Ghosted Read online

  But guess what? Crazy coincidence, they happened to be talking about us. Well, about our dates, anyway.

  Nicky Braun says, “Did you see Marley dancing with her dad before? She’s so lucky. He looks so young and he seems so much cooler than all the other dads.”

  Marley and E@11 lock eyes and raise their eyebrows. They silently giggle behind their hands.

  “Wait, which one?” Maddie asks.

  “Which one what?” Nicky asks.

  “Which dad?” Maddie clarifies. “Marley has two of them.”

  “No way. I didn’t realize,” says Nicky, gazing across the gym at Dave and Joe. “And they are both here?”

  “Yeah, the other one was dancing with Ellie,” Harper tells her.

  “Oh right. I guess I thought that was Ellie’s dad.” Nicky turns to Harper and asks, “Where is Ellie’s dad? Does she have one?”

  “Not really. Well, she used to but he abandoned them,” Harper explains. “That’s what I heard my mom say, anyway.”

  I see E@11’s face and it makes me want to cry. She is frozen, numb.

  Even though I’ve been here before, know exactly what to expect, it’s hard for me to hear, as well.

  “Wait, what’s the story there?” asks Nicky, thirsty for gossip. “Fill me in.”

  Harper smirks and tosses her hair back over her shoulder. “He left Ellie and her mom years ago. I think he was dating his assistant or something? I don’t know the details. My mom and Ellie’s mom used to hang out a lot, but then my mom had to stop talking to her because she was so depressed all the time.”

  The other girls laugh.

  Marley and E@11 are no longer smiling, obviously. In fact, E@11 looks close to tears. I get all choked up, too. I want to tell my younger self that things are about to change. “Don’t stress about Harper—she doesn’t matter,” I say out loud, even though I know she won’t hear me. “Things work out so well for you in the end. You will come into your own. Nicky transfers to some fancy private school. Then you take over her whole group. Those girls are going to worship you, so don’t even worry about this moment. Just get through the summer. You will work hard and you will win. Sixth grade is the beginning of the rest of your life. Everything will change and you will rule the school. It’s only a few months away.”

  I want her to hear me, but she doesn’t. Well, of course she doesn’t.

  I turn my attention back to Nicky and her crew. How could anyone be that mean? These girls are laughing at my expense. Based on something that had nothing to do with me. I mean, so what that my parents split up? People get divorced. Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes dads leave and sometimes moms leave. It happens and there’s nothing funny about it.

  “Seriously, that’s gotta suck,” says Nicky. “Poor Ellie.”

  “I know. It’s so sweet of Marley and her dads to be that kind to her,” Harper points out.

  It is sweet is what I am thinking both then and now. But why wouldn’t they be sweet? They were our closest family friends.

  “They must feel sorry for her,” says Nicky.

  Ugh. I feel ill. This was bad enough the first time around. But now, having to watch E@11 witness this scene? It’s excruciating. I can’t take it.

  I go right up to Nicky and Harper, thinking maybe if I’m loud enough they’ll hear me. And even if they don’t, well, I need to get this off my chest. I should’ve told them off the first time around. “Marley is my best friend,” I say through gritted teeth. “Her dads are awesome, but there is no pity involved. How dare you even suggest that? It’s crazy! Our families were close even before my dad left. I am not some poor, defenseless puppy who got kicked to the curb, someone Marley and her dads graciously took in. I am no charity case. And I resent the implication.”

  Nicky and I seem to lock eyes, and for the briefest of moments I think I’m getting through. But no—her cold blue eyes burn right through me. It still chills me, her gaze. It still makes me wither and I hate the power she has over me, how meek she makes me feel. Even after all this time. Even after I’ve changed. I’m no longer that shy and helpless little girl. I am fierce.

  I turn back to E@11. She is crumbling, crying, wondering, is that what people think? It’s clearly what Nicky, Maddie, Lily, and Harper think. But do other kids feel that way?

  She is shaken to the core. Marley is trying to comfort her but she doesn’t hear. She’s staring straight ahead. Her face is red. Her whole body is trembling. And she cannot take it for one more second.

