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Chapter One:

Invisible

When I fell asleep last night I was still twelve. A child. A barely formed person. A blank slate. Now I’m awake and I’m thirteen. I’ve changed. I can’t put my finger on exactly how. I just know I feel different.

“Bridge.”

Maybe it’s the confidence that comes with age. Maybe there’s something special about me that’s always been there but is only now ready to emerge like a butterfly crawling out of its cocoon.

“Bridget!”

I wonder if my family will notice. I wonder if they’re as excited about this big birthday as I am.

“BRIDGET!”

Wait, is that’s my brother’s voice! My older-in-years-but-not-maturity brother, Ryan. Is he outside the house and waking me up to sing to “Happy Birthday” to me?

I grope for my glasses, roll out of bed, and yank open the curtains to see my brother, my unshaven, disheveled brother, perched on the top rung of our rarely used ladder. He’s grinning at me like waking up to find him inches from my window ledge is an everyday occurrence. He gestures to me to open the window. I peer at the clock. Six fifty-five a.m. I ought to jump back into bed, pull the covers and possibly a pillow over my head, turn on the radio, and leave him out there. But it’s six fifty-five a.m. and he’s standing on a ladder outside my bedroom window. I must know why!

I open the window and the gangly idiot crawls in. He goes to pat my head and I recoil in horror. He smells like old wood, rust, and paint. It’s the smell of our dank little garden shed, where we keep the ladder. I want to be cool here. I fold my arms, shake my head slightly, and let the hint of a smile play across my lips. I want him to understand he’s the screw-up and I’m the awesome sibling. The one who’s wise beyond her years.

“What are you doing? You’re grounded,” I squeak, sounding every bit the freaked-out little sister. He just gives me his signature stupid grin and a half-asleep look. “You can’t cage the kid,” he yawns, dragging a hand through his unruly black hair. “Try to cage the kid, the kid’ll break out of the cage.” Then he tracks dirt across my nice clean room and tumbles onto my bed!

“Ryan, get up!”
But he doesn’t get up. He rolls into a ball with his dirty sneakers on my actual comforter.

“The kid needs his sleep,” he mutters.

“Of course the kid . . . of course you’re sleepy,” I reply, trying to keep my voice low and unsqueaky. “You were out all night. What did you do? Where did you go? Who were you with?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“I am older.” I wait for this to sink in. I wait for the look of realization. I wait for Ryan to be the first to congratulate me on my special day.

“I am older,” I repeat.

Nothing. He just lies there infesting my bedsheets with fungus and mold.

“Like how you used to be fifteen and then you turned sixteen?”

More nothing. Just the sound of his congested breathing. Is he messing with me?

“Are those Christmas lights?” he suddenly says.

I follow his baffled gaze to the strings of colorful bulbs framing my door and windows.

“What’s up with that? Christmas is four months away.”

Now it’s my turn to look baffled. “Have we been formally introduced? You know I like them on all year round. It’s my thing. One of my things.”

But even as I’m saying this, I’m thinking, Ryan never comes in here. He doesn’t know what my things are. He barely knows me. Which is why he chose my room to sneak back into the house. Anywhere else he’d leave a dirty trail. His own bedroom window has long been superglued shut in a futile effort to keep him from doing whatever it is he keeps doing. But no one would ever think of looking for him in here.
Ryan shakes his head and favors me with a condescending smirk. “That’s a little bit disturbed.”

“You stole a car. You’ve got the disturbed category all sewn up.”

“I was in a car that was stolen by someone else,” he says, all innocent. “I was a victim.”

“You drove to Vegas.”

“I was a victim in Vegas.”

“Mom and Dad have talked about sending you to military school. Dad bookmarked the home page.”

“Awesome. Teach the kid hand-to-hand combat. Give him access to loaded weapons. Dream come true.”

Then we both hear it. Loud. Harsh. Painful and sustained. Dad’s first nose blow of the morning, echoing around the house from three doors away. We lock eyes. This could go several ways. The nose blow could lead to a bout of hacking coughs, which could lead to a visit to the bathroom. A visit to the bathroom inevitably leads to a shout of, “If I’m up, everybody’s up!” Which means a thump, or group of thumps, on the door.

Ryan puts a finger to his lips. He slides off the duvet and attempts to squeeze under the bed.

