Watch Me Disappear (5 page)

The good part of my obsession is that I am getting into excellent shape by walking to the library. It is almost three miles from our house, with several hills thrown in for good measure. I don’t have to walk both ways. I walk there and then go to Gram’s after, and my mom picks me up on her way back from her errands. For her part, she’s delighted that I am interested in “getting exercise” and is already offering to take me to the outlets for new school clothes because she is sure my old ones will be “hanging off me” by the fall. “No more big sweatshirts for you,” she keeps saying. She isn’t thrilled about having to see my grandmother so frequently, but she knows it is her daughter-in-law duty.

The worst part about walking to the library is the catcalls and other taunts from people driving by. Apparently it is unusual to be a pedestrian around this town, and people in cars get endless entertainment out of seeing someone walking. Creepy old guys whistle, and fellow teenagers jeer about my lack of wheels. But when I’m walking, I’m on a mission. I need to go see how my online life is shaping up.

So far I have a budding friendship with fellow Wilson High newbie Missy Howston. She’s one of the ones who friended me back when I first set the account up, and we have a lot in common. Both of us have moved around a lot because of our dads’ jobs, both of us are applying to prestigious, selective colleges, and both of us have thus far found high school to be a cold, unwelcoming place. While I’m into the arts and humanities, Missy is interested in sciences, but we both are good students with hefty loads of AP classes, so I can forgive her for being more interested in molecules than sonnets. So far I’ve kept my growing friendship with Missy limited to conversations via Facebook. She suggested IM, but how would I explain to my parents who I was talking to all the time? I never leave the house without at least one of my parents except to go to the library, so I’d have to come up with some kind of fantastic lie to explain my new friend. Besides, we’ll see each other face to face in a few weeks when school starts.

Most people from Wilson High have accepted my friend requests but then they just let me languish in their long lists of friends. Not many have bothered to reject me, which is nice—I mean, no one likes to get rejected, even on Facebook. And the great thing is that even if people who have friended me don’t post things on my wall or stuff like that, I get to see everyone’s status updates. I am suddenly informed of all the social happenings of my school. That is a new experience. Whenever someone posts something interesting in their status update, I check out their profile and see what else I can discover. In an excellent turn of events someone started sending around a note called “25 Random Things About Me.” Basically everyone just makes a list of random things and then they ask friends to post their random things. I can read all about my new classmates. When I walk into school the first day, I will know the faces and interests of tons of people. It’s bizarre.

Last week, after a hot and sweaty trek to the library, I logged on to discover that Missy had posted her 25 random things, and she had tagged me to do the same. I wasn’t sure about this. Posting something for everyone to read—wouldn’t people think that was dorky? Then again, everyone else was doing it, too. I couldn’t handle whipping up a list right then and there off the top of my head. If I’m going to create a list, I want it to be good. Most people’s lists are trite and boring—favorite color, favorite movie, things like that. I want my list to stand out. I want to create a list that makes me seem smart, funny, witty, poetic. I want people to read it and like me.

I spent an entire week contemplating my list. I actually made several drafts. One was sarcastic and self-deprecating, and when I reread it, I knew if I posted it, I’d just seem like an elitist snob. One was sincere to the point of sappy. Obviously I couldn’t share that one. I did write one I was very fond of, but it had a serious flaw: Most of what I wrote in it was not true. It was all revisions of actual fact. For instance, in one item I wrote that I once went diving off of cliffs in Hawaii. Actually, my family took a vacation to Hawaii when we lived in California, and we went to these beautiful pools fed by waterfalls where you could go diving, but I just stood there, on the cliff, for like an hour, trying to work up the nerve to jump. In the end, I just walked back down and watched my dad and brother. It was all stuff like that—how I wished things were, instead of the truth. That one I just filed away in my journal.

Like all Facebook fads, “25 Random Things About Me” quickly faded as a hot topic, and I never managed to post one, which is okay with me in the end. I’m not interested in Facebook to share my life; I’m interested in everyone else.