  Suddenly she is clutching Ursula. Except Ursula is not in the bag anymore. She is out, in full view. At the dance. E@11 is stroking her stuffed unicorn in front of the most popular girls in school. It’s like she’s in a trance. She’s trying to calm down. But she doesn’t realize these girls see her. And laugh.

  Actually, they are hysterical and pointing. “Oh my gosh. You brought a stuffie? How adorable!” Harper says patronizingly.

  Eventually E@11 snaps out of her fog. She looks at the laughing girls and then down at Ursula. As everything registers her eyes get wide and panicky. Then she drops her stuffie and bursts into tears and runs out of the gym.

  I find this heart-shattering.

  Meanwhile, the cool girls shrug and go back to their snacks.

  But Marley isn’t going to let them get away with this. She picks up Ursula, brushes her off, and shoves the stuffie into her own bag. Then she walks right up to them and says, “Ellie is not only my best friend. She is a part of my family. Also, she is amazing and we love her. I could go on and on and on about how wrong you are, but you are not even worth the effort.”

  Then she turns around and leaves the gym.

  chapter seven

  Next thing I know, I’m in the middle of a snowstorm. The ground beneath my feet is white and fluffy. Snowflakes float and flutter gently around me. It’s pretty in here, but something is off. The entire scene seems too perfect, too self-contained, and somehow, completely artificial. I should be feeling cold, but I’m not chilly in the slightest. And the snow that surrounds me is so sparkly it looks more like glitter. Taking a closer look I realize why. The snow is glitter.

  Wait a second … It seems I am not in the middle of a snowstorm. I am two inches tall and trapped in the middle of the snow globe perched on top of a bookshelf in the public library.

  I peer out through the plexiglass and see a younger version of myself at a library table with a stack of books nearby. I’m reading carefully and taking notes. It’s the summer before middle school. I remember those months well. I’m still E@11, but in the process of becoming someone else.

  Let me explain: Ever since the Father-Daughter Dance/humiliation-fest I knew things had to change. It was a wake-up call. I didn’t want to spend my life being pitied, fleeing rooms in tearful hysterics, wishing I’d stood up for myself but not knowing how to. Being too shy to get myself an apple juice when the cool kids were in proximity. Carrying around my stuffed unicorn as a safety blanket. It all made me feel so incredibly weak and pathetic. It’s not who I wanted to be.

  I saw middle school as a chance to reinvent myself. At my new school, I refused to be seen as the poor girl whose dad left her. I promised myself that things would be different. I would start over, become a completely different person.

  All I needed to do was figure out how to make that happen. Always a good student, I knew how to study, so that’s where I began—the library. I took the bus there a few times a week, all summer long.

  I had plenty of time, too. Marley’s dads shipped her off to overnight camp in Wisconsin. It was their family tradition—her cool cousins, Alice and Annie, were counselors. I wanted to go, too, but my mom couldn’t afford to send me and my dad refused to. That meant I was stuck at home alone. But I used my time wisely.

  I read tons of books about the mean girl cliques and I adopted their techniques. Sure, most of these books were written as cautionary tales, how-to guides aimed at parents worried about queen bee behavior. Titles like: When Your Child Falls into th
e Wrong Crowd, Helping Victims of Bullies, and Combating Mean Girl Behavior. But I treated them like how-to manuals. That’s how I learned about the cruel ruthlessness that separated mean girls from the fray.

  And not only did I take notes, I made flashcards. I’m watching E@11 do so now, but why do I need to see this?

  “What is the point of this?” I ask, looking around the library for evidence of the Girl in Black. When she doesn’t respond, I start pounding on the plexiglass. The glittery faux-snow around me stirs, but the barrier does not break.

  “Watching someone study in the library is not exactly my idea of a good time,” I call out.

  She doesn’t answer, but in the blink of an eye, I’m back in my bedroom. I’ve grown a little bit, in that I’m not tiny enough to fit in the snow globe. Now I’m the size of my stuffies, and on my bookshelf, wedged between my lion and pig. Ursula is long gone—as much as it pained me, I threw her in the garbage soon after Marley returned her to me. But I don’t want to linger on those thoughts.