We wait in silence, anticipating the follow-up cough. An eternity passes. But there is no further phlegm to be expelled.

“Ryan,” I whisper. “The mole is back in his hole. Repeat, the mole is back in his hole.”

In reply, three sharp high musical notes sound from under my bed.

For a second I think, He’s playing along. He’s whistling like it’s our secret code. Then there’s a bunch of tuneless peeping and I realize the worst thing that could possibly happen has happened. Ryan has found my flute.

Sure enough, Ryan rolls out from under the bed with a delighted look on his face and my silver-plated closed-hole C flute in his hands.

“Put that back,” I demand.

“What’s this?” He laughs.

I could remind him. I could say, “Remember I was in the school band last year? Remember I played at the Christmas concert?” I could go on, “Oh no, you don’t remember. ’Cause you weren’t there. That was the night you got caught trying to abduct a red fox from the zoo. Which meant that Mom and Dad weren’t there, either.” Instead I say, “It’s not yours. Put it away.” I can feel my face reddening. He does not do as I ask. Instead he wheezes into the flute some more. I make a grab for it. He holds it up over my head. “You want it back? Here it is,” he says. I’m not going to jump up like a dog trying to grab a Frisbee. I’m not going to do it.

“I thought you wanted it back. Look, here it is,” he says. He lowers the flute. I try to take it. Once again, he holds it out of my reach. I jump.

“I hate you so much,” I seethe.

My scarlet face and furious words only seem to make him happier. And then we hear music. Not terrible flute music. Actual real melodic music. It’s coming from a few rooms away. It’s that Katy Perry song where she asks if you ever feel like a plastic bag.

Ryan tosses the flute onto my bed. “The little sister machine is up,” he says. “Which gives the kid thirty seconds to beat her to the bathroom. Thus creating the impression he’s in a hurry to get to school. ’Cause the kid’s a reformed character.”

Ryan holds out a hand to be high-fived. When he sees I have no intention of congratulating him for his web of lies and deceit, he high-fives himself! And with that, he’s out the door and gone.

A matter of seconds later, I hear his feet pounding on the carpet. I hear a high-pitched voice wail, “Ryan!” I hear Ryan’s voice shout, “Kid’s gotta jam.” And I hear the bathroom door slam shut.

“He’s so annoying,” sighs my younger sister, Natalie, as she walks into my room. Her eyebrows shoot up when she sees the flute lying on top of my bed. “You’ve got a flute,” she says, gazing at me with big blue eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me? We can play duets. Woodwind sounds beautiful with acoustic guitar.” I say nothing. I don’t have to. Natalie picks up on my reluctance (although she doesn’t pick up on my fear of being upstaged). “I understand,” she says, nodding. “Music’s so personal. But I can’t wait to hear you play. I just know it’ll be beautiful.”

You know when you see a parent who’s totally lost control of a kid? Like in the street or in a supermarket and the kid’s all red-faced and screaming and the parent’s shushing the kid and apologizing to everyone who passes and the kid’s only getting louder and more obnoxious? You know how there’s always another kid, across the road or in the next aisle, who’s perfect? Quiet and calm and well behaved. An absolute angel. And the flustered parent sees the perfect kid and then looks back at their own howling monster and thinks, I want that one. I want to change my bad kid for that good one. Natalie’s the good one. Look at her now, heading toward me with a smile on her cute little face, holding a pink envelope in her outstretched hand.

“I was going to slide this under your door,” she says. “But that didn’t feel right.”

This is how my special day was supposed to start. I thank my lovely little sister, open the envelope, remove and unfold the contents, and read about the hip-hop charity marathon taking place in two weeks. I guess I was dwelling on the lack of birthday card or gift and missed the part where she stopped talking because Natalie’s staring at me with a quizzical look on her face. “So, what do you want to do?” she says. “How do you want to help?” Without waiting for my response, she carries on. “You could sell T-shirts or man the refreshments table. But it’ll be fun. And I bet you’ll make some friends.” I don’t even flinch as the dagger of sympathy slips between my shoulder blades. “Thanks,” says Natalie. “You’re the best.” And with that, the sweetest, most caring and compassionate eleven-year-old girl in the entire state of California leaves me alone.

Okay. So, no birthday acknowledgment from older brother or younger sister. Two more family members to go.

