I Am the Wallpaper

by Mark Peter Hughes

  I cringed. “I write a lot of stupid ideas in my diary. That’s all it was. You have to believe me. I was just venting. I didn’t really mean any of it.”

  “No? You didn’t? Then why did you write it?”

  “I … don’t know. I’m so sorry, Azra. I feel just terrible.”

  “But that’s not even the worst of it. How about when you wrote about trying to make Wen your boyfriend? Didn’t you mean that either?”

  I closed my eyes.

  There was another long silence. I knew that what I had written about Wen was really the biggest reason she was mad. We had an agreement. Once again I felt my stomach move around and I wondered if I was going to puke. Azra was my best friend. Would she ever even talk to me again?

  That’s when she hung up.

  I dropped my head onto the kitchen table with no intention of ever lifting it. I wanted everyone I had ever met to hate me forever. I deserved it.

  After a few minutes, I tried calling her back. Thankfully, she picked it up. “I’m really, really sorry, Azra.”

  I heard her take a deep breath. “I know you are,” she said, sounding a little calmer than before. “I’ve been thinking about it. I guess I was the one who started it by calling you ordinary. I didn’t mean that either.”

  “Really?” I said, surprised. “So you forgive me?”

  She didn’t answer right away. Finally she said, “Look, I don’t want us to fight. I, your unremarkable friend, might be willing to forgive you—but only if you swear that you didn’t mean it, and that you forgive me for what I said to you on your birthday.”

  “I do. I swear.”

  I could almost hear her relax. “When I was seven,” she said, trying to laugh, “I used to keep a diary. I found it last year and I couldn’t even believe some of the things I wrote.”

  But I still didn’t feel like we were finished yet. “And all that stuff about Wen? You’re okay with that?”

  “Floey, we’ve been best friends since second grade. You think I don’t know that you wish we hadn’t made that deal? I guess we all have our own little moments of insanity, right? But in the end I know you’d never really break it. I trust you.”

  Now I felt even guiltier. Six years of friendship meant a lot. I was suddenly more determined than ever that Wen and I should never be more than friends.

  “I’m glad,” I said, my heart beating again. “I’m so glad. You really are remarkable, Azra, you know that? You definitely stand out from the crowd.”

  “You bet I do,” she said.

  After that I felt a lot better. We talked about the Web site and I told her about the fake diary entries. Azra thought I was crazy. But not so crazy that she didn’t laugh—and come up with an idea of her own. This one was about Wen and Tish.

  Friday, July 11, 11:30 a.m.

  Dear Ms. Packer,

  Wen’s been acting peculiar lately. He’s in his own world half the time. Sometimes when I talk to him he barely pays any attention at all. And whenever I mention Tish he gets all flustered and goofy. So I asked him about it. At first he didn’t want to say anything, but I finally got him to admit it—he has a crush on her! Can you believe it? He can’t get her out of his head! He says he’s confused about it because, for one thing, he doesn’t know if she likes him. For another, he’s not sure how he feels about getting into a winter-spring romance. Besides, he knows she’ll be going back to Chicago soon, so he doesn’t feel right about saying anything to her. I’d better not mention it. It wouldn’t be right for me to get involved. I wonder if he’ll ever let her know his true feelings?

  To be honest, I didn’t really think this one would work. If it did, it was pretty mean since Tish actually had a crush on Wen—that was obvious even to Azra, so her idea was just to add fuel to the fire. After what Tish and Richard had done to me, though, I felt okay going through with it.

  When we told Wen about today’s as-yet-unpublished diary entry, he didn’t think it was funny. “That poor girl,” he said. “You shouldn’t play with her that way. She’s only ten.”

  He was right, and I immediately felt sorry.

  Not.

  The next day, Wen called and Tish happened to pick up the phone. According to Wen, as soon as she heard his voice, her voice dropped down to a whisper. “Listen, Wen. I have something I want to say to you.”

  “Uh … okay,” he said.

  “I’ve been getting the idea that you might have … feelings for me.”

