Beth Ann is cracking up.
“Don’t forget this one.” She does the clichéd John Travolta Saturday Night Fever pose. I took a Vicurious photo like that but I don’t think I’ve used it yet. Or ever will, now.
“Naturally.” Marvo mimics the pose. Then does another that vaguely resembles Washington Crossing the Delaware. “And this.”
“You could wear a tricornered hat. Nothing else.”
Marvo laughs, tips an imaginary hat, and waggles his eyebrows at Beth Ann. “At your service, ma’am.”
“Great. And we’ll all be expelled.” Marissa huffs. “Or arrested.”
“We can deny any knowledge,” says Marvo. “Someone snuck into the yearbook office and Photoshopped naked people into the pictures. We had no idea. Nobody has to know we have a Photoshop genius in our midst.”
They all turn and look at me.
“You’re a Photoshop genius?” asks Marissa.
“Uhh . . .” I shake my head, face burning.
“She vanquished an obscene gesture from one of your hockey photos in like five seconds flat,” says Marvo.
Beth Ann laughs. “Doesn’t mean she wants to Photoshop your naked ass into every yearbook photo. Maybe it’s not such a great idea, after all.”
“You think?” Marissa rolls her eyes, repositions her notebook on her knee. “Any suggestions that won’t ruin our chances of getting into college?”
Marvo slumps into his chair again, and gives me a weak smile.
Beth Ann lifts her feet, tapping the yin and yang tips of her red Converse high-tops together. “How about this. No head shots. Only feet. Everyone will be identified and remembered by the fabulousness of their shoes.”
I tuck my slightly scuffed tan oxfords under my chair.
Marvo holds a boat-sized foot aloft. “Size thirteen, baby. And you know what they say about—”
“Please,” says Marissa. “This is a yearbook meeting, not a presidential debate.”
Marvo groans.
Beth Ann steps on his feet and they start walking around the room like that, her Converse on top of his.
I observe from my corner desk, nervous to be this close to the action. Vicurious belongs here, not me. And if they’ve discovered we are one and the same, then she is lost.
I don’t think I can bear to lose her, too.
Marissa closes her notebook and shoves it into her backpack. “Never mind. We’ll just do the same boring stuff.”
“Aw, come on. We’ll think of something.” Marvo extricates himself from Beth Ann. “Give us a day or two.”
“Fine,” says Marissa. “Just let me know if anyone has an idea that doesn’t suck.”
I do have an idea, which probably sucks, and it would lead them dangerously close to Vicurious. So I keep it to myself. I quietly gather my things, and when they aren’t paying attention, I slip out of the room.
The bell hasn’t rung yet, so the hall is nearly empty. The stillness of it only magnifies the roar that almost constantly fills my ears, my brain, my chest when I’m at school and danger seems to lurk behind every corner. The harried start of my day has only made it louder. I steer for the nearest girls’ bathroom, passing Mrs. Greene’s office on the way. Her door is open. She’s in there, but the overhead fluorescents are off. Only the twinkly lights she has strung along the walls are illuminated. It seems peaceful, and I am tempted to go in. She looks up and sees me and smiles.
I drop my eyes to the floor and hurry to the bathroom.
My usual stall is empty. I lock myself in and try to catch my breath. When Jenna was here, this hardly ever happened. She’d see me in the hall and nudge my arm and say “hey” and that’s all it took. She was my own personal reset button.
Now, every little thing piles up until I’m buried under it and can hardly breathe. And it’s so completely ridiculous and I know it is. My mother gave me a juice box, people spoke to me and smiled at me, and you’d think I was being chased by a pack of slobbering hyenas.
Why does every single thing have to feel like a pack of slobbering hyenas?
The bell rings and the bathroom fills, and people are waiting so I can’t stay in here or they’ll start banging or wondering what’s wrong with me. I flush the toilet and go to the sink to wash my hands.
There are two girls fixing their hair and makeup at the mirror. If they notice me, they don’t acknowledge it.
“Ugh. I’m breaking out. Do you have concealer?” says the one standing nearest to me. Her name is Mallory. She sits in front of me in biology.
The other girl digs around in her makeup bag and hands a tube to Mallory. “Don’t use it all.”
I’m drying my hands when one of the other stall doors opens and Hallie Bryce comes out. She glides to the only empty sink. Mallory and her friend stop in mid-makeup-application to stare at her. Even in this dingy bathroom, the sight of Hallie is breathtaking.
She dries her hands and glides out. Mallory and her friend watch her go. The minute she’s through the door they turn to each other and say, in unison, “Oh my God.”
Then they laugh and turn back to the mirror.
“Is she even human?” says Mallory.
Her friend shakes her head. “Impossible. Nobody is that perfect.”
Mallory dabs concealer on a blemish. “I bet she never gets zits.”
“I hate her.”
“So do I.”
I find myself wanting to defend Hallie—Hallie Bryce who is beautiful and graceful and talented and . . . absolutely does not need me to defend her. She’s got thousands of followers online, and not like my followers, who aren’t actually following me but a fictional character. Hallie is a human work of art and obviously doesn’t care what a couple of girls sharing zit concealer in the bathroom at Richardson High School think of her.
Mallory and her friend giggle some more and leave, not the least bit concerned that I heard the whole conversation. I look at myself in the mirror, at my gray oversized sweater and my mousy hair that is neither blond nor brown but somewhere in between. I am concrete and linoleum.
Invisible.
No one will ever guess that I’m Vicurious. They don’t even see me.
11
I SLOUCH LOW ON THE bus ride home, knees pressed to the seat in front of me, eyes level with the bottom of the window. The urge to text Jenna is strong. An ache, almost. I check her Instagram instead. It doesn’t make the ache go away, just shifts it from my chest to my stomach. New selfies with Tristan pop up on the screen. Laughing, smiling, kissing. Her hair is perfect. Her makeup is perfect. Her eyes are even lined.
Since when does she wear eyeliner?
I click back to Vicurious. She’s up to 4,121 followers. The Where’s Waldo post has 237 likes. I scroll through them, look for Marvo. If he’s following, then I’ll know where he got the whole naked Where’s Waldo idea. There’s no Marvolicious, but plenty of other interesting names. One girl, invisiblemimi, posts selfies where she crops most of herself out of the photo. She shows only her shoulder, or part of her face, or her hand. She adds the #seeme tag on everything. But she also uses #dontseeme and #ignored and #lonely and #talktome and #donttalktome.