Watch Me Disappear (26 page)

I don’t know what to say so I don’t say anything. I try to keep my teeth from chattering. After a few minutes I can’t take it anymore. “We need to keep walking,” I say.

“I don’t want to go,” Maura answers, and she begins to cry.

“Hey,” I say, putting an arm around her shoulder. I don’t know if she’s shaking from the cold, from emotion, or both. “It’s okay.”

“Nothing is okay,” she says, wiping her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve.

“You’re just cold and hungry.”

She won’t look at me.

“Well,” I say, trying to sound lighthearted, “losing a finger isn’t going to make anything better. Let’s head down before frostbite sets in.”

“Go without me then,” she says.

Without her? She’s clearly lost her mind. For one thing, I am her ride. For another, we are in the middle of nowhere. Also, I don’t know the way down. And how will I explain to anyone how I left her on a mountainside to freeze to death? I don’t know what she wants. If she wants to talk to someone, I am willing to listen, but I’m not going to just sit here freezing my butt off. The thing is I’m not used to asking questions. I’m not used to trying to get information out of people. I don’t really know how. I am used to people asking me, the perpetual new girl, questions, and I guess that’s made me pretty self-centered, when you get right down to it. Until I met Paul, I didn’t even know how narcissistic I was. It almost never occurs to me to ask other people questions, but right now I know that’s what I have to do.

“What was your dad like?” I ask, squatting back down next to her.

She sighs and squints her eyes. “He was the best,” she says. “He was nothing like David.” She turns her head to look at me. “My parents, they didn’t have much. My dad was a teacher and my mom stayed at home with me. We only lived in an apartment, but we were happy. You wouldn’t even believe how different my mom was. This whole rich housewife thing of hers is so fake. She acts like she belongs with the country club crowd, but she doesn’t. She always tells me she’s the same, that she always wanted the same things, but that’s bullshit.”

“I know he’s not your dad, but David doesn’t seem so bad,” I say gingerly. I don’t know Mr. Morgan well, but he seems like a typical, boring banker to me. What’s more, for all her pretentious mannerisms and sometimes dubious parenting techniques, Mrs. Morgan seems to really want the best for Maura.

“David is an asshole. He thinks money is the answer to everything. He doesn’t care about me, he just wants me to shut up and leave him alone.”

That assessment doesn’t seem fair, but I’m not sure what to say. It’s cold and I want to leave. It feels like I am making progress with Maura, so I try to think of another question. “So you think your mom just married him for money?” I ask finally.

Maura rolls her eyes. “After my dad died, my mom and I had to move in with my grandparents for a while until my mom got a job. Then David came along like Prince Charming, promising she’d never have to work again and all that crap.”

“She wanted to be able to be there for you,” I say.

Maura shakes her head. “It’s all about her. No one gives a shit what’s best for me.” She starts to cry again.

I tuck my hands into my armpits to keep them warm and wonder what I could possibly say to get Maura out of this funk. “Do you still write poetry?” I ask after a few minutes.

“Do you know why I wrote that stupid poetry? Because my therapist suggested it. They made me go to therapy. Family counseling, they called it.” She wipes her eyes. “David didn’t like my ‘attitude,’ and he convinced my mom that I needed to see a shrink. So we went together, me and my mom. And the therapist suggested I keep a diary. No way was I doing that. I knew she’d read every word. But I had to show up to therapy with something, so I wrote poetry. I figured my mom is so stupid she wouldn’t figure it out. And I was right. She didn’t. I’d share what I wrote at our little sessions, and instead of hearing me out, instead of even trying to understand, she’d try to revise them for me, to be happier, to fit her idea about how I should be and how I should feel. It was stupid.”

“But they were good poems,” I say. “You have a talent—”

“I’m not interested in being a misunderstood poet.” She has stopped crying and now just seems tired and resigned.

“Look,” I say, “you are allowed to be as upset as you want, but you’re walking back down the trail with me if I have to drag you by your hair.”

“What’s the point?”

“Maybe there is none, but I think we should both try to live long enough to find out,” I say.

