She hung up on me.
I listen to the dead line for a moment. Maybe she put me on hold like Mom put her on hold. But the dial tone is soon blaring in my ear so I know we’re disconnected. I also know my mother is eavesdropping. She’ll make me call back if I don’t talk.
So I talk.
“I’m sorry. I keep forgetting to charge my phone,” I say. “Is everything okay?”
I pause for her answer. Pretend she’s telling me something not okay.
“That sounds awful.”
I pause again, listen to the floor creaking in the next room.
“I’m fine. I got invited to a party at Marissa DiMarco’s this weekend. Adrian Ahn is going to be there.”
I imagine her reaction. I laugh. It doesn’t even sound that fake.
“I should go,” I say. “I’ve got homework.”
It hits me what she said a moment ago, right before she hung up. Tristan was right. And it feels like I’ve actually been hit. Punched. What was he right about? That I’m pathetic?
“Okay, bye,” I whisper.
The phone is still pressed to my ear when Mom comes bounding in. She pets a hand down my hair. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Her voice is all sweetness and light again.
Which makes me want to scream.
“What is going on with you? What was that all about?”
“I—”
“It’s just Jenna. I know you’re shy, but really.”
I don’t say anything. What is there to say? That I’m afraid to talk to the one person I’ve always been able to talk to, because I’m trying to pretend I’m someone she might actually want to talk to? I try to put words together to explain this, but Mom’s already on to the next thing.
“And I couldn’t help overhearing . . . that you mentioned Marissa’s party . . .”
I just sit here, trying not to let my head explode, while my mother talks at me. About me.
“ . . . which is just terrific. You can wear your new skirt . . .”
The new skirt I’ve cut to shreds. I reach my fingers slowly to my hair. Comb through it so it hangs in front of my face.
“. . . and the black top. And those earrings I got you . . .”
She keeps stroking the back of my hair, oblivious to what I’ve done to the front of it.
“. . . I’m so happy to see you getting out . . .”
Except she doesn’t see me. She’s absently petting the back of my head, looking out the window, where the Vicky of her dreams apparently resides.
“. . . your father will be so pleased.”
She says this whenever something pleases her. So it doesn’t sound so much like it’s all about her. My father really doesn’t care if I go to parties or not. He hates parties himself.
Mom gives the back of my head a final pat and moves to the refrigerator. I can’t really see her through my hair veil, but I can hear her taking stuff out and putting it on the counter.
“So, how’s Jenna?” she says.
I consider the various truthful answers to this question. Jenna has a boyfriend. Jenna thinks I’m pathetic. Jenna is clearly better off without me.
“She changed her hair,” I finally say. “Her mother didn’t even notice.”
10
I TRY TO DO HOMEWORK, but mostly end up reading the same paragraph over and over until it’s time for dinner, which is torture. Mom keeps talking about Marissa’s party. Dad tries to change the subject, but news of the fancy coffee machine they got at his office is no match for my mother.
“It makes all these flavors,” he says. “Caramel mocha. French vanilla.”
Mom gives him a patient smile, then turns back to me. “Do you think any of the parents will be staying?”
I stop midbite and pull the fork from my mouth. “At the party?”
“Yes, at the party.” She gives a breathy laugh-snort.
“Uhhh, no. This is a high school party, not a third-grade playdate.”
“I should at least pop in and say hello to Roberta.”
I glare. Dad eyeballs her over the top of his glasses.
She sighs. “It just seems a little rude to shove you out the door and speed off. Am I allowed to at least stop the car?”
Dad laughs. I do not.
“Maybe I’ll just stay home,” I say. “I don’t really want—”
“N-n-n-n-no.” She wags her finger. “Don’t even think about it. You’re going to that party.”
I blink at the uneaten food on my plate. How many parents force their children to go to parties? Is this normal? I take my dish to the sink and retreat to my room.
Mom calls after me when I’m halfway down the hall. “It’ll be fun! You’ll see!”
I shut my door a little harder than usual, pressing the lock with a forceful thrust of my thumb.
Jenna would laugh. She’d say, “Geez, get control of yourself.”
I never could throw a proper tantrum, storm out of a room like she could, ranting about the injustice of whatever it was—not being allowed to order pizza or getting a bad grade on a perfectly brilliant essay. She’d vent on my behalf, too, whenever I was left out of something or teased. She’d fume and stomp. I always felt better after, even if I never did the venting myself.
But she’s not here to vent for me now. So, I coil up with the tension of it, a spring that can’t be sprung, and lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling. I deserve this ceiling. Dull white. They could put that on my grave when I die. “She was dull white.” I am moping, just like Jenna said I would. Moping and contemplating the dull-whiteness of my ceiling.
How can I be mad at Jenna for calling me pathetic? I am pathetic. I’d rather hide in my room than go to a party, which is probably the definition of pathetic. But Jenna and I had plenty of fun not going to parties.
I spring up and go to the bottom drawer of my dresser, where I keep most of the clothes my mother buys for me. It’s like a rainbow in there; she’s always trying to convince me to dress more colorfully. I root through and pluck out a red-and-white-striped shirt. She thought it looked cute and French. I thought it looked a little Where’s Waldo.
I try it on with the neon-yellow skirt and the black-and-white zigzag tights, add the two-tone wig and red swirly X-ray-vision glasses, and . . . it’s absolutely hideous.
But definitely not dull.
I look like Waldo on crack. See, Jenna? Not moping. It’s time for Vicurious to do some Waldoing of her own.