Watch Me Disappear

Chapter 1
     
     
    I swear, every time we move to another town and I have to start over at another school, my mother looks at me and thinks, “Maybe this time she’ll make some friends.” She’s a realist. She never advises me to go out there and be myself. Instead she tells me to use this fresh start to reinvent myself, which means to fix whatever is wrong with me.
    All I want is to be invisible. My plan for senior year at my new school: Get straight A’s and get into a top-tier college. But this move is different from all the others. This time, my dad keeps reminding me, we’re moving home, to the town where he grew up. This isn’t Texas (which is like another planet) or California (which is like another universe). My entire life, this has been the one place we’ve always returned to, but up until now, only for short visits. There’s the park where I learned to ride a bike, the ice cream shop that makes the world’s best mint chocolate chip, the hill behind my grandmother’s house where my brother and I used to go sledding on snowy Christmases. Maybe this time I can let my guard down a little and not just be the quiet new girl. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
    The other day I was sitting on the back deck struggling to start my summer reading (and let me just say whoever cast Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet cannot have read Pride and Prejudice ), when I heard a girl’s voice through the fence between our yard and our neighbors’.
    “I don’t know,” the voice said, “my mom wants me to invite her to hang out this weekend… No! I haven't seen her, but my mom says she’s cute… Uh-huh. A little pudgy… I know, right? My mom, like, had a tea party with her or something the other day... Yeah, like with a tea pot and everything... They’re coming to the cookout this weekend... Hell, no! He’s not my father... Whatever... Okay, see you tonight.”
    Then I heard a sliding door open and shut. The voice had been talking about me. I was the one her mother “like, had a tea party with” a few days earlier. I wondered if my parents knew we were going to some cookout and if Mrs. Morgan had really called me pudgy.
    I wished I’d never let that stupid woman in the door, with her Talbots clothes and fancy plate of store-bought cookies. She had rung the bell about a half an hour after my parents left for Home Depot.
    “Welcome to Hillside,” she chirped, extending the plate of cookies toward me as I opened the door. “I’m Patty Morgan! Your neighbor!” She gestured toward the house to the left of ours. She stood there smiling at me, her hands clasped in front of her chest like a girl scout awaiting a merit badge. When I didn’t say anything, she tried to peek around me into the house and asked, “Are your parents home?”
    I felt like I was in a made-for-TV movie. “Are your parents home” are the magic words that unleash unspeakable horrors. I shook my head.
    “They’ll be back soon,” I said, when she continued to stand there expectantly. And then, without quite realizing what I was doing, I invited her in for tea. I guess a week of being cooped up with just my mom and dad for company had started to get to me.
    She followed me into the kitchen, the one room of the house my mom had somewhat organized. I filled the kettle and set out the teapot and two cups and saucers beside the plate of cookies.
    “Lovely!” she said, settling onto a stool at the kitchen island. “Like playing tea party! I usually just nuke water for tea in the microwave.”
    I wished the water would hurry up and boil. It was a mistake letting her in. My mom would be furious—the house was still a mess and this woman obviously wanted to spy on us. Besides, what did I have to talk about with a woman as old as my mom?
    “So you must be in high school,” she said, her eyes shamelessly scanning our kitchen, taking everything in.
    I told her I’d be a senior.
    “So will my daughter Maura,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
    This comment piqued my interest in my new neighbor. I thought it would be good to meet some people before school started. This was, of course, before I actually heard Maura talking on the phone.
    “I would have guessed you were a freshman or sophomore at best,” Mrs. Morgan said. Noticing my expression, she added, “Believe me, one day you’ll be happy you look young.”
    I forced a smile. The kettle whistled and I filled the teapot.
    Then Mrs. Morgan started plying me with questions