Watch Me Disappear

about myself. I’ve been well-schooled in etiquette for interacting with grownups. Rule #1: Answer their questions politely to show how appreciative you are that they are faking an interest in you. I found myself babbling away about English class and how I used to do swim team because my dad thought everyone should participate in sports, but I really hated it, and I only joined because there were no cuts.
    Mrs. Morgan is a smooth operator. By the time she started pumping me for information about my parents and why we had moved to Hillside, it didn’t even occur to me not to answer. It’s not like we have any secrets, but my mom is a very private