How to Disappear Read online

  There’s Hallie Bryce, of course. Her pictures are so ethereal and peaceful, the way she bends herself to match the shape of tree limbs or tiptoes delicately through the tulips. Today she’s doing some kind of backbend pose on a park bench, with one leg pointed skyward. I just can’t imagine going out in public, putting on pointe shoes, and contorting myself into these shapes while people walk past. Maybe that’s why I’m so infatuated with her Instagram. She’s like a superhero to me.

  I check in on Raj Radhakrishnan, who posts selfies constantly and always from inside his house rather than anywhere interesting. He’s like the anti-Hallie. Yet I can’t look away. Every day he stands in the same corner of his living room, posing the exact same way. His shirt changes; his glossy, black hair grows over time and then is suddenly shorter. The room brightens and dims with the weather. It’s become a puzzle for me, finding what has changed. Today, an intricately patterned pillow rests on the couch at a different angle. A candle on the table is slightly shorter. I keep looking for a new expression on Raj’s face, but it’s always the same. Not happy or sad. Just there.

  I flip through some other favorites from my school—a girl who knits, another who walks dogs, one with a nail polish and book fetish, a guy who’s building a race car. They are solitary but fascinating.

  Also fascinating, but in a totally different way, are the popular kids. The OMG-look-how-much-fun-we’re-having people. They take selfies with twenty friends crammed into a single picture. They backflip and high-five and tackle-hug and cheesy-grin their way through life. They are confident and fearless and cool.

  I end up back on YouTube, at Adrian Ahn’s channel. He’s posted a new video from last night’s East 48 concert. It’s not great—taken on someone’s phone—but the crowd is going nuts. They’re literally bouncing. Jumping up and down like pogo sticks. The music is fast and Adrian is drumming at a frenzied pace, his hair flying. It’s invigorating just watching.

  The band’s logo pulses on the front of Adrian’s drum. They got their name from a road near our town. I saw an interview with the lead singer, Rupert, who’s from England, talking about how they couldn’t come up with a band name. So one day, they were driving along, and decided they’d name the band after the next thing they saw out the window. And they saw the sign for Route 48 East. “We came bloody close to being called ‘Lady with a Stroller’ or ‘Gigantic Cemetery,’” he said.

  I crank the volume and watch the video again, bouncing along with the crowd. I can almost feel the floor shaking and the beat pulsing through my bones. Adrian is going completely crazy on the drums and the fans are dancing like mad. I pause the video and take a screen grab. As a photo, it’s blurry. But I like the motion of it.

  And then I have an idea.

  I drag the image into Photoshop, then set up my monitor so the Photo Booth on my computer is pointing toward my blank wall, click the little photo button, and fling myself around so I’m dancing like a lunatic when the photo snaps.

  The angle’s all wrong, though, and I look slightly deranged with my massive hair flying and my big, baggy sweater billowing. I find a hairband and flip my head upside down, tying my hair into a high ponytail. I dig around in my jewelry box for a pair of dangly earrings my mother bought for me last Christmas. I pull off my sweater to expose the plain black T-shirt underneath.

  What I do next would probably earn me some weird stares if anyone was watching. Because I’m flinging myself around, then lunging toward the computer to press the photo button, then flinging myself around again to make sure I’m dancing when the three-second timer goes off. I push the photo button and dance and push the photo button and dance and push the photo button until I have about twenty images to choose from.

  Then I catch my breath, select the best photo, and Photoshop myself into the crowd. This one’s harder than the bus scene. I have to motion blur my image before layering it over the other, so it looks like I’m really there dancing. The color temperature in my room is different than the purplish hue of the concert, so I have to adjust it to match. Then I use the airbrush tool to blend myself into the scene.

  I turn the music back up and stare at the picture and it almost feels real. I’m there. Only I’m not worried that people are laughing at me, or I’m dancing wrong, or I don’t belong. I’m at the concert, not caring what anybody thinks.

  I’m fiddling with the image, making slight modifications, when my phone starts vibrating across my desk. I scoop it up. It’s Jenna.

