“You don’t have to,” he says, smiling.
Mom gets that pursed-lip expression on her face that signals her annoyance whenever Dad sides with me. “If it were up to you two, nobody would ever do anything around here.” She starts clearing the serving dishes even though we’ve barely started eating.
“Nora. Honey.” My father lays a gentle hand on her arm, but she pulls away and carries the food into the kitchen. Dad and I start to eat but Mom doesn’t come back. He says, “Maybe you could show me that outfit after all?”
I sigh. “You don’t even care about the stupid outfit.”
“But your mother does. And it won’t hurt you to put it on.”
“Fine.” I toss my napkin on the table and push my chair back. He always does this. Takes my side, but then caves the second Mom gets upset. “But it also wouldn’t hurt her to stop treating me like I’m some kind of Barbie doll she can dress up.”
My father closes his eyes briefly, then folds his napkin and lays it on the table next to his plate. He won’t say any more, but he’ll be disappointed if I don’t do what he asked. So I go to my room and I put on the neon skirt and the black top. When I return to the dining room, Mom is all smiles. “Isn’t that cute?”
Dad blinks a few times at the neon, clearly doubting its cuteness. “Yes, very nice,” he says, nodding.
“Whatever,” I mumble. I excuse myself again and return to my room to stand in front of my full-length mirror. I try to imagine myself in that photo with Jenna and the supercutes. I strike a pose. Try a sexy face. Look like a complete idiot.
I strap on the clunky sandals to see if that helps. It doesn’t.
“Honey, do you want to finish your dinner?” my mom calls to me down the hall.
“No, thanks. I’m not hungry anymore.”
I hear my mom mumble “Okay, fine” as I go to my closet and check on the wig. The glue is dry, so I try it on, shoving my hair into the stocking skullcap first. It’s better, but still not right. The look I’m going for needs to be a little more punk rock, a little less hippie clown. I take a pair of scissors from my desk and start snipping away until I have a jagged explosion of color framing my face. I lift clumps of it with my fingertips and spray it into place with Mom’s ultra-stiff hair spray.
Jenna would die laughing . . .
I cut off the thought, go back to what I’m doing. Hiding myself. Creating someone even Jenna won’t recognize. The un-Vicky.
When I finish, I stand in front of the mirror, this time with the wig on. The glare of my pale legs is blinding, and cute ankle socks—even if I had them—won’t help. I remember a pair of “snazzy leggings” my mom gave me for my birthday. I dig around in my drawer of misfit clothes until I find them. Black-and-white zigzags. I pull them on and examine my reflection again.
Combined with the crazy wig and the leggings, the skirt now looks too prim. I slip it off and start cutting. The hem goes first; then I slice thick strips all the way up to the waist, like the fringe of a very strange hula skirt. The black top gets a trim, too. But when I put it all back on and stand up straight, I realize I’ve given myself a bare midriff on one side.
I try tugging the shirt down, but can’t hide the triangle of skin that rises about three inches from my belly button to my side. It’s the perfect spot for a tattoo (that nobody will ever see), so I Sharpie the circular yin-yang symbol there.
The internet says that Sharpie tattoos stay longer if you dust them with baby powder and spray them with hair spray, so I try that. Then I strap on the platform sandals, dive my hand through the tower of bracelets, and for the final touch, choose from among my eclectic collection of secondhand sunglasses. SpongeBob eyeballs? Peace signs? Or rainbow-colored leopard frames with reflective lenses? I go with the first pair I picked, the dark cat-eye glasses with thick white frames. In honor of Kat.
I. Look. Awesome.
Okay, slightly ridiculous, too. But in a “Go Big or Go Home” sort of way. (Or, in my case, Go Big and Stay Home Because You’re Too Chicken to Actually Go Anywhere.)
I prop my phone on the bookshelf and use the timer to take a picture. In my first few attempts I capture images of myself walking away from the camera, because three seconds isn’t long enough to get into position. I switch to ten seconds so I can move to the opposite end of the room before it snaps the photo, and take several that way. Just standing there. Head to toe.
Boring.
I’m too still, too scared. Too Vicky.
I also realize that the bottom half of my face is completely bare and unchanged. I remedy that with a lipstick I find in a box of mostly-never-used makeup my mother gave me. Now I have a bright red mouth, slightly bigger than my own. I set the camera timer on my phone and try again. And again. And again.
I pose. I spin. I jump. I sway and lean and dip and bend and twirl and wave and smile and laugh. I blow kisses. I press my lips to the palm of my hand and hold the red kiss-mark to the camera.
I take dozens of photos until I am breathless from running back and forth to restart the timer. After downloading all the images to my computer, I click through them, hardly recognizing myself. If it weren’t for the presence of my bedroom in the background, nobody would guess it was me. It feels good in the way the East 48 photo did, though I never left my room.
I only left myself.
But this time, there’s no one to send the photo to, no one to fool into thinking I’m more fun or interesting or special than I am. There’s no Jenna on the other end of a text message to say “OMG!”
There’s no one out there at all.
So I go to Instagram, where there’s always someone. Instead of signing in as Kat, I start a new account. I call it “Vicurious.” Maybe I want Jenna to find it and know it’s me. Or maybe I simply want proof that I exist outside my own bedroom. I drag one of the crazy pictures I just took into Photoshop so I can replace my bedroom with a plain, white background. Then I upload it as my profile picture.
And there I am: 0 Posts; 0 Followers; 0 Following.
I decide to post something, just to see if I get followers, though the very idea of followers makes me nervous. Total strangers watching me? I laugh at myself, since that’s exactly what I do to Hallie and Adrian and even Raj. They don’t know I’m watching, since I haven’t officially followed them, which means anyone could be watching me and I wouldn’t know it, either.
I’m in disguise, though. I look in the mirror again. Nobody will recognize me. I’m anonymous. Imagined. Not a real person. They can’t hurt me if I’m not real. Can they?