  From this vantage point I can watch my eleven-year-old self at work.

  E@11 has got her laptop on her lap. She’s watching a teen movie, one about a cheerleading competition. Actually, that’s not exactly accurate. She’s watching one pivotal scene of the cheerleading competition movie: the part where the head cheerleader is yelling at the rest of her squad to get into shape. E@11 pauses the scene, scrolls back to the beginning, and watches it again. When it concludes, she scrolls back again. And again, and again, until she has the cheerleader’s words memorized, can recite them along with the scene. It’s intense.

  Next thing I know, we’re at the mall. I’m trailing behind E@11, who isn’t shopping. This is a reconnaissance mission. One of many she took that summer. E@11 is in disguise, wearing a bowler hat and sunglasses. She’s following around some cool-looking high school girls. She wants to know how they talk and dress and walk and how they do their hair.

  I remember it all too well. That afternoon, I went home and practiced my withering glare in the mirror until I gave myself the chills.

  That first day of middle school, I was ready. I had my arsenal: perfect hair, a trendy outfit, trademark phrases, a distinct strut, and, perhaps most important, a killer attitude. I pretended to be above it all, better than everyone around me. And the meaner and more manipulative and intimidating I acted, the more people I was able to draw in. It sounds weird, counterintuitive, but it totally worked. I’m living proof. Everyone fell for my act. It was all so much easier than I had imagined.

  There was only one sticking point, a holdover from my former life: Marley Winters.

  I remember the moment she came home from camp, sunburned, with bug bites dotting her legs, and dressed in this old, ripped T-shirt and khaki shorts. She looked relaxed, and happy, and so very Marley.

  We hugged and I said, “Oh, Marley. You must change immediately. Khaki is so ten years ago. Have you looked in the mirror?”

  “Um, there were no mirrors at camp,” she told me. “And I bought these shorts three months ago. They’re practically new.”

  She was hopeless.

  As soon as I have that thought, I’m transported again. In the blink of an eye I’m inside Marley’s old fish tank, floating around the surface on a raft and wearing my favorite pink bikini.

  “Nice touch, Girl in Black,” I call out, with no idea if she will respond or even hear me.

  “What can I say? You have inspired some of my best work,” she replies instantly. “This job is too fun.”

  I look around but can’t spot the Girl in Black anywhere. “So it’s a job, being tour guide of my life? That means someone hired you, right? Who might that be?” I wonder out loud. “Or are you self-employed? Please tell me more. I’m fascinated.”

  Silence. She’s gone again, leaving me alone, excluding Marley’s goldfish, Bob, and Myrna, her mermaid. But they don’t count, obviously, because they can’t even talk and one of them is plastic.

  I do hear voices, though. It’s Marley and me. I’m still E@11, but by now my transformation is nearly complete. I can tell by my outfit. I’m in designer jeans and a fluffy sweater, and I’m wearing tinted glasses even though we are inside and my vision is perfect. I look like an entirely different kid and I’m acting like a different kid, too. My image has been carefully constructed.

  Both E@11 and Marley are giggling like crazy, high on sugar, having just eaten three cupcakes each, rejects from the bakery. They were supposed to be frosted purple, but someone in the kitchen added too much red to the blue and the result was brownish. No one wants brown frosting unless it is actually chocolate flavored. Otherwise, it’s a total disconnect. This is what Joe has explained to us, anyway.

  “So tell me again about your birthday,” Marley says.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” E@11 says. “I’m inviting you and Harper and Maddie, but not Lily.”

  “But I thought we liked Lily,” Marley says.

  “We do,” I say. “But we can’t include everyone because then there’d be no drama.”

  “And that would be bad?” asks Marley. “You’re saying you actually want the drama?”

  “Yes, of course,” E@11 explains. “Otherwise, we’ll be bored because there won’t be anything to talk about. Here is the trick: You invite all your besties except for one. This will leave her feeling lost and confused and jealous and most important, desperate to please. She’ll be super vulnerable and feeling weak and that’s when we strike. We’ll freeze her out. It’ll be great.”