  “You’re alive!” I practically sing into the phone, still pumped from my pseudo-adventure. “I thought you were blowing me off.”

  She doesn’t say anything, which is weird, since she called me.

  “We must have a bad connection. Can you hear me?”

  Nothing. But it’s not totally silent. There are muffled voices in the background.

  “Jenna!” I shout into the phone. “Are you there?”

  No answer.

  Did she just butt dial me?

  I flop onto my bed, turn the volume on my phone all the way up, and press it to my ear. Someone’s bouncing a basketball. There’s laughing. One voice is Jenna’s. I’d know her laugh anywhere. There’s a male voice, too. I catch snippets of conversation.

  “Come on,” the guy says.

  “. . . have to go.” That’s Jenna.

  “You just got here.”

  Bounce. Bounce.

  “She’s waiting.”

  I open my mouth to speak, to try and shout loud enough to get her attention, but then I hear his reply.

  “. . . such a drag . . . Let her wait.”

  More bouncing. Mumbling. My heart pounds.

  “. . . needs me,” says Jenna. “I’m her only friend.”

  “So you’re just going to text her all day?”

  “No.” Jenna sounds sulky.

  There’s a banging noise in the background, like a basketball hitting a board, then more bouncing. It stops, and is replaced by a different sound—like he’s slapping a hand against the ball.

  “She needs to get a life,” he says.

  I lift my hand to my mouth, phone still pressed to my ear. The pause before Jenna speaks again is excruciating, but not nearly as painful as what she says next.

  “Yeah.” She snorts. “I guess it is kind of pathetic.”

  I drop the phone as if it’s burning my fingers, my breath coming in short gasps like the hiccups after a hard cry. Tears burn my eyes. I can still hear the mumble of their voices. That damn basketball pounding in my chest. I fumble to turn off the phone, so they won’t realize I’ve been listening.

  So I won’t hear any more.

  It takes a minute to process what just happened. Jenna was talking about me. With her new boyfriend. Who thinks I need to get a life. She . . . she told him I’m pathetic? No, she snorted that I’m pathetic.

  I stare at the phone, my thumb hovering over her number. I’ll call her. I’ll tell her I heard everything she just said, and how could she say that? She’ll say she’s sorry. She’ll tell me she’s done with that guy, that he’s a jerk. That she was only agreeing with him because she felt she had to, being new and all.

  But I can’t press her number, because what if she really does think I’m pathetic?

  How could she not?

  I drop into the chair in front of my computer and stare at the Photoshopped image of myself dancing at the concert. Even though it’s all fake, I look . . . good. Like I’m having fun. Not pathetic. If Jenna saw me like this—if she could show her new friends—she wouldn’t have to be embarrassed by me.

  So I email it to myself. Then I open my phone, and I paste the photo into the text window below my last desperate plea to Jenna. And I write:

  Went to the East 48 concert last night! So much fun.

  I hit send, then wipe my tears. It only takes a few seconds for that “ . . . ” bubble to pop up on Jenna’s side, then:

  OMG! Jealous!

  Adrian was amazing.

  !!!!!!!

>   :-)

  I can’t believe it! Call me!

  I don’t write any more than that. And I don’t call. I’m mad at her for saying what she said, for dismissing me so easily. When my phone rings a few minutes later, I let it go to voice mail. Maybe I’ll check it tomorrow, and maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ve fooled her into thinking I’m not so pathetic after all. It will only be a matter of time before she realizes that I still am, that nothing has changed. And worse, that I’ve lied to her.

  But maybe it’s best to leave her thinking I’m off doing something fabulous, so she won’t feel bad about leaving me behind.

  4

  FABULOUS IS NOT HOW I feel the next morning when I press myself against the wall outside the yearbook office, hoping to disappear into the painted concrete blocks. Marissa DiMarco told me to meet her here. She texted this morning before I left for school, which thankfully gave me the opportunity to pack two extra T-shirts as backups for the inevitable sweat-through, which is happening at this very moment.