And that does the trick. She walks past me and I hurry to keep up. The trail down winds around the side of the hill we walked up, so it’s longer, but it isn’t as steep or slippery. We scurry along, not talking, just watching our feet and trying to stay warm. Every now and then I hear Maura sniffle or hiccup, but after a while her breathing returns to normal and she seems to have gotten past whatever it was that had started her crying. More than once I wonder if she’s taking us on the right trail, because it seems like we’re headed in the wrong direction and it is taking too long, but after a while the trail opens back out on the road and I can see the gate at the entrance of the park. We get in the car and I crank the heater up full blast.

“Can you stop at Dunkin’ Donuts?” Maura asks.

I am relieved that she’s interested in food, and I am pretty eager for a hot beverage myself. I get a hot chocolate with whipped cream and a chocolate-frosted donut. Maura orders a coffee with Splenda and skim milk. The sundae the night before convinced me that dieting is not for me, but it made Maura feel as though she should repent until she feels adequately thin again, which doesn’t make much sense, because she is already ridiculously thin. Back at New Year’s when she enlisted me to diet with her, I could not comprehend why she needed a diet, but I knew I could lose some weight, so I agreed. But now, looking at her bony hands around the Styrofoam cup, I want to shove a donut in her mouth and tell her to eat.

“I would feel like crap if I ate that,” she says, eyeing my donut. “So much sugar.”

I sip my hot chocolate. “I like it.”

“Well, good for you.” She turns to look out the window.

The last few bites of my donut don’t taste very good, though. All I can think about is how that donut is reforming itself into a layer of fat on my butt. But then I consider Maura: I always equated being thin with being happy, obviously a false connection. Maura is one of the thinnest, least happy people I know. I admire Maura’s willowy form, but coffee with Splenda and skim milk? That just sounds awful. I promise myself I won’t eat any bread at dinner to make up for the donut and I feel a little better.

We drive along without talking until we get near our houses. Maura says she’s too tired to walk up from around the corner and begs me to just drop her off in front of her house. If my parents are watching, I’ll have to explain myself, but I’m tired, too, so I agree.

“Thanks,” Maura says, getting out of the car.

“Sure.”

“No, really,” she says, leaning back into the car. “There was no one else I could have called today.”

I want to say, “You know that’s not true,” but instead I just say, “No problem.”

“See you in the morning,” she says, shutting the door.

*          *          *

“Lizzie, you had a visitor while you were gone,” my mother says when we sit down to dinner that night.

A visitor? Who the hell would be visiting me? The only time my mom ever invokes my name and the word “visitor” in the same sentence is to ask me euphemistically if I have my period.

“Well, don’t you want to know who?” she asks, spooning pasta onto my plate.

“Okay, who?”

“Paul,” she says, looking triumphant.

Paul had visited me? Paul hasn’t been to my house in months. He didn’t even call to tell me he was coming, unless he called when I was out with Maura and my phone didn’t have reception. But he would have left a message or something.

“I invited him to stay for dinner,” my mom continues, “but he said he couldn’t.”

I shrug and stuff a bite of spaghetti into my mouth. That way I don’t have to reply.

“So you two have mended your little rift?” she asks.

I wish my stupid father would say something. He is reading a magazine, ignoring us altogether.

“What little rift?” I answer. I figure if I play dumb, she’ll have to spell out what she thinks transpired between me and Paul or she’ll have to drop it.

“Well, I hope he starts coming around again,” she says. “I like that boy.”

You and everyone else, I think. But my mind is racing. Why had he come over? Probably to tell me how upset Missy was that I ditched her last night. Why else would he even bother? Still, he had come over. I don’t want to feel giddy about it, but I can’t help it. I miss him. I miss being the one in the passenger seat of his car on Saturday nights. I promise myself I’ll talk to him at school tomorrow. We had been friends for a little while. Why can’t we be friends again?

*          *          *

Because I am in love with him. That’s why. And that’s what I remember Monday morning when I find him at his locker. He has on a dark green fleece and cargo pants, like he is about to take a hike or chop wood or something, and he smells good. He always wears nice cologne, not that cheap Axe stuff most of the guys wear. I lean up against the locker next to his.