  “But why would you do that?” Marley asks, innocent as always.

  E@11 stares at Marley pointedly. “What do you mean why? Because we can—because it’ll be fun to watch her squirm.”

  “So you want us to go out of our way to hurt Lily’s feelings when we’re supposed to be friends with her now? Are you saying it’s like a sport?” asks Marley.

  E@11 stares. Her smile wobbles ever so slightly. I remember what I was thinking: I wanted to remind Marley about the Father-Daughter Dance.

  She was there, too, hiding right next to me. Does she not remember how pathetic it was? She saw me cry. She witnessed my pain and heartbreak.

  But I don’t say any of that. To be honest, I’m disappointed that Marley would need an explanation. It made me question our friendship—how well she knew me.

  “It’s more like a hobby,” E@11 replies.

  “Manipulating people’s emotions seems like a weird hobby,” Marley points out.

  “I’m only having fun,” E@11 replies.

  Marley looks down at the ground. “I don’t think that’s my idea of fun,” she says.

  “Well, then you don’t have to come to my birthday. Maybe I should invite Lily instead of you.”

  “I never said that,” Marley says. She’s so steady, so reasonable. I find this irritating, too. It feels like a personal rejection. I’m suddenly all too aware of the fact that Marley doesn’t need to jump through these hoops. It’s like we both know she’s better than me, but neither of us is going to say so.

  The girls are silent for a bit. I remember how awkward I felt that afternoon, how I tried to explain my logic. “Anyway, Lily needs to be taught a lesson. She thinks she’s so great, but she’s not. She’s addicted to chocolate, and I hate her new boots. They are so pointy. They remind me of witch shoes,” E@11 says.

  Marley blinks and cringes, surprised by my harshness. “I didn’t notice.”

  “Were you too distracted because of Harper’s total pizza face?” E@11 laughs.

  Marley doesn’t.

  “What?” E@11 asks, because Marley is supposed to laugh. She’s being funny.

  But instead Marley fidgets and bites her thumbnail nervously. Finally she says, “Everyone gets acne sometimes. And no one can help it. I don’t think it’s nice to make fun of her for it, and I’m confused because you worked so hard to be friends with all these girls, so why are you saying so many mean things about them behind their backs?”

  E@11 doesn’t s
ay anything in reply. She’s frustrated, uncomfortable, and a little embarrassed. Why can’t Marley go along with the plan and stop asking silly questions? Why does she have to overthink everything?

  I remember exactly how I felt back then and I feel the same way now. Even though I’m two inches tall and in a fish tank, these feelings are still there, and they are big and I hate having them. And I shouldn’t have to explain—not to my best friend, who should know better. If I’m not the bully, then I risk being bullied. I’m that sad girl again, crying at the Father-Daughter Dance. The target. The one to be pitied.

  It’s taken a lot of effort to get to where I’ve gotten, and I’m not about to throw it all away over somebody’s stupid hurt feelings.

  “I’m just kidding,” E@11 says finally, because she has to say something.

  “I know you are deep down, but you make these jokes and they aren’t always funny,” Marley says. She’s right. They aren’t supposed to be funny. They are supposed to cut people down. So I can be more popular. So people will fear and respect me. What did kindness ever get anyone?

  “Let’s talk about boys,” E@11 says, needing to change the subject.

  “Okay, what about them?” asks Marley. She doesn’t know where E@11 is going with this but she is open-minded, trusting.

  My heart twinges with guilt.

  “If you were stranded on a desert island with one boy, who would it be?” asks E@11. She’s lifted this question from a teen magazine she’d recently studied, and was excited that she finally had the chance to ask someone for real.

  Marley thinks about this for a moment. “Why would I be stranded on a desert island?”

  This is so Marley. She’s not supposed to question the question—she’s simply supposed to answer it. “I don’t know. Maybe we’re on a class trip and our boat crashes into an iceberg and you two are the only ones who survive.”