Watch Me Disappear (27 page)

“Just cover for me,” she says. “If anyone asks, I’m sick.”

I wonder how many people saw us pull into the lot.

“And if my mom says anything or whatever, you know—” she trails off.

“Yeah, fine, okay?” I say, grabbing my bag. “Are you picking me up after?”

She nods and shakes another cigarette from the pack. Marlboro Menthol Light 100s. I wonder if she even knows what “light” means in regard to cigarettes, or if she knows what menthol does to your lungs. For once I am glad my mother is a walking public service announcement.

*          *          *

I don’t see much of Maura for the rest of that week. She doesn’t come back to school until Friday. Everyone keeps asking me if she’s okay, speculating on how sick she must be to miss so much school. On the one hand I hate all that lying, but on the other hand, I have become universally known as Maura’s best friend. No one is asking Jess or Katherine for information. They are all coming straight to me. And even though Maura has drifted away from her in-crowd circle, the school as a whole still reveres her as some kind of strange icon. Underclassmen are still afraid of her. Less popular upperclassmen still simultaneously hate her and wish for her approval. Basically, outside her immediate circle of friends, her status is as it has always been.

I am hoping that my own newly elevated status will help me get a prom date. There are, of course, the people who lined up their dates back in January, had their dresses before President’s Day, and are now making limo reservations and deciding who should sit with whom for dinner. It isn’t as bad as at my old school. There, if you didn’t have a date by the end of February, forget it. Here, most people are more relaxed about it. Also, there is the option of going without a date, just with a group of friends, which you couldn’t do at either of the high schools I attended before. That possibility really takes the pressure off.

Maura hasn’t said a word about prom yet, which surprises me. She is the kind of girl who actively campaigns to be queen. She is busy, though, dealing with Jason’s crises and trying to transform herself into a stick figure.

Of course Missy and Paul are going. Missy Emailed me a picture of her dress when she bought it. That was before she realized our friendship was doomed. Her dress is black and white, boldly patterned, hugging her body so that every curve shows, with a ruffled hem and a slit to mid-thigh. It looks like a flamenco dancer’s dress. With her wild hair and full lips, she’ll be the girl all the guys dream about that night.

I don’t have anyone in particular in mind for a date. I guess if Maura brings Jason, she’ll want me to bring one of his sketchy friends. I’m not up for that. I spend the entire last week of March evaluating every available guy in each of my classes, trying to decide which ones are good prospects. There aren’t many. Most of the good ones already have dates. But why do I want to go to the prom anyway? To watch Paul and Missy dazzle everyone with their innocent love? No, thanks.

Fortunately, on the first of April, I get the distraction I need. College acceptances come in. I have exactly one consolation after opening my letters: Everyone else is disappointed too. In homeroom the next day, at least two thirds of the class is wallowing. Some of the girls are red-eyed from crying, while others haven’t even stopped their tears yet. The boys are acting tough, as usual. And the ones who got into their top choices or were accepted early action in the fall are trying not to gloat. Everyone knows how much those letters mean, and even the mean kids know better than to tease each other now.

I had my heart set on going to a small liberal arts school—Middlebury, Dartmouth, Amherst, Williams, Connecticut College. I must have been delusional when I thought I had a chance. Rejected from every last one. I am almost sorry I bothered with a safety school because now I have to go there. If I had risked it all, I could have just taken a year off and figured out how to get in next year. Instead I will be enrolling at UMass. I got into the Honors College at least, but still. UMass.

“You can transfer after freshman year,” my dad assures me. That prospect just upsets me more. My high school experience was divided between three schools. That’s not what I want for college.

Maura didn’t even get into UMass, at least not to Amherst. She got into UMass Lowell, but she wants no part of that. She says she might just go to school to be a hairstylist. She’d be good at it. It would probably serve her better than college in a lot of ways, unless she grows up a lot in the few months before the fall.