“The locking tab” are the first words I hear my mother speak as I make my appearance in the kitchen. She rolls her eyes at me and gestures disgustedly at the phone. “I’m talking to someone in Bangalore,” she groans. I linger by her side for a moment in the hope my presence will motivate her to hang up and devote all her attention to me and my once-a-year celebration. Speaking slowly and patiently, my mother tells the customer service representative on the other end of the phone, “The locking tab didn’t lock. Which meant the processor didn’t work. I sent you back the locking tab. You sent me the replacement. But it didn’t come with the feed tube. Without the feed tube, the new locking tab is as useless as the old locking tab.” She makes a claw of her hand and mimes a throttling gesture. I give up lingering and pour myself a bowl of Frosted Flakes. And because I’m a year older, because my tastes are changing and maturing, I decide to slice up some strawberries and add them to my cereal. “One, two, three, four,” I say as I cut up the first strawberry. “Five, six, seven, eight.” I drop the next bunch of sliced-up fruit into the bowl. “Nan, check this out,” yells my dad from the living room. “Nine, ten, eleven,” I continue, raising my voice as I slice and plop.

“Come and look at this thing,” Dad says, entering the kitchen.

Mom waves him off. “I’ve already given you the serial number,” she says into the phone.

“Twelve, thirteen,” I say, as loud as I can without actually breaking into a shout.Thirteen slices.” Mom makes a shushing gesture. “Is thirteen enough?” I ask. “Is that a good number for me?” Dad reaches into my bowl and grabs a handful of sliced-up strawberries. I stare at him in horror.

“Gross and rude!”

“I know,” nods Dad as he crunches dry cereal and swallows my carefully calculated strawberry slices. “Learn by example. Never behave like that. It’s unacceptable.” He gives me a big stupid grin that is exactly like the big stupid grin Ryan uses to get away with everything.

“So,” I say, putting my hands on my hips. “Do you have anything else you want to say to me? Anything that might make today even more special than it already is?”

He thinks about it for a second. You actually have to think about it? You’re either an award-winning actor or an unfit father!

Mom drops her phone on the kitchen island and exhales in frustration.

Dad stops thinking about my very important question and grabs her hand.

“Come and see this,” he says. “It’s an infomercial for that thing Harmon in Accounts was talking about. The thing for his back. The inversion table.”

“Did you just hear me on the phone? That’s going to be you. Don’t order anything with parts.”

“Harmon said it saved his back. You know the state my back’s in. It needs to be saved.”

Mom allows herself to be dragged from the kitchen. I am once again alone. Well, not totally alone. The kitchen cabinet door nearest to me swings open. “Kitchen ghost,” I mutter to myself. That’s what we call the errant door that randomly flies open of its own accord. There’s no name for the burned-out light inside the fridge that’s never been fixed. Or the faucet that keeps dripping no matter how tight it’s squeezed. Or the rattling sound from the stove. They’re just facts of life. I think I might miss them if Mom or Dad ever got around to fixing them. I almost feel like they’re part of the family.

I look around the kitchen. Pictures of the Wilder family from Reindeer Crescent, Sacramento, are taped to the fridge door and nailed to the walls. The parents seem like a fun, pleasant-looking couple. The older brother is making the pretty younger sister laugh in almost all the pictures. And then there’s the girl in the middle. The one they adopted when they found out the mom wasn’t going to be able to have any more kids. They obviously liked her. They wouldn’t have put themselves through the whole adoption process otherwise. Or maybe they just didn’t want to be stuck alone with Ryan. But then, much to the astonishment of modern medicine, Natalie, the completely unexpected miracle baby, fell out of the sky and into their lives. Which doesn’t mean they cared any less for the girl they’d adopted. It just means there was more of a demand for their attention. I’ve seen these fridge door pictures a thousand times but today might be the first time I’ve ever really looked at them. I seem like some passerby who blundered in front of the camera. I don’t belong at all. Ryan’s a devil. Natalie’s an angel. And me, I’m just staring off to the side. All of a sudden, I find myself thinking about my birth parents. I was ten when Mom and Dad told me I was adopted. They asked me if I wanted them to try and find my real parents. The usual daydreams about being the heir to the throne of Luxembourg or the secret love child of Stephen Colbert whirled around my head. But I declined. My biologicals chose not to participate in the wonder of me. I don’t entertain fantasies about them realizing the error of their ways and begging me to let them back into my life. But I’m wondering if they’re thinking about me today.

