True to Your Selfie

by Megan Mccafferty

  She stops reminiscing about my online funeral and picks up a crumpled Dragonologist Chronicles T-shirt at her feet. She pinches it like it’s a sack of actual dragon poop.

  “Ummm?”

  “I wear it to sleep!”

  “What happened to the cute PJs I gave you?” she asks. “With the ice-cream cones and kittens?”

  I’m lactose intolerant and allergic to cats. Those pajamas are a tribute to farts and sneezes, but she doesn’t care. Cuteness > Everything Else.

  “They’re around here somewhere.”

  I optimistically turn over the nearest pillow, hoping by some miracle to find the pajamas and my phone. I am—unsurprisingly—disappointed.

  “Never, ever, ever show up to school wearing that shirt.”

  “I promise!”

  I will never wear it again. Not even to sleep. That shirt is deader to me than (SPOILER ALERT!!!) FlutterFyre in book six.

  “I’m worried that you’re slipping back into bad fashion habits,” Morgan says. “Make it part of your routine to ask yourself: Does this outfit honor the Goofball Goddess within?”

  I have no clue what honors the Goofball Goddess within. Only Morgan knows, which makes sense because she’s the Girlboss Goddess. This is why I need the Morning Must-Dos to guide me through my days.

  Morgan answers her own question by flinging the offending shirt into the corner. It hits the bookshelf holding the entire Dragonologist Chronicles series including all the companion maps and guidebooks. I haven’t browsed those books or any others in … well … a while.

  It drove Lauren nuts that my half of the bookshelf was taken over by a library of barely-used cosmetics and off-trend accessories. In less than a year, I’ve put together an impressive beautification collection: gloppy pots of lip gloss and half-cracked cakes of bronzer, broken choker necklaces, beadless bracelets, and earrings missing their matches. My sister’s hair is always in a ponytail. Her idea of a bold lip is cherry-flavored ChapStick. So it’s no surprise she thinks mastering winged eyeliner is a waste of my time. Cramming for exams and kicking a soccer ball are important to Lauren’s future. Morgan insists that experimenting with different looks is just as important to mine.

  I mean ours.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me you lost your phone?” Morgan asks.

  I couldn’t tell you I lost my phone, I think, because I didn’t want to let you down.

  “I couldn’t tell you I lost my phone,” I answer, “because I lost my phone.”

  “Ummm …” Morgan tilts her head askew. “There are these things? Called laptops? That are just like phones? Only bigger?”

  “My sister took the laptop to college. And the desktop computer is for Mom’s work only. I don’t even know the password.”

  “Riiiiight.”

  “I’m like a seventh grader in the nineties,” I say.

  Mom loves reminding me that when she was my age her only form of communication was a landline phone connected to the wall. The twisty cord could be pulled from the kitchen down the hall but always fell short just outside Mom’s bedroom door. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stretch it another foot or two to give herself some privacy. And if Grandma was already on the line, she’d have to wait patiently until she finished her conversation. And it could be literally hours before Grandma hung up, because back then everyone timesucked by talking on the phone-in-the-wall in the same way we timesuck by posting selfies, memes, and comments on Fotobomb. And when Grandma finally, finally got off the phone, Mom could call her best friend and get a busy signal, which was the worst because she had no way of knowing when the line would be free, so she’d have to redial all the digits, like, every thirty seconds until she finally got through. And by that time, Mom had a broken finger from all the button pushing and probably forgot what she wanted to tell her friend anyway.

  When Mom makes time to tell stories about her youth, there’s a guaranteed lesson to be learned. This one went something like this:

  “At your age, everything feels urgent, but it’s probably not.”

  There’s no way I can share Mom’s wisdom with Morgan at this moment.

  “Losing your phone sets us back thirty years!” Morgan punts a pillow across the room. “Thanks for summing up why this is such a disaster!”

  “You’re welcome?”

  Morgan does not reward me with a laugh.

  Morgan is determined to make contact with the Mystery Hottie before summer is over, so we’re back at the Mercer Community Pool Complex. As instructed to do in our absence, Maddy has put down towels and stretched her body horizontally across our lounge chairs to prevent anyone from taking over the territory we’ve carefully claimed as our own this summer.