  I see Raj at his locker. Alone. Two other Indian kids walk past and pretty obviously ignore him. His not-happy-not-sad face falters, but only for a second. Then he’s back to neutral, shoulders square and walking away. Something is definitely going on there, but I have no idea what. I recognize the green collared shirt he’s wearing. It’s his favorite, I think, because it appears most often in his selfies.

  The fact that I know this pretty much confirms that I am, in fact, a pathetic weirdo stalker.

  Lipton walks past, too, and I am studiously averting my eyes when the door to the yearbook office opens and Marissa’s head pops out, inches from mine. “There you are. Are you coming in?”

  The temperature of my face rises about a thousand degrees. I didn’t even think to knock. I just assumed she’d meet me out here, in the hallway . . . because I am an idiot. I follow her in. She sits in a rolling chair and pushes herself across the room.

  “Quick tour. This is my desk. That’s Beth Ann’s and that’s Marvo’s. Everyone else shares those.” She points to the various workstations, some with computers, some without. “I already assigned layout and writing of all the sections, but Mrs. Greene said you could help with photo editing?”

  I swallow and nod.

  “Great. Our photographers download everything here.” She clicks open a folder on her computer screen. “Then somebody, usually me, has to go through and pick out the best stuff. Most of it needs Photoshopping. Not changing what people look like or anything, but brightening the image, cropping, getting rid of anything inappropriate. Maybe you could help with that?”

  I nod again.

  She rips a blank page from a notebook and scribbles down a series of letters and numbers. “This is the computer password. You can come in whenever you want. Just choose one of the folders from this file, go through the photos, drag the good ones over here.”

  She demonstrates everything and shows me where to leave questions on a group chat that other staff members can access. And in the course of about five minutes, I’m officially a member of the Richardson High School Yearbook staff. I can come and go as I please. I don’t have to talk to anyone or go to meetings or give high fives or even sit in the same room at the same time as anyone else. I can just slip behind a computer in the corner and do what I do best—watch from the sidelines. I don’t even have to do it in a creepy way. It’s actually my job. Or my guidance-counselor-sanctioned activity, at least.

  The best part? For the first time all year, I’ll have a place to eat my lunch that doesn’t smell like hair spray and Lysol. The thought of it gets me through my morning classes, and helps me work up the nerve to go back to the yearbook office at lunch period. It is blessedly empty, so I settle in at a computer in the corner, open one of the folders Marissa showed me, and pull out my lunch. Two minutes later, as I’m clicking through images from a field hockey game, the door is flung open and two kids come bursting in. It’s Beth Ann Price and Marvo Jones.

  They see me and Marvo says, “Hey.”

  My throat feels tight, so rather than risk trying to speak, I give him a small nod and glance at Beth Ann. She’s staring at my . . . feet? I follow her gaze to my shoes, the ones I wear every day, which are tan suede oxfords I found at the thrift store. I hate wearing new shoes, because everyone notices new shoes. Nobody notices a pair that are already a little scuffed.

  Except Beth Ann Price, apparently. I tuck my feet under my chair.

  “Hey,” she says. “Welcome to yearbook.”

  “Thanks,” I whisper. Dammit. Too quiet.

  Marvo takes a step toward me to see what I’m working on. “Field hockey?”

  I nod.

  Beth Ann snorts. “Good luck with that.”

  My eyes widen. I have no idea what she means.

  “Marissa’s the captain,” Marvo explains. “No pressure.”

  I swallow and turn back to the photos. Choosing the best ones was the one thing I wasn’t worried about. I mean, I know a good photo when I see one. I should’ve realized it wouldn’t be that simple. Should I pick all the photos Marissa is in? Will that look like I’m sucking up? Or will it make people think she’s an egomaniac, since everyone knows she’s the editor? I don’t want to piss her off. I have no expectation of becoming friends with her, but I really don’t want to be enemies. She’ll tell Mrs. Greene it isn’t working out. I’ll be forced to join the handbell choir.

  Suddenly, Beth Ann’s hand is covering mine, which is shaking as I grip the mouse too tight. I’m rattling the whole table.

