how to disappear

chapter 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 ampathetic. 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.

The baby-powder-and-hair-spray trick worked pretty well on the yin-yang tattoo, which has hardly faded. I set up my bedroom like a photo studio with a sheet draped along the wall and down the floor. The white background will make it easier to cut around my form and place myself in different photos. I take a few shots where I’m standing straight on, then walking toward the left and right, à la Waldo. The process is tiring, because I have to run back and forth to the Photo Booth application on my computer to start the timer for each one. I’m getting better, though, at knowing how to hold a pose and set the lighting just right.