Okay, ease up on the self-pity, I tell myself. Have the Wilders ever missed a birthday before? No. They’re planning something special. And this? This is fun. This is them working hard to make you think they’ve forgotten. So play along and act surprised when they break into “Happy Birthday.”

I hear a peal of delighted girlie laughter from the living room. Ha! Lovely little Natalie couldn’t keep up the facade. She’s been aching to hug me and tell me I’m the best sister anyone’s ever had. I decide to let her off the hook.

I hurry into the living room. Lovely little Natalie is shaking with delighted laughter as she shows Ryan her hip-hop moves and he tries clumsily to copy them. Mom and Dad are gazing rapt at the TV as the guy onscreen hangs upside down chained to a table. Mom turns to Dad and shakes her head. “It’s a miracle,” he protests. “It’s a deathtrap,” she replies. Dad argues back. Ryan grabs Natalie and throws her over his shoulder. She shrieks in giggling horror as he dances her around the room.

No one notices me. I stand and watch my mom, my dad, my brother and sister arguing and shrieking and giggling and dancing for a moment. I suddenly feel like the kitchen ghost, the dead fridge light, the dripping faucet, and the rattling stove might be more a part of the family than I am.

Okay, stop easing up on the self-pity, I tell myself. They’ve forgotten your birthday.

 

 

Chapter Two:

Where Nobody Knows Your Name

Despite Natalie’s implication, I do, in fact, have a friend. Her name is Joanna Conquest. She lives two blocks from me. Her block differs from mine in the number of Xeroxed missing-dog posters stapled to trees and telephone poles. My block has fewer lost pets but more sidewalk space devoted to abandoned cardboard boxes filled with unsellable trinkets left over from weekly yard sales. Other than that, they’re identical. Houses that could do with a fresh coat of paint. Lawns that could use more frequent trims. Family cars that could use a wash.

I meet Joanna on this warm spring day, like I do every weekday morning, as she walks down her driveway. She wears a shapeless blue smock. I complement her in a shapeless blue tracksuit. She greets me, like she does every weekday morning, by starting a monologue that requires no response or participation from me.

“Earthquake alert,” she bellows, as she falls into step with me and we begin the trudge to school. “People are trembling. They’re shivering in fear. And why? Because I’ve revised and updated the Conquest Report.”

The Conquest Report is Joanna’s Tumblr. It has one follower. Guess who?

“Big changes. If you were happy you didn’t make the cut last time, sorry to burst your bubble. If I didn’t mention you by name, it probably only means I didn’t notice you. But I’ve got big eyes . . .”

This is actually untrue. Joanna has tiny little eyes, like Raisinets. And chubby scarlet cheeks. Which might lead you to the initial impression that she’s fun. Fun and jolly and generous and bighearted. But your initial impression would be incorrect.

“. . . and whatever you hid from me before, your loud screechy voice, your nervous laugh, your toxic breath, I’ve noticed it. I’ve noticed it and it irritates me. It irritates me enough to add you to my ever-expanding list of people I hate. Kelly Beach. Keep bragging about your stepdaddy’s software empire, Kel. Don’t stop just because he’s seconds away from bankruptcy . . .”

Joanna continues to rant in this fashion. I continue to stay silent. Our friendship remains now as it was seven years ago when my mother and her grandmother saw us sitting sullen and alone at a neighborhood Christmas party.

“Bridget,” smiled my mother. “Why don’t you and Joanna play together?”

“Joanna,” said her grandmother. “Why don’t you and that girl play together?”

