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 note, 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?”