Watch Me Disappear

knock on the door, and interrogate her parents before letting us go to the concert. She comes bounding down the stairs waving.
    The minute I see her I begin to think I’ve made a mistake agreeing to do this. She wasn’t kidding when she said she has curly red hair. A wild mess of crazy curls erupts from her head and tumbles half way down her back. I can’t even imagine how you’d contain such a mop in a ponytail or any other way. She said she’s 5’8” but she looks taller, maybe because she is ridiculously thin. Even Maura would look like she needed to lose a few pounds next to Missy. She has on snug khaki Capri pants and a fitted turquoise t-shirt that thankfully does not reveal any cleavage or her belly button. Around one wrist she has a thick collection of silver bangle bracelets. I can see why her parents won’t let her put a photo on Facebook; she is gorgeous in a wild, exotic way. I don’t know what perverts look for online, but I’m guessing it’s girls like Missy.
    My first reaction is, “I can’t be friends with a girl who looks like that.” I mean, going on the stereotype that pretty girls are shallow and self-centered, I just can’t imagine befriending someone so striking. Pretty people stick together and put down all the average and less-than-average looking people, right?
    With a knot in my stomach, I lean over across the backseat and open the door for her as she approaches the car. She climbs in with an enthusiastic “Hey!” and turns to me with a smile. She has a mouth full of serious braces, and it relieves me greatly to see that. She is a beauty in progress, not a fully formed one. I relax a little, and then it occurs to me that maybe if we are friends, I can sort of be pretty by association.
    “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” my mother says, turning around from the passenger seat, waking me from my racing thoughts.
    “Sorry, mom,” I mumble. I give Missy what I hope is an encouraging smile. “Mom, dad, this is my friend Missy. Missy, these are my parents, Greg and Beth Richards.”
    “Hi! It’s so great to meet you! Lizzie’s told me a lot about you!” Missy gushes.
    “All bad, I’m sure,” my dad jokes.
    “Greg!” my mother says.
    Thank God it isn’t far to the park.
    “I love your necklace,” Missy says.
    I bring my hand to it. “Thanks,” I say. I’m not sure how to comment on her ensemble. I mean, I am fairly thrown off by her appearance, but as far as my parents know Missy and I are already fast friends, so I can’t say anything that suggests I haven’t seen her before. “Your hair looks fantastic,” I say finally. I spent years wishing for curly hair, eating the crust of my bread even though I hated it because my mother told me it would make my hair curly. Eventually I realized the crust of my bread would do nothing for my hair, but by that time I liked eating it anyway, and while I still wish for curls, my one experience getting a perm convinced me that I probably should just stick with the straight hair God gave me.
    “This weather!” Missy says laughing. “I can’t control it when it’s muggy like this.”
    “So Missy, Lizzie says your dad is a military man?” my dad asks. Here we go. We are only a few blocks from the park, but we’ve sat through two lights at a busy intersection. Rush hour. I silently curse the traffic.
    As it turns out, Missy is the fastest talker on the planet, and she loves to talk. All it takes is one question from my dad, and she is off. In the ten minutes we sit in traffic, she manages to explain how her father retired from the army three years ago, and his last post had been teaching at West Point. They’ve actually moved three times in the three years since he got out because he was working as a professor and he’s been trying to get a tenure-track position somewhere, which he finally got at the university in town, which is how they wound up here. She also tells us that her mother is an artist who gives lessons and has been selling paintings online. It’s a whirlwind tour of family history.
    “What did you say your father teaches?” my mother asks. I can’t believe Missy left out a single detail—she said so much—or that my mother noticed she’d left out any details—she had been talking so fast.
    “Psychology,” she says, “I know everyone thinks that’s odd because you don’t really associate that sort of stuff with the army and all, but yeah, he has a PhD and stuff and he’s a West Point