After several moments of awkward, tiny-eyed, chubby-cheeked silence, Joanna started talking about the other kids at the party. The ones who annoyed her because they were too clingy. The ones who smelled weird. The ones who were covered in cat hair. But, as Joanna continued heaping ever-higher spoonfuls of disdain, I looked around the party and I couldn’t really see anyone who fit her description. All the kids she labeled losers seemed like they were having fun. I found myself wishing I was hanging out with those other kids, even if they had speech defects or couldn’t control their bladders. At one point, I remember catching my mother’s eye. She gave me a little wink, which, due to our intuitive mother-daughter bond, I knew meant she was glad I’d made the effort and any minute now we were going to make an exit from the party and head home. And a half hour later, we did. Which was when Mom said, “Looks like you made yourself a BFF.” For a second, I had no clue what she was talking about. Then I did. I don’t know what was more shattering: discovering there was no such thing as our intuitive mother-daughter bond, or realizing I was about to get stuck with a whole lot of Joanna. Our relationship, such as it is, may be one bad playdate that never ended. But on days like today when I feel horribly let down, when I feel like no one in the world gets me, I’m glad I know her.

“So,” I say as she takes a breath between listing all the new targets of her scorn. “They forgot my birthday.”

Joanna’s squints her tiny eyes at me. Her lips part. And then any further expression of surprise vanishes from her face. She shrugs the backpack straps off her shoulder and reaches inside her red L.L. Bean bag. A moment later, she thrusts a book at me.

“Happy birthday,” she says.

I’m touched. I’m taken aback. I’m surprised. I look at the book. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. A dog-eared, second—maybe-even-third—hand copy. The name Sarah B is scrawled on the top left-hand corner. I’m disappointed. But not hideously. I’ve got a good idea of the sort of stuff Joanna keeps in that bag. I could have been stuck with the black banana or her half-empty, crusted-over bottle of hair dye.

“Thanks, Joanna,” I say. “I always wanted to read Anne Frank’s diary.” I mean it, too. I would have liked a new copy, one that didn’t have all its page corners folded by Sarah B and wasn’t defaced with scrawls of I am bored x 1000. “She was so brave.”

Joanna clicks her tongue. “She was annoying. And you know who else is annoying . . . ?” My birthday celebration is apparently over.

When I reach Reindeer Crescent Middle School, jewel in the crown of Southern California’s education system, I’m greeted by the marching band who break into a stirring rendition of “Happy Birthday to You.” And what’s this? The whole school is joining in. The Cheerminators are flipping and bouncing in my honor. The lunch ladies wheel my cake toward me. It takes four of them to move it. That’s a big cake.

JK! J totally K. I can K because, in this instance, I expect nothing. As far as Reindeer Crescent is concerned, I might as well be invisible. As far as Reindeer Crescent is concerned, Joanna might as well be invisible, too. But she deals with that reality in a different way.

“Look at Casey Breakbush—look at the way she’s cowering away from me. I see you, girl, I see you wondering whether I showed mercy and left you off the Conquest Report. But guess what, Casey? Today, just like the day you decided all your problems would be over after your parents splashed out on ankle-fat reduction surgery, is not your lucky day.” Slim, pretty, Casey Breakbush is neither cowering nor showing any indication she is aware of Joanna’s existence. But the second I walk into Room A117 for my first class, someone is aware of mine.

“Making her way into the arena, give it up for Midget Wilder!”

Don’t go red, I tell myself. I fail to follow my own orders and feel the tingle spread across my face and neck.

“Watch out! Don’t accidentally step on the midget!”

I do what I always do when Brendan Chew launches into his stand-up routine. I shake my head in disgust, roll my eyes, and invite the rest of the class to share my contempt. I don’t actually say the words but I think my expression makes my feelings plain: You’re going to sit there and endure this dork, this skinny, buck-toothed, acne-spattered clown, as he makes the same pathetic, unimaginative, embarrassing joke day after day? The same joke that isn’t even factually accurate. I’m far from a midget. Dwarfism is defined as an adult height of four foot ten inches. I’m considerably taller than that. So basically Chew was able to find a word that rhymes with my name. And you’re going to validate his tragic existence by laughing?

They are. They do. They all laugh. Apparently calling me Midget Wilder is one of those jokes that just keeps getting funnier. I shoot a Help me! look at Joanna. She’s laughing! That tiny-eyed traitor is chuckling to herself. Her extra chin is wobbling with the hilarity of it all.

“He’s in the report, right?” I hiss at her.

She shrugs. “He’s funny.”

It’s lunchtime. I’m eating a white peach frozen yogurt and flipping through my defaced birthday book in the fro-yo store around the corner from the school. Yes, that is correct. I’m sitting in a booth by myself eating yogurt and reading Anne Frank’s diary.On my birthday. Stood up by my one friend. (She texted me she was meeting an anonymous tipster who had some molten-hot scoop for the Report. Which I took to mean she feared she would be expected to buy me lunch.) Nothing remotely pathetic about that.