“Hey,” I say.

He turns. His big brown eyes with their little flecks of amber take me in. He shuts his locker and then mirrors my pose, leaning up against the locker and studying me.

“Well?” I say.

He shrugs.

“My mom said you came by.”

He nods. Why won’t he talk? It’s infuriating. He drove across town to my house to talk, but now he’s mute. I feel my face turning red and my palms getting clammy. “You didn’t, like, leave a message or anything,” I say, bringing one hand to my mouth and chewing on my fingernails. My heart is racing.

“I shouldn’t have bothered,” he says at last.

“What? Why would you say that?”

“I just made a mistake, that’s all.” He runs a hand through his hair.

“Well, what did you want?” I am getting impatient. I hate when people are purposefully cryptic.

“I was wrong about you,” he says. “I thought you didn’t care what people thought about you, you know? I thought you were really an individual. But that was just your brave face I guess, because lately you’ve been acting like Maura’s little toadie. She’s not your friend, Lizzie. Not like Missy.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve known Maura a lot longer than you have.”

“Whatever,” I say, pushing away from the locker. “I figured you came because Missy told you to.”

“Seriously? First of all, Missy doesn’t tell me what to do. I came because I like you and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“So Missy didn’t tell you how I left her house the other night?”

“Of course she did,” he says, “and she was upset, but she certainly didn’t ask me to run interference.”

“You want to talk about hypocrites, what’s this about your telling Missy you’re waiting for that special someone?” I shouldn’t have said it. I know it as soon as the words are out, but there is no taking them back.

“I’m done,” he says, putting his hands up and backing away.

I feel the tears welling up and I know I am about to turn into a complete crybaby. I practically run through the hall to the girls’ bathroom, and as soon as I’m inside, I let out a gasping sob. A girl by the sink gives me a pitying look and then leaves. I sit on the radiator and let it out. I hear the homeroom bell ring. I’m late. I do the only thing I can think to do. I go to the nurse and tell her I’m sick.

Everyone loves the nurse. She keeps a jar of candy on her desk and even when she knows you aren’t really sick, she lets you hang out there a while. This is one of the things Maura taught me. I have never been the kind of kid who goes to the school nurse. In my mom’s book, if you are too sick to go to school, you are probably dying, and if you go to the nurse during the school day, you’d better be hallucinating from fever or at least puking.

By the end of first period, I am calm and my eyes are only a little red, so I go back to class, but all I can think about all day is Paul—those eyes, those lips, the hurt expression on his face when he walked away. I hate knowing that I disappointed him and that I’ve fallen in his estimation, but if I’m honest, I have to admit that I also want both Paul and Missy to feel as hurt as they made me feel. Paul and I most certainly cannot be friends.  

Chapter 18

“Listen,” Maura says, flicking a cigarette butt out the window as we pull into the school parking lot Wednesday morning. She used to only smoke when she was drinking, but she has decided to become a full-fledged smoker, to stay thin. “I’m going to be out sick today.”

This statement doesn’t exactly surprise me—she is wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, which are not clothes she ever wears to school—but it also doesn’t make sense. I mean, there we are, in the parking lot.

She pulls into a space and puts the car in park. Then she turns toward me. “Jason got expelled yesterday,” she says.

This, also, does not surprise me as he has already been suspended twice this year for fighting.

“He punched a teacher yesterday,” she says.

“Huh.” What am I supposed to say?
Wow, I can really see why you love him so much. You should go to him.
Is that what she wants to hear? Or what if I tell the truth:
Jesus Christ, Maura, the guy is a sleazebag and an asshole. You have to break up with him.
Yeah, that would go over well.

“It’s just that nobody really understands all he’s been through. They don’t get him, you know?”

“I sure don’t,” I say.

“I know you don’t like him, but if you’re my friend then you’ll at least be supportive of me,” she says.

Another impossible statement to respond to. Is letting your friend ditch school to be with her delinquent, abusive boyfriend really being supportive?