  “Don’t freak out,” she says. “I was kidding. Pick the best shots. Just make sure there’s one of Marissa, and that she looks halfway decent in it. Treat her like you would any team captain. You’ll be fine.”

  I nod. Try to breathe normally.

  She releases my hand and goes to her desk. Marvo sits next to her and they pull out their lunches and start working, talking quietly to each other.

  I take a few breaths and flip through the photos. There are hundreds from this single game, and there will be hundreds more from other games. I’m supposed to save only a few from each. I pick the best one I can find of Marissa—just one. She’s lunging for the ball with the fiercest expression on her face, lips snarling around her mouth guard. It’s a great shot. I crop it a bit, brighten the color and fix the contrast, and dump it into the “best of” folder.

  There are two others I like. One of a girl sitting on the bench, leaning her chin on the end of her stick. And another of the team manager dragging a sack of equipment. I save those, too, and dump the rest in the archives folder.

  Then I click once more through the few I’ve selected.

  “Good eye,” says Marvo, making me jump. He’s standing right behind me.

  My pulse immediately starts throbbing in my neck. “Thanks,” I croak.

  “Except you might want to do something about that.” He reaches over my shoulder and points at the photo on the screen, at a guy in the stands who is making one of the inappropriate gestures Marissa warned me about.

  “Oh.” I zoom in and hide the offending finger by cloning a bit of nearby background and covering it with that. It looks like a fist now, like the guy is simply cheering.

  “Wow. You’re good,” says Marvo. “I’m Marvo, by the way. That’s Beth Ann.” He nods toward where she’s standing by the door.

  “I’m Vicky.” My voice comes out clearly this time, and at a normal volume.

  Beth Ann throws the door open and gestures for Marvo to go ahead of her. He gives a little bow and skips out, which makes her laugh. She glances back at me and says, “Later, Vic.”

  I raise a wobbly hand to wave, but they’re already gone.

  I’ve never had a nickname. Vicky isn’t even short for Victoria. My given name is Vicky. Nobody’s ever called me anything but Vicky.

  It feels kind of nice to be someone other than Vicky.

  I revel in my new identity all afternoon, imagining a much cooler version of myself saying, “Cal
l me Vic” whenever someone asks my name. I’m even looking forward to texting Jenna about it when I get on the bus, until I remember I’m not texting Jenna anymore. Besides, how pathetic is it that I got all excited about someone abbreviating my name? Also, I got the shakes over choosing field hockey photos.

  Still, I can’t resist checking her Instagram, at least. There was nothing new when I looked this morning, but now there is. And for the first time, she’s got company for her daily selfie. It’s Tristan, his cheek pressed up against hers, and they’re both making sexy faces now.

  Ugh.

  I close the Instagram app and swipe it off the screen so their faces are completely gone, not even hiding in the background sucking my battery life. There are phone messages, though, and a dozen new texts since I sent her the Photoshopped concert pic.

  I put the phone to my ear and play the first message.

  “Oh. My. God. I can’t believe you went to an East 48 concert! By yourself?” She squeals and then laughs. “Seriously, who are you and what have you done with Vicky Decker? Anyway, call me. I need details. Stat.”

  A pang of guilt twists my stomach. I really fooled her. She’s so excited for me. I can almost forget what I overheard on the phone, that she thinks I need to get a life. But that sends another kind of twist through my gut. I press play on her next message.

  “Vicky! Where are you? Don’t tell me you’re hanging out with Adrian Ahn now.” Uproarious laughter. Despite the photo, she knows that’s not possible. “Who did you go to the concert with? Someone took that photo of you dancing and looking, wow . . . you look so great. Call me, okay? I’ll be here all night.”

  I save the final message until I’m home and sitting in front of my computer. The picture I doctored of myself with Jenna’s new bus friends is filling the screen. I can’t stand seeing myself with them anymore. They stole my best friend. I don’t want anything to do with them. A few clicks reverse all the changes I made, and leaves Jenna in her rightful place.