I was going to purchase a protein bar from the Big Green Machine, the new and widely despised healthy-food vending machine recently installed outside the gym by Vice Principal Scattering, who loves it like a newborn child. But, just like every day, I decided against it— although I did not decide to kick the machine as I passed it, which is how the majority of my fellow students express their feelings toward our Big Green friend—and chose to take my birthday lunch outside school property. Actually, white peach is my favorite flavor and the parts of the book Sarah B has left unfolded and un-scribbled-over are drawing me in.

I look up from the book and glance out the window. Dale Tookey approaches. That’s “uncoordinated, asthmatic, untrustworthy Dale Tookey,” according to the Conquest Report. I do not agree with Joanna’s assessment. He seems all right to me. Maybe more than all right. He has a nice smile. I know because he smiled at me once. It might not have been at me. But I saw it so I choose to believe it was intended for me. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is, I don’t particularly want someone, even someone with a nice smile, to catch me alone with my yogurt and my defaced classic. What if he tried to talk to me? Unlikely, I admit. But I feel myself getting flustered again just thinking about it. What if he totally ignored me? Then my fragile illusion that he’d smiled at me would crumble to dust. I don’t make things easy for myself, do I? As I see it, my only option is to flee to the restroom and hide out until he purchases his fro-yo and departs.

Excellent plan, Bridget. Nothing remotely pathetic about that.

I start to slide out of the booth. That’s when I hear the raised voices and the metal clanking on the sidewalk. I peer out the window. Four guys. Big guys. Older. Fifteen, sixteen. Wearing basketball jerseys, baseball caps, and hoodies with the letters D and P graffitied on the sleeves. They’re kicking cans in the street, shouting something in unison. I can’t make it out at first. But as they keep up the chant, it starts to get clearer. It sounds like they’re yelling Doom Patrol over and over. Their voices go up on the Doom; they come down on the Patrol. It’s nice that they rehearse. They come to a halt a few feet outside the entrance of the fro-yo store. I don’t see what happens next. But I hear loud, harsh laughter. And I see Dale go staggering backward. I see him trying not to look scared. The four guys surround him. They’re up in his face, crowding him, shoving him, yelling, “Doom Patrol!” His face is getting redder. He’s trying to hold it together. To show them they’re not getting to him. I feel sick just watching this. I can’t imagine how Dale Tookey must feel. Finally, he thrusts a hand in his pocket and pulls out a crumpled wad of dollar bills. One of them snatches it from his hand. While he does this, another grabs Dale’s backpack, opens it, and empties it in the street. Then they walk away, laughing loudly, shouting “Doom Patrol!” over and over.

I watch Dale as he squats down and tries to gather up all his stuff. I want to go and help. But even from this distance, I can see the look on his face. He’s embarrassed and angry and close to tears. I slump back down in the booth. I feel awful for him and I feel stupid. I should have done something. I don’t know what: yelled at them to leave him alone, taken pictures of them to send to the cops, thrown my yogurt at them? Would it have made any difference? Would the outcome have been any less humiliating for Dale? I doubt it. But I should have done something. Maybe I deserve to be alone on my birthday.

 

I wish I had an extracurricular activity or a group of friends to hang out with, or even a job. But I don’t currently have any of these things. So I go home. Where no one will be there to greet me. Where FedEx will have delivered no packages with my name on them. Where no birthday cards will wait for me. Where no happy birthday, bridget banners will stretch out to greet me. Mom and Dad are at work. Mom’s in charge of a courier company, Wheel GetIt2u. (Think about it.) Dad manages the local Pottery Barn. (They were looking for someone who owned a messy house where nothing works.) Natalie’s got soccer practice, then she’s rehearsing for her role in the school musical she helped write, and after that she volunteers with Sacramento Animal Rescue. And Ryan? Who knows. Hostage situation. High-speed car chase. Aircraft hijack. But at least he’s got a life. What do I have? I ask myself as I trudge up the driveway to the house. “Oh,” I say out loud when I see the unexpected object with my name on it sitting on the doormat. “I’ve got a bag.”

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