  “Oh, Tish, I—”

  “Please, don’t say anything until I’m finished. Don’t ask me how I know, but I know. Sometimes a woman can just tell these things. If it really is true, then I want you to know that as flattered as I am, it could never work out. I’m too young for you. You need to find someone your own age. Please don’t take this the wrong way.”

  Wen said he wasn’t sure what to say, so there was a long pause before he finally said, “Okay.”

  “I’m trying to let you down as gently as I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll go get Floey now.”

  “Thanks.”

  Unfortunately, Tish is a smart girl and wasn’t fooled for long.

  “Floey,” she whispered to me from the other bed. “Are you asleep?”

  It was late Saturday night and I was wide awake. I made my voice sound groggy. “Why do you have to keep waking me up every night? Are you trying to torture me?”

  Her bed squeaked. “The things you’ve been writing in your diary—you’re making them all up.”

  I turned my head. From the moonlight shining through my window I could just about see her eyes peering over at me. It wasn’t a question. She said it like she knew it was a fact.

  I glared across the room at her. “So you’re actually admitting that you read my diary?”

  She nodded. “It doesn’t matter. You already know anyway.”

  “Well, aren’t you Miss Clever.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Tish, didn’t you ever think about what an awful thing you were doing? So much bad karma? Didn’t it occur to you how mean it was to put somebody’s diary up on the Internet? Not to mention sending out that picture. It’s all so … well, it’s unforgivable! What’s wrong with you?”

  “It wasn’t me,” she said calmly.

  “No? You’re just sweet and innocent, are you? Innocently reading my diary?”

  She was quiet for a long time. “I don’t blame you for being mad,” she said finally. “I’d be mad if I were you. Even though they told me not to, I was still going to tell you. You just found out first.”

  “Sure you were,” I said, trying to keep my voice quiet. “Okay then, so if it wasn’t you, who was it?”

  “Richard, but don’t be too mad at him. He’s being used.”

  And then the whole ugly story spilled out.

  According to Tish, it was Billy’s idea to look through the diary. She said that the first day they played with Billy and his friends in the street, Billy had a pair of binoculars. He told them he used them to watch me from his bedroom window before I’d started being more careful to close the shades. Fortunately for me, the most he’d ever seen though my window was me in my nightshirt reading or writing. At least, that’s what he told them. That’s when Richard told Billy that he knew what I must have been writing. The diary.

  “I whispered to him to shut up, but he didn’t listen,” Tish said.

  “I bet you did.”

  She ignored me and continued. So the next thing was that Billy told my cousins that he and his friends had started a spy club. He said that they could join, but first they needed to find the diary and bring it out to them. “I wouldn’t do it,” Tish said. “And at first, Richard wasn’t going to either, but he really wanted to be Billy’s friend.”

  “So you guys just decided it was okay to search my room?”

  “I told you it wasn’t me, it was Richard. But you were really mean to us, Floey, lording it over us and yelling at us to stay out of everythi
ng. You made it hard not to want to go through your things. Plus you went through Richard’s stuff, right?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Besides, if you were going to wave your diary around and bully us about reading it, then you should’ve found a better hiding place than your sock drawer.”

  I glared at her in the darkness. “Well … go on!”

  “So he brought the diary out. He wanted to be part of the gang. It’s hard for him to make friends, you know. He’s really shy. And sometimes,” she added, her voice dropping to an even lower whisper, “he can even be kind of unsociable.”

  Big news flash.

  The next day, Tish said, Richard tried to get Billy and his friends interested in something else, so he told them it could be fun if they started a computer game Web site together. Unfortunately, Billy liked the Web site idea, but not for computer games.

  And thus, floeysprivatelife.com was born.

  According to Tish, Richard had also made the mistake of mentioning the birthday picture to Billy. It had been in his pocket the day I’d searched his room. That gave Billy the idea of the special photo extra, so they could even make a little money.