  “Yoo-hoo! Morgan! Ella!”

  Maddy jumps up when she sees us but doesn’t abandon the chairs. Not even for a second. Just a few days are left before the pool closes for the season, but Morgan says we can’t let our guards down now. You never know when haters might try to take what’s ours.

  “Where were you? Are you okay? Why didn’t you text back?”

  Maddy has texted Morgan no fewer than fifty times in the last half hour. She’s vibrating with worry.

  “It’s a disaster, Maddy. A disaster!”

  Morgan faints into her chair. With her pale skin and red hair, she’s always less than thirty seconds away from a total-body sun blister, so I can’t blame her for snagging the chaise under full protection of the umbrella. “From this spot, I can take and throw shade at the same time,” Morgan said on the first pool day of the summer.

  “What happened?” Maddy asks breathlessly.

  Maddy fans Morgan with the September issue of Vogue that inspired us to dream out loud about the perfect photo shoot. I saw us performing in front of a screaming audience of thousands, styled in bedazzled bodysuits that glittered like diamonds in the stage lights. Morgan went bigger, of course. Much bigger. She saw us as alien warrior princesses “attacking intergalactic tackiness,” as she put it, dressed in luxury designers with foreign names I’d never heard of and couldn’t pronounce even if I had. Morgan’s vision is not limited to this earth.

  “Do you want to tell Maddy, or should I?”

  It’s a non-question. We all know Morgan is much better at sharing drama than I am. So I roll my towel into a pillow, recline, and let her tell Maddy everything she needs to know about The Disaster of the Day: Ella’s Lost Phone. I’m trying not to stress too much about the loss, or having to tell Mom when she gets home from work, or Lauren after Mom texts her at college to complain about my carelessness.

  I tilt my face toward the sun …

  Ella!

  … and that’s when I hear the familiar voice for the first time today.

  The Best Friend in My Head. Or the ex–best friend, I should say, since we haven’t hung out in many, many months.

  You really should apply sunscreen. Put on a hat. Avoid direct exposure between ten a.m. and four p.m.

  “So how will Ella get the Morning Must-Dos?” Maddy asks Morgan.

  Tanning without burning is still sun damage, The Best Friend in My Head continues in that know-it-all tone of hers. You may have inherited olive skin from your Mediterranean ancestors, but you can still get melanoma, the deadliest of all skin cancers.

  “How will she update the socials?” Maddy asks.

  I feel better with a tan! I silently argue back. I look better with a tan!

  When The Best Friend in My Head fights back with threats of saggy skin and wrinkles, I scooch my chair under the umbrella.

  Happy now?

  I’m just looking out for you, says The Best Friend in My Head.

  I don’t need you looking out for me anymore, I think. I’ve got Morgan.

  “How will she maintain the Morgan & Ella brand?”

  No one goes from zero to zero chill faster than Maddy. Her tryharding gets on Morgan’s nerves, which is why I work superhard at being totally chill all the time.

  “Are you sure you
lost your phone?” Maddy asks me.

  “I’m sure!” I reply. “We searched the whole disaster zone up and down.”

  “Fortunately, Ella’s room is tiny,” Morgan says. “Omigoddess! Imagine how long it would take to search my room?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t lost,” Maddy thinks out loud. “Maybe it was stolen!”

  I expect Morgan to laugh right in her face because that’s what she does when Maddy gets too hyper. But she surprises me by going all in on the conspiracy theory.

  “Omigoddess! What if she’s right?” Morgan asks. “What if someone stole your phone? What if a hater is hacking into Morgan & Ella’s socials right now?”

  Morgan and Maddy whip out their phones and start scrolling. I reach for mine, too, before remembering I don’t know where it is. Mom will not be happy to hear I’ve lost such an expensive gift, especially after I pleaded and promised I could be trusted with it, like Morgan and Maddy and all the other girls my age who’ve already had phones for, like, ever. Lauren will take a break from being an awesome student athlete to lecture me about how sloppy and irresponsible I am, and I’ll miss her even more than I already do. This doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what happens when you get used to falling asleep to the sound of your sister’s breathing.