Some people got lucky. Katherine got into Wellesley, but she’s a legacy, so she had it in the bag anyway. Besides, you take away half the competition when you apply to a women’s college. Although I don’t hear it from them, I learn that both Missy and Paul got into Tufts. Paul really only got in because of baseball. He isn’t a terrible student, but he isn’t especially smart either. He also only takes easy classes. Missy didn’t even want to go to Tufts before she met Paul. She applied at the absolute last minute. Before, she had wanted to go to Bates. My opinion is that they’re kidding themselves if they think their romance will really survive the transition to college. Hunter is going to Harvard. His first choice was Princeton, but he didn’t get in. Life’s tough when you have to settle for Harvard.

Everyone is scrambling to find out who’s going where so they can find roommates and not have to live with strangers. That is just another thing that annoys me. If I had gotten into a small, selective school, probably no one else from Wilson would be going there, and I could have a fresh start. Everyone would be in the same position of not knowing anyone, because that’s what it’s like when they only accept fifteen percent of applicants. I swear a third of my class is going to UMass. They will be everywhere. I can randomly end up with one of them as a roommate or neighbor. I hate it.

I am pretty jealous of all the kids going to “accepted student” weekends at their future colleges. There is no point in that for me. I will go to the concrete maze in the middle of the farm fields, the hideous high-rises and paved courtyards that resemble in no way my ideal of ivy-covered buildings with lush green quads and huge old trees to read under. I will get good grades so that I can come out the other side and at least get into a prestigious graduate school somewhere. I’ll show everyone someday.

*          *          *

Maura is still caught up in Jason’s drama as April wears on. I only see her if I tag along with the two of them, and Jason is never thrilled to see me, so usually I just stay home. And then, the Friday after April vacation, she suddenly is ready to reclaim her old social status at school.

“Listen,” she says to me in the car on the way to school, “I’ve been thinking a lot about prom.”

I’m listening.

“I just don’t want to, like, hurt your feelings or anything like that, so I wanted to check with you before I did anything,” she says.

I can’t begin to imagine what she has planned that might be so upsetting to me.

“I mean, you don’t, like, have a date or anything yet, right?” she asks.

I do not.

“Well, would you be upset if I went with Hunter?”

With Hunter? She can’t be serious. Questions are churning in my mind faster than I can ask them. What about Jason? And doesn’t Hunter already have a date? I am long since over him, so I don’t care, but it just doesn’t make sense, and I say so.

“Jason isn’t interested, and I’m not going to miss senior prom just because he doesn’t want to go,” she says. “And last I heard, Hunter still didn’t have a date.”

I can’t really picture Hunter saying yes to Maura, but I can understand why she wants to go with him—a handsome jock with no personality. He’ll look great in the pictures but he won’t infringe on her spotlight.

“And we’ll get one of his friends to be your date,” she says.

“You should do whatever you want,” I say.

“I just know you had a thing for him back in the fall.”

“Before I met him.”

“Whatever,” she says, “but I have to move on this fast or we’ll be shit out of luck.”

I am encouraged to hear Maura sounding so cheerful and excited about prom. It’s a nice change from the cynical, negative attitude she’s had lately, and maybe I’ll get to go to the prom after all. I don’t really care about those kinds of traditions, but still, everyone wants to go to their senior prom, right?

*          *          *

It doesn’t work out, though. Maura’s plan was to get one of Hunter’s soccer buddies to tell him that she wanted to go with him. Then Hunter would ask her because she certainly couldn’t ask him herself. She’d have to be desperate to sink to such a low. But it turns out that Hunter is taking a sophomore. Another little blonde cheerleader who can do back flips. According to Maura, she never even had time to initiate her plan before she heard he had a date, but according to the gossip mill, Maura actually slipped Hunter a note asking him to be her date, and he said no. After that, he hurried up and found someone else to escort.

“Screw it,” Maura says, when I ask her if she has any other ideas. “Fuck the prom. We can just hang out that night and then hit some of the parties.”

I remember the way the party after the semi turned out. I’m not sure I’m up for a repeat performance, but I agree to hang out with Maura anyway.

Maura talks her parents into letting her host an after-party. I’m sure Mrs. Morgan feels terrible that Maura doesn’t have a date. She even agrees to open the pool early for the summer so Maura and her friends can use it. Normally, they don’t open it until Memorial Day, but it has been an unseasonably warm spring, so she figures there’s no harm in being a week ahead of schedule.