  Pretty soon, my Web site had a following. In just a few short days, not only were the boys on the street reading the daily updates, but some of their buddies in town and in other nearby towns were even in on it.

  “The spy club is all Billy and his friends ever talk about now,” Tish whispered. “Everybody just goes along with whatever Billy wants, including Richard, even though I know he feels guilty about it. I told him he’s a jerk for doing it. I’ve been staying out of it and that’s why they don’t want to play with me.”

  “So this club, do they spy on anybody other than me?”

  Tish shook her head. “But they don’t know that you know, and I’m not going to tell them either.”

  By this time I was lying down on my bed again, staring back up at the ceiling. I wasn’t sure what to believe. If Aunt Sarah thought I was a bad influence, I wondered what she’d have thought of her own son if she knew?

  “You’d be surprised how big a fan club you have,” Tish whispered solemnly. “You’re kind of a star.”

  The next morning I noticed that floeysprivatelife.com’s audience was getting bigger. Richard had added a message board for people to write comments about the Web pages and about me. To get in, readers now needed to buy their own password (Tish gave me Richard’s, which was “enlightenment”—he planned to change them every few days) and there was a growing list of names, with messages from people in Providence, Newport, and even some from Chicago. Who were these people? Some of the messages were mean, like the one that congratulated Wen for “dodging the bullet,” or the one that called me a “hopeless airhead.” But a lot of them were nicer, like the one from the guy who hoped I came out of my depression because I had a lot to offer. There were even a bunch of really surprising postings that said I was pretty—actually, they used words like “hot” and “built” and, my favorite, “lovely Venus.” This was all pretty scary, but in a bizarre way it was also kind of flattering. Sure, these were the comments of a bunch of perverts, but still, I began looking at myself in a new way. Suddenly I wasn’t the wallpaper anymore. I felt more like a chandelier (if you know what I mean), or maybe a fountain.

  Even Lillian had never had her own Web site.

  That afternoon I thought of a way to put my new publishing power to more practical use. Ma had been bugging me to cut the grass, along with a long list of other chores she wanted me to do. So this is what I wrote:

  Sunday, July 13, 1:40 p.m.

  Dear oh dear,

  I’m so frustrated! I really need a tan and I’d really love to go lie out in the sun in my tiny new bikini, but I don’t know when I’ll ever get the chance! Ma told me this week I have to:

  1) Mow the lawn

  2) Shake the dust out of all the rugs in the house

  3) Straighten up the garage

  4) Clean up all Richard’s and Tish’s stuff

  5) Clean the bathroom

  6) Give Frank Sinatra a bath

  But it’s pouring out now and it’s supposed to rain every day this week except tomorrow, so that’s probably the only chance I’ll get. Too bad I’ll have to waste it doing chores. It’s so disappointing!

  Of course, there was only a small part of me that really thought Richard’s army of little perverts might actually do my work just so they could get a picture of me sunning myself in a bikini I didn’t really own.

  But the power of the Internet surprised me.

  The next day turned out to be clear and beautiful. Soon after my mother left the house to play doubles with Gary, the doorbell rang. It was Billy and three of his friends.

  “Hi, Floey. We’re trying to make some extra money and were wondering if you have any work you’d like us to do for you around the house.”

  I smiled.

  A moment later, I stood over them as one boy started up the lawn mower and the others pulled apart the pile of junk in the garage and repacked it in neat order. They dragged the rugs down the front steps and shook big clouds of dust out of them. And then there was poor Frank Sinatra. My mother hadn’t really asked me to give him a bath, but I was still mad at him for being unfaithful, so I’d added him to my list. It took two of the braver boys to hold him still. He made long, eerie ferret moans while they hosed him down and worked the shampoo into his fur. Pathetic and annoyed, he peered out at me as if he knew I was to blame.

  They worked cheap. I only had to take a few dollars out of the cash my mother kept in the cookie jar. Interestingly, Richard didn’t help his friends. In fact, he seemed uncomfortable that they were knocking themselves out for me. He cleaned his room himself (Tish did ours) and then he took a walk.