  “Everything looks okay,” Maddy says reassuringly.

  “What if the hacker is waiting until peak posting hours for maximum damage?” Morgan turns to me. “You deleted the uglies, right? Please tell me you deleted the uglies as I’ve been telling you to do for months now …”

  For every approved pretty (bright eyes, highlighted cheekbones, just-right nose, shiny hair, glossy lips) there are at least a dozen uglies (puffy eyes, double chins, weird nostrils, limp hair, dingy teeth).

  “You deleted all the uglies,” I remind her. “You didn’t trust me to do it myself.”

  “We are so done if those uglies go viral,” Morgan says. “Gigi from Fourth Dimension was forced to go on a social media blackout for eighteen whole days after her phone was hacked and the whole world saw those hot mess snaps at the Grammys after-party and …”

  “But then she cleaned herself up and came back as the brand ambassador for Frootie Smoothie,” I point out. “And now Gigi has more Fotobomb followers than all the other girls in the group combined.”

  When Morgan skeptically purses her lips, Maddy quickly shows her the Fotobomb numbers, proving me right.

  “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” Maddy says.

  For the next few seconds, Morgan silently scrolls through the socials while Maddy and I watch. We know not to interrupt her when she’s thinking.

  “Hmmm,” Morgan says finally. “We’ll see if you’re right about that.”

  I’ve lost track of the hours. It’s just Izzy and me in the SUV, because she’s already delivered Morgan to wherever she needs to be. This happens a lot, because Morgan has many places to go and I do not.

  We post on all the socials once a week, which Morgan says is not nearly enough new content to grow our fan base. According to Maddy’s research, we should be recording, editing, and posting new songs at least twice a week in addition to more frequent quickie “lifestyle” updates. Morgan is way busier than I am with travel soccer, hip-hop dance class, and horseback riding, but I went a little too far when I hinted that her schedule might be more disruptive to Morgan & Ella’s video making than mine.

  “If it weren’t for my camera, my mics, my lights, my editing software, my vision,” she reminded me, “there wouldn’t be any Morgan & Ella videos!”

  It’s hard to argue with Morgan when she’s right. It’s even harder to argue with Morgan when she’s wrong, because she’s never wrong. She reminds me of my sister, Lauren, in that way. I envy both of them for being so certain about everything all the time.

  Anyway, being left alone with Izzy is usually okay, because she drives and I mess around on my phone and we smile politely at each other but aren’t expected to make conversation. But today it feels more awkward than usual because I don’t have my phone or anything else to distract myself during the ride. I stare at the back of Izzy’s head and count nine wiry gray hairs starting at her scalp and winding around the black bun at the nape of her neck. She’s not old but not young either. She’s probably in her late thirties, around the same age as Mom. I hope Izzy gets paid extra for not only being Morgan’s chauffeur but mine too.

  When Izzy pulls up to the apartment, Mom’s car is parked in the reserved spot out front. It must be after seven p.m. but before eight p.m.—what Lauren calls the “magic hour” between Mom’s work and night class.

  “Thank you, Izzy,” I say.

  “You’re welcome, Ella,” she replies. “Pick you up at ten tomorrow! No pool. Spa day!”

  I appreciate the reminder. Izzy knows Morgan & Ella’s schedule better than I do.

  I sniff deeply as I approach the apartment, trying to detect garlic, basil, or other spices in the air. I really hope Mom hasn’t gone out of her way to make a nice dinner for me, because Morgan insisted we stop for iced coffees and cupcakes. Our fans love photos of us posing with iced coffees and cupcakes.

  The front door flies open.

  “Ella Jane Plaza! Where have you been?”

  Mom is still in her scrubs, the deep purple ones that go with her Violet Twist lip gloss. An appreciation of makeup is one of the few things the two of us have in common that Lauren does not. Mom can’t be too fashionable as an occupational therapist assistant, but she likes to match her lip look to her work clothes. She usually changes as soon as she gets home, but I guess she was too worried about me.