*          *          *

By the time prom rolls around, I’m looking forward to Maura’s party. After a brutal couple of weeks of AP exams, I can barely think straight. I need a night to just let it all go. I go over to the Morgans’ after dinner to help get everything ready.

 “So we’ll take everyone’s keys,” Mrs. Morgan explains, handing me a basket, “and we’ll lock them upstairs until the morning. No one drives.”

Maura hadn’t mentioned to me that her parents agreed to let everyone drink. I should have realized—why would anyone come if they wouldn’t be allowed to drink? I can just picture everyone outside around the pool, getting drunk and making all kinds of noise at midnight. And next door my mother might just call the cops. I can see her with the phone in her hand, poised to dial 911. Except Mrs. Morgan is her friend. I wonder if that will be enough to stop her.

“Mother,” Maura says, “once people start arriving, you can’t be down here.” She pouts and crosses her arms.

“Just until I get everyone’s keys.”

“Lizzie can do it,” Maura says.

“Look, David and I agreed—”

“You’ll embarrass me. These kids could have gone to some other party without worrying about someone’s parents hovering around. It’ll be ridiculous.”

Mrs. Morgan turns to me. “Lizzie, don’t you think everyone will understand that I want to make sure I get their keys?”

Maura gives me a look that says, “Back me up or die.”

“Everybody knows how dangerous drinking and driving is,” I say, satisfying neither of them. I fiddle with the edge of the plastic tablecloth Mrs. Morgan spread across the dining room table.

“See, Mother. We’re perfectly responsible,” Maura says, taking the basket. “Everyone will be here in like half an hour, so you just leave us alone now.” My own mother would not have let me talk to her like that.

“I’m upstairs if you need anything,” Mrs. Morgan says calmly.

Mr. Morgan has been conspicuously absent since I arrived. Maura told me he wasn’t really on board with this whole event, and to show his displeasure, he’s hiding out in the bedroom. Billy is staying at a friend’s house.

“This is going to be awesome,” Maura says after she hears her parents’ bedroom door shut. “Wanna get a head start?”

“I’m good,” I say.

“Oh my god, you’re as bad as my mother! Lighten up!” Maura grabs a plastic cup and walks out onto the patio where a keg sits in a tub of ice. I follow her.

The pool lights are on and the water glows. It was a warm, sunny day, but it’s nearly eleven o’clock and the air is cool. It is, after all, still only May. It seems like a stupid time for a pool party, but drunk teenagers do a lot of stupid things, so I guess it’s just right.

Jessica and her date, John, are the first to arrive, followed shortly by Tina and Katherine and their beaus, and then a steady flow of revelers. I am surprised by how many people show up. I wonder if Maura invited them. I’m pretty sure she didn’t. I’m not surprised that Paul and Missy don’t come, but I’m shocked when Hunter does, minus his youthful date (she had a curfew to meet). And then, of course, Jason arrives. Maura didn’t want him to get there until the party was in full-swing because her parents don’t approve. He has a couple of friends with him. They look like real thugs—baggy jeans, hoodies, facial hair. When they walk in, it is like in the movies when the music stops and every head turns to see the newcomers.

“’Sup,” Jason says to me as he walks by. He heads straight for the beer.

Meanwhile, I am the little house mother, dashing from one end of the room to the other to stop vases from being knocked over, to put napkins under cups that are leaving rings on the furniture, to pick up plates. It isn’t like I have anything to talk to anyone about anyway. They are all reliving the prom. Who wore what, so-and-so making out on the dance floor, the way some of the teachers tried to demonstrate the hustle.

What I want is to go back next door to my house and go to bed, but that would be suspicious. My mother expects me to spend the night at Maura’s, and Mrs. Morgan expects me to make sure nothing bad happens. I’m stuck.

“Having fun?” John asks me as I tie up a trash bag in the kitchen.

“Oh yeah.”

“It sucks to be the host, doesn’t it?” he says, helping me hoist the full bag and take it to the garage.

“I’m not the host,” I say.