  Floeysprivatelife.com was out of his control.

  Tish, who was hanging around me the whole time she wasn’t cleaning, kept looking over at me and giggling. When the boys finished up in the bathroom I was on the living room sofa and Tish was lying on the floor flipping through one of her magazines. I was starting a new book that the librarian had suggested, Live in a Better Way: Reflections on Truth, Love and Happiness by the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama says people can train their minds to be happier. Even though I liked the idea, I didn’t really get how you could actually do it.

  The boys marched into the room wearing rubber gloves and big silly grins. “All done!” they said. “It’s a beautiful day. Perfect for lying out in the sun, don’t you think?”

  I raised my eyes from the page only for a moment. “No, not today,” I said. “I think I’m just going to stay in and read. But I sure do appreciate your help!”

  Tish had a hard time controlling herself. She pretended she was having a coughing fit and had to leave the room.

  If only I had a picture of their disappointed faces. How I would have liked to upload that!

  Over the next few days, I had that spy club running around in circles. One afternoon I wrote that I particularly like boys who wear bike shorts. The next morning, as the crowd of boys watched me pedal past on my way to Gary’s, I noticed that two or three of them were sporting tight spandex shorts with padded behinds.

  I admit it. I was enjoying my new life.

  By Wednesday I was fussing more than usual in front of the mirror. I spent a long time deciding on outfits. Should I try to look slimmer in my black capris and my red and black striped blouse, or instead should I go with a plain white T-shirt and blue jean cutoffs? As long as people were watching me, I wanted to make a good impression.

  Even my mother noticed.

  “Are you trying to impress Wen?” she asked, stopping to watch me from the end of the hallway.

  “No, Ma,” I said, blushing.

  “Then who is he?”

  “I just want to look my best. What’s wrong with that?” There was no way she could have understood that I was constantly in the spotlight. I didn’t want to disappoint my audience.

  “N
othing. I’m just afraid if you stand in front of that mirror any longer, you’re going to wear it out.”

  Having written in a diary every day since I was nine, I now found that I couldn’t go long without writing something honest. So when I noticed that the Web site completely skipped over the three days before I’d bought my new hardcover diary, I was happy to realize that Richard didn’t know about the spiral notebook. I’d never bothered to hide it, so he never read it. Since the hardcover diary was now my place for creative writing, the spiral notebook became my place for recording my real thoughts.

  That Wednesday night, I had a lot to write about. Just when things had seemed to be getting so much better, they suddenly took a turn for the whole lot worse.

  Wednesday, July 16, 9:15 p.m.

  Dear Future Floey,

  I absolutely cannot believe it! Ma has finally proven beyond any doubt that she doesn’t give a flying fart about me! Without even asking my opinion she just goes ahead and agrees to let Aunt Sarah leave her kids with us for an EXTRA WHOLE WEEK LONGER than they were supposed to stay!! They’ll be here until the 26th, the day after Lillian comes back!! Apparently, the support group ladies are finding out so much about themselves that some of them have signed up for an extra adventure—this one involves five days kayaking through a fjord! I don’t see why I should have to keep putting up with her rotten children just because Aunt Sarah wants to freeze her sour butt off on some glacier! Of course, when I say that to Ma, she refuses to listen. Then when I point out that I hardly seem to matter around here, that she doesn’t seem to notice me or care about me, she tells me to stop being childish. Childish! So that’s when I say, “Did you know that Wen dumped me almost three weeks ago?” and she says, “No. Why didn’t you tell me?” So I say, “You never asked! You never even noticed that I’ve been incredibly depressed!” So then she goes all quiet and eventually says how sorry she is but it’s been a really busy time. I don’t say anything. I just leave her and lock myself here in the bathroom again.

  So now I’m stuck with my alien cousins until ten whole days from now—that is, assuming Aunt Sarah ever really does bother to come back. With my luck she’ll get herself eaten by a polar bear and her kids will end up living here permanently!