joined the yearbook staff. I’ve had several near-normal conversations. I have joked around with classmates. I have high-fived, albeit terribly. I’ve said hi to Hallie Bryce at least six times now. I have exchanged notes with a cute boy. I’ve had actual physical contact with that same boy on several occasions. I have spoken to him and even, dare I say it, flirted?
Most astonishing, I have walked into the school psychologist’s office and sat in her chair and come very close to talking with her about all of it.
What scares me is something I can’t help thinking: Would any of it have happened if Jenna was still here?
Am I better off without her?
“Help me find ones that don’t suck,” says Marvo, staring at photos of the random people we’re considering for the special section. It was proving difficult to take photos of them all, until I mentioned their Instagrams and suggested we just ask them to submit their own.
So here we sit, in front of his computer in the yearbook office. We choose our favorite of the yarn bomber, then click over to Hallie Bryce’s Instagram.
“None of these suck. They are the opposite of suck.” He clicks through all of Hallie’s pictures, and back again. “How are we going to pick just one?”
I point to my favorite. She’s in a park, holding the back of a bench like it’s a ballet bar. There’s an old woman with a walker standing in the background. “Her turnout is perfect, and that lady behind her has her feet turned out, too. Like she’s trying to do the pose.”
Marvo laughs. “I didn’t even see that.”
I click to another favorite, where she’s holding her leg up at an impossible angle, but also looking right into the camera. I used to think her expression was aloof, but now I see the sadness. “And this one,” I say. “Her face.”
“Oooh, yeah.” He nods.
“No wonder Beth Ann didn’t want to come today,” says Marissa. “Listen to the two of you drool over Miss Perfect.”
Marvo and I turn to stare at Marissa for a moment. Then laugh. I know Marvo is probably thinking that Marissa is just as perfect as Hallie, while I’m thinking she’s just as not.
Marissa isn’t paying attention to us, though. She stands up suddenly, phone in her hand.
And screams.
Marvo leaps up. “What? What?”
I jump out of my chair, too, though I’m pretty sure I know what she’s screaming about. “What’s the matter?”
“Ohmygod, ohmygod. She did it. Ohmygod. Look.” She shoves her phone in my face. It’s the photo of Vicurious at the East 48 concert. “Look, look! She’s dancing with me!” She points to the caption, which reads:
vicurious Thanks for the invite, @marissadimarco. #supportlocalmusic #East48
“She mentioned me! She answered me!” Marissa stops bouncing long enough to show Marvo. “Can you believe it? I have to tell Adrian! Oh my God.”
She leaves her bag behind and runs out holding her phone up like it’s the holy grail. Marvo and I look after her, then at each other.
“Okay, what just happened?” he says. “I couldn’t even see what it was.”
I scrunch my face up a bit to give the appearance that I’m not entirely sure, either. “I think that girl with purple-and-orange hair posted something about Adrian’s concert on Instagram.”
“Ah.” Marvo nods. “Hmmm.”
I return to the computer. “We should get back to work.”
“Yeah, okay.” He nods, a slow smile coming to his lips. “Will you be attending the concert?”
I swear he knows I’m Vicurious, the way he’s looking at me right now. “Huh?”
“The East 48 concert. You going?”
“I, uh . . . yes. With Lipton. He asked me, so . . .”
“Oooh, big date.” Marvo waggles his eyebrows.
I shove his chair so it rolls him away from the workstation, and turn my attention to the photos again. He scoots himself back, smiling, and points to the Hallie photo with the old lady.
“That’s the one,” he says. “It’s the people in the background you really want to keep your eye on.”
24
I SPEND FRIDAY EVENING TRYING on every item of clothing I own, and concluding that I have nothing to wear. It’s a good thing my mother has confiscated my phone, or I would’ve texted Lipton to cancel. I could email him, and am thinking about it. But Adam’s parting words linger. So I ask my mother if we can go shopping.
“I have a date,” I mutter.
She almost explodes with joy.
We hit all the usual stores on Saturday mor
ning; I hide from all the usual salespeople, and reject all the usual clothes. Finally, at a store that is blessedly understaffed and completely ignoring us, I choose a black turtleneck sweater that hugs my figure enough to satisfy my mother. She insists on a new pair of skinny jeans, too. And in a moment of weakness, I even let her maneuver me to the cosmetics island in Neiman Marcus, where a lady in a white coat applies some eyeliner and mascara. I try to concentrate on my breathing instead of the fact that a strange woman’s face is inches from my own and everyone who walks past stares at what she’s doing to me. When she’s finished, I blink at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes look enormous. Mom buys the makeup.
I’m nervous in the car home, worried the sweater might be too snug to wear a T-shirt underneath, or the jeans fit weird, or the makeup makes me look like a clown. “I don’t have shoes,” I say. “What am I going to wear for shoes?”
“You can wear my black ankle boots,” says Mom calmly.
I try to remember what her black ankle boots look like, if they’re mom-ish. She hands them to me when we get home, and they’re cute. I think. I really have no idea. I am trusting my mother for fashion advice and oh, God, what have I done?
I try everything on again and pull my hair into a ponytail. Mom takes one look at me and starts to cry. “You look beautiful,” she says, fingers pressed to her lips. “I never thought—”
“You never thought I could look beautiful?”
“No, I know you’re beautiful, with or without makeup. I just never thought you’d let anyone else see it. You’re always trying to hide yourself.”
I shoo her out of my room before I start crying, too. Because it’s only three o’clock in the afternoon and I can’t freak out yet. I take the new clothes off and put my usual ones back on. I sit at my computer to open my Instagram, so I don’t have to think about the concert or my outfit or going on a date and what if Lipton tries to kiss me? I quickly click to my home page before that line of thinking goes any further.
How to Disappear Page 17