  “I was with Morgan …”

  “I know that!” She gives Izzy a quick little wave as the Mercedes pulls away. “But I didn’t know where you were with Morgan! Why didn’t you reply to my texts?”

  There goes any hope of putting off the truth.

  “I …”

  Mom’s purple lips get even twistier than usual.

  “I …”

  Mom slaps a palm to her forehead.

  “It’s lost,” she says. “You lost your phone.”

  And I barely muster a guilty little nod before she turns on her rubber clogs and marches right back into the apartment. No signs or smells of dinner, so at least I don’t have to feel even worse about Mom making a meal I’m too full to eat.

  “I should have listened to your sister,” Mom says wearily on the way to her bedroom. “She said you weren’t responsible enough for your own phone. She said you were too disorganized. And she was right.”

  Lauren is always right.

  I choke down the teary burn building up in the back of my throat. I don’t want Mom to see me cry. Not when she has to leave for class very soon to get there on time.

  “It still might turn up,” I say. “I haven’t looked everywhere …”

  Mom releases the topknot and shakes out her curls. My hair is the same shade, but Mom’s TresSupreme Brown Sugar Premium Color comes from a box. Whenever she dyes her hair, she laughs about how having Lauren at eighteen made her go prematurely gray. My mom has always been the youngest—and, in my eyes, prettiest—mom on the playground, in the audience, at back-to-school nights.

  She shimmies out of her scrubs and pulls on a pair of jeans. Then she asks the question she always asks when I lose something, which is often.

  “Where’s the last place you put it?”

  If I knew the answer to that question—this and every time she asks—the lost thing wouldn’t be lost. But I don’t say that. Instead I make a suggestion based on what she’ll say next.

  “I’ll retrace my steps.”

  Mom pops her head out of a sleeveless V-neck sweater.

  “That’s a great idea.”

  She grabs a ginormous textbook titled A Field Guide to Physical Dysfunction and slides it into her backpack. “If I can carry this book around,” Mom likes to joke when she’s got time for jokes, “I’ll have no trouble lifting my elderly clients.” But she doesn’t ha
ve time for jokes tonight.

  “You okay with frozen pizza? There’s leftover salad in the fridge.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Mom scoops up her car keys from the wobbly blue dish on the hall table closest to the front door. A ceramics project from Lauren’s second grade art class, it’s been used exclusively for holding keys ever since. Mom and Lauren never lose keys, phones, or anything else. They live by the motto “a place for everything and everything in its place.” They cannot understand why I can’t follow their orderly example. I don’t understand either.

  “I’m sorry about my phone,” I say.

  Mom stops. She sighs. She presses her lips to the top of my head.

  “I know you are, sweetie,” she says. “I know you are.”

  She reminds me about the frozen pizza and the leftover salad. She reminds me to lock the door behind her and not to open it up for anyone. She reminds me of the neighbors I can go to in case of an emergency. She reminds me that she will be home by eleven p.m. She reminds me that she’s got two semesters left before she gets her degree and a higher-paying job. She reminds me that she loves me.

  And then I watch her go.

  “Alone again,” I say to the empty apartment.

  I gently tap my fingers across my scalp and, as always, I’m comforted by the glossy kiss Mom left behind.

  For the first time in months, I wake up naturally, without the chirpy ping of Morgan’s Must-Dos. I automatically reach for my cell anyway, as I’ve done at least a millionbilliontrillion times in the last day. Without clear instructions from Morgan, I’m feeling as lost as my phone. Before we became best friends, I checked my daily horoscope in the newspaper for guidance. Maybe Sydney Stargazer can let me and all the other Aquarians know what we’re in for today.

  Mom has already cleared her breakfast plate and is finishing up her coffee when I shuffle into the kitchen. I don’t see a newspaper anywhere in sight. Now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure Mom canceled our daily subscription to the Mercer Observer to save money. Well, so much for help from Sydney Stargazer.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead!” Mom says. “I thought I’d have to yank you out from under the covers!”