So I ditch the Dalai Lama and start searching for the biggest concert I can find. I’ve got my neon-yellow skirt and tights and black top and clunky sandals on, and my wig and bracelets and sunglasses. My lips are red. My yin-yang tattoo is freshly drawn. I take new photos against the white sheet, jumping around with an air guitar.
In less than an hour, I’m breathless, but I’m also on stage with the Foo Fighters at Wembley Stadium. Never mind that I was a little kid when they played that gig. What good is living vicariously if you can’t go back in time? I choose an image where lead singer Dave Grohl’s face is turned to the side, and position myself so it looks like we’re making eye contact. Jamming together. I blast their song “The Pretender” and post the image, writing: In which I time travel to the #foofighters
2008 Wembley Stadium concert.
I watch the notifications as they start to come in. Foo fans are noting which concerts they wish they’d been at and they’re tagging their friends and tagging me on their own photos from concerts they attended. They even start a new hashtag: #vicurious
And I’m so excited, I squeal. When I created my account, I thought the name was something Jenna might recognize because of how I always said “vicuriously” when I meant “vicariously.” But to see it as a hashtag and know that people are using it and . . . I started that? It’s weird. And wonderful.
I laugh at myself and continue to watch my feed as the comments come in and new followers show up. I click on the #vicurious tag every now and then to see new posts, and when I like them, people get all “OMG THANK YOU,” and “vicurious just liked my photo I can die happy now.”
I posted one picture with the Foo Fighters and now it’s like they’re carrying me around on their shoulders.
The last time something like this happened—on my post with Neil deGrasse Tyson—I backed away from it. The attention kind of scared me. This time, I decide to see how far it can go. I take a bunch of photos of myself lying on the floor—arms and legs outstretched at various angles. I find a more recent concert picture online of some shirtless guy crowd surfing atop a Foo Fighters audience that’s going totally bonkers. You can see the band onstage, hair and sweat flying. It’s perfect.
I do a little precision Photoshopping to put myself in place of the shirtless guy in the photo. The volume of my skirt and sticking-outedness of my wig help hide the gaps between our different-shaped silhouettes. I use the airbrush tool to feather around the hard edges of my shape so they blend into the picture.
Satisfied with the results, I post the new image. I write: Feeling the love, Foo fans! #foofighters #vicurious I lie back in bed, raising my phone to my face every few minutes to see how many likes the post is getting. Foo fans are all over it. Someone comments: I was there! For realz!
Others chime in:
Me too!
And maybe I shouldn’t feel like I was really there, but I do. I turn the music up even louder and close my eyes, and I can feel their hands holding me up. After a while, my purple-and-orange wig is no longer a wig, but real hair. Strands of it stick to my sweaty face and neck. I can see Dave Grohl thrashing around onstage, and feel the pounding of the bass from the speakers.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Vicky!”
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Wake up!”
I lift my head, disoriented. I must’ve fallen half-asleep because it takes a moment of looking around my room to realize I’m not at the concert. I swing my feet to the floor and reach to turn down the volume on my speakers.
“Vicky! For Christ’s sake, answer me!” It’s Mom. She’s pounding on the door.
“I’m up! I’m awake.” I stumble from my bed to the door and fling it open, panting.
My mother reels backward when she sees me. “What the—”
I look down at myself. Reach a hand to my hair.
Oh, no. I forgot I was dressed as Vicurious.
“Mom, I—”
“What have you done to your new skirt?”
“I, uh . . . was just—”
“You’ve ruined it.”
I’m too panicked to form words, to make something up that explains my current state of bizarre.
“Now what will you wear to the party?” Mom’s eyes jump to my hair. “Please tell me that’s a wig.”
I tear the wig off, exposing my panty hose head wrap with all my hair shoved inside. I peel that off, too, mind racing for an explanation as my real hair spills out around my face. “It’s . . . I was . . . it’s for Halloween,” I stammer. “For a party. Marvo’s. It’s a punk rock theme. I was just trying to put together something . . .”
She sighs. “It’s great that you’re getting invited to parties. But did you have to ruin a perfectly good skirt? Couldn’t you have cut up your thrift store clothes instead?”
I drop my gaze to the shredded neon that hangs from my waist. I feel like a little girl caught dressing up in her mother’s clothes and playing with her makeup.
“Well, it’s . . . cute, I guess. For a punk rock party,” says Mom.
“Thanks.”
She reaches for the colored wig in my hand. Inspects it. “Thrift?”
I nod.
“And you’re actually going to wear this in public?”
I shrug. Of course I’m not, and she knows it.
“Are you sure everything is okay? This is a little . . . odd, even for you.” She hands me the wig.
“Yeah, thanks.”
I shuffle back into my room and sink to my bed again. Half my brain is still with Vicurious. The rest wants to go back there. It’s scary how quickly I immersed myself in the fantasy. It felt like a dream, crowd surfing at the Foo Fighters concert, but it didn’t disappear the way dreams normally do. It’s like there’s a muscle memory of it. The sensation of my body floating on a sea of hands—I can feel where they touched me. It made me feel powerful.
As Vicurious, I’m invincible. As Vicky?
Invisible.
I lie in bed with my phone and open Instagram again. Instead of seeking the energy of Foo Fighters fans, though, I find my way to those who feel #invisible, too.
They’re right where I left them. All #ignored and #lonely and hoping someone will #talktome #donttalktome #seeme #dontseeme. I start leaving comments again.
I see you.
You are not invisible.
Are you okay?
They send me smiles and thanks. They ask if I’m okay, too. And I don’t know how to answer. Vicurious is fine. She’s great. And she’s who they came for, who makes them feel special.
But me? I’m not so fine. I don’t say anything, though, because I’m afraid they won’t want her attention if they know she is someone like me.
13
BY FOUR O’CLOCK ON SATURDAY afternoon my followers have grown to 8,523, and I should be excited about that, but mostly I’m just trying not to throw up. The mere thought of knocking on Marissa DiMarco’s door or walking into a house full of people—her people—is making me ill.
I’m not going. There’s no way.
I kept meaning to tell my mother, but she was so excited about it. I didn’t want to get her upset or angry. And now it’s time to go. The party started a few minutes ago and the designated hour of leaving (so as to arrive fashionably late but not too late) is upon us. Mom is waiting for me in the living room and I am standing in front of my full-length mirror in the least party-going clothes imaginable. Baggy sweater, loose jeans, slightly scuffed shoes. The usual.