Chapter 4

“Music in the Park” is what everyone was talking about on Facebook the other day. I have gleaned that it’s some kind of week-long festival with music and food and other entertainment in City Park. Thursday night is a high school battle of the bands. Mrs. Morgan filled my mother in on the event, even suggesting that I go with Maura and her friends to meet more people. Clearly she didn’t run that one by Maura first. My mother badgered me to go, to get out there and have fun “like all the other kids.” It does sound like it could be fun,
if
you have friends to go with, which obviously I do not. Or so I thought. Then, this afternoon, I got a message from Missy asking me if I want to meet her to go hear the bands. She suggested I have my parents drop me off at her house, which is near the park, so we can walk over together.

Hang out with someone I met online? It doesn’t seem like a great idea. Missy hasn’t posted any photos yet; maybe “Missy” is really some sexual predator, just like my parents always warn me about. Besides, I still don’t know how I will explain to my parents how I met her. In the message, she included her cell phone number. I scribbled it down in my notebook—if only my parents allowed me a cell phone, I would have called her on the spot—and logged off the computer. All afternoon I have been contemplating the situation.

I can’t ask for a ride. I can’t have Missy pick me up at my house. I can’t drive myself. I can’t think of a single way to make it happen. Unless I beg Maura for a ride. How would that go? I’d have to explain to her why my parents don’t know about Facebook or Missy. I’d probably have to apologize for using her computer. And still I can’t really picture her agreeing. Well, at least calling Missy will reassure me that she isn’t some sex fiend posing as a teenage girl. I’ll hear her voice and talk to her and maybe we’ll make a plan.

*          *          *

I dial the number Missy gave me and after a couple of rings it goes to voice mail. I guess everyone screens calls from numbers they don’t recognize. Makes sense. I leave a message, and a minute later she calls back.

“Wow! It’s so cool to finally talk to you,” she says. “We should have exchanged numbers weeks ago.”

It’s true. For almost a month I’ve been walking my butt off to carry out a choppy Email correspondence with her, and all I ever needed to do was pass along my number. It’s absurd. Then again, the eternal problem: How would I have explained to my parents this newfound friend? Even at that very moment, if my mother came in and asked who was on the phone, what would I say?

“So listen,” I say. “My parents are kind of strict.” I pause, trying to figure out how to explain my predicament.

“Look, if you don’t want to go, it’s cool,” Missy says, suddenly sounding defensive.

“That’s not it at all! Let me explain.” I tell her about how I have been sneaking around to use Facebook and how as far as my parents are concerned I have yet to make any friends here. She waits patiently.

“Geez,” she says when I finish. “There must be some way, though, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. I mean, what’s a plausible way we might have met?” And as I say the words, I think of one. “We could say we met at the library,” I say, before Missy has a chance to throw out any ideas.

“Hmmm, that could work, unless your parents talk to my parents. I’ve never gone to the library here.”

“My parents are pretty big on meeting friends’ parents,” I say.

“What if I go to the library tomorrow? That way, at least my parents will know I’ve been there,” she says.

“Wait, do you drive?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Of course. Everyone going into senior year of high school drives. “So you can just go there any time?” I ask.

“Sure, but it’s really close to my house, so I don’t really need to drive.”

“And you can walk from the library to the concert?” I ask. A plan is developing. I will tell my parents I am going to the concert with a girl I met at the library, and that we are meeting at the library before the concert to walk there together. Then my parents can pick me up at the end of the night and meet Missy and everything will be cool. Even if they want to meet her first, my mom can drop me at the library and meet her then. I convey the idea to Missy, and she’s on board.

There is only one other thing to find out: What she looks like. For one thing, I have to greet her as if I’ve seen her before and recognize her easily on sight. For another, what if she looks like a freak? My parents will not be OK with me going anywhere with a Goth, or a grungy girl, or someone with piercings, tattoos, or a crazy hair color.

“OK, well I hope this doesn’t sound weird, but can you tell me what you look like?”

Missy laughs. “Yeah, my parents will only let me use Facebook if I don’t post a picture. Apparently they’re afraid some creep will stalk me.”

I feel better. I’m not the only one with strict parents, and Missy isn’t afraid of posting a picture because she’s strange looking or something like that. She tells me she’s 5’8” with curly red hair and freckles.

“Anyway, I’ll recognize you from your picture, right, so I can just greet you with extra enthusiasm to convince your mom we’ve known each other for ages,” she says.

When we hang up the phone, I am amazed at myself. Can I really deceive my parents this way? Am I becoming the type of person who makes friends online? I’m also nervous. It is so easy to be both utterly invisible and boldly outgoing online. I have presented myself as a confident, witty person, but I know I’m anything but. What if in person we have nothing to talk about? What if Missy meets me and immediately thinks I’m not cool? But as nervous as I am, I am excited to have concocted a sneaky plan with a friend. It seems like such a stereotypical teenage thing, and yet it’s something I’ve never before done.

If a secret plan isn’t enough to create the initial bonds of friendship, what is?

*          *          *

After Missy and I get off the phone, I begin mentally rehearsing how to ask my parents to let me go to the concert. I know I’ll have to wait until dinner and get my appeal just right. I learned at a young age that when I want permission to do something, I should ask my parents at dinner when both of them are present. When I do, my father tempers my mother’s habitual objections and I have at least a chance of getting my way. If I approach my mother alone, I can be guaranteed she’ll turn me down no matter what I ask for—even if it is something she might like if she suggested it to me. The fact that
I
want it changes everything. And if I just go to my dad, he’ll usually half listen, tell me it sounds good, and then add, “Just check with your mother first to be sure.” Right. The only way to ask for anything is to get them both in the same room. Whenever my dad is out of town for work, I know better than to ask for a single thing.

I put off asking through salad and only when we are all half-way through our dry baked chicken do I finally take a deep breath and make my request. “I think I’d like to go to Music in the Park on Thursday after all,” I say, looking at my mother.

“I’m glad. I think you’ll have fun,” she says, but I am pretty sure she isn’t going to like the next bit of news. As I consider how to bring up Missy, my mother continues, “I’ll call Patty tonight. Maybe you and Maura could chat to make plans.”

“Actually, mom,” I start. I don’t look at her this time. I move some chicken around my plate.

“Eat your food or put your fork down,” she says.

I obligingly set my fork down. “I’d rather go with this other girl, Missy,” I say, looking at my hands.

“What are you talking about?” she asks.

“This girl, Missy, I met her at the library a few weeks ago, and I’d rather go with her.” I look at my father for encouragement.

“A few weeks ago?” my mother says.

“That’s nice,” my father chimes in.

“You met her a few weeks ago and this is the first we’re hearing about her?” my mother asks. “This is why you’ve been walking to the library? To meet some strange girl named Missy?” She spits out the name with disgust. My mother has very strong opinions about names; she feels that children need good, sturdy, old-fashioned names that won’t embarrass them when they get older. Missy is one of the names she hates, right up there with Lacey and Jade.

“Am I supposed to tell you everything every day?” My father and brother are constantly counseling me to avoid such defensive replies, but I can never remember to hold my tongue.

“We like to know who you spend your time with. How can you expect us to let you go somewhere with someone we’ve never seen? We haven’t even met her parents. You know we need to trust your friends’ parents.”

And that is why I never have any friends. “The fact that you’d trust me to go out with Maura shows just how little use it is for you to know my friends’ parents. Maura’s not the sort of girl you want me hanging around. Believe me,” I say, crossing my arms and leaning back in my chair.

“Maura is a lovely girl,” my mother answers. I cannot fathom how she formed that opinion.

“Tell us more about your friend Missy,” my father says.

I look at my mother to see if I should say any more or just drop it.

“Fine,” she says. “What about this Missy?”

“Well, like I said, we met at the library, and we’ve met up there a few times since then to work on summer reading and stuff. The first time we met, we were in line next to each other to check out books and she noticed what I was taking out. We got to talking and it seemed like we have a lot in common,” I say, twisting the edge of the tablecloth in front me, not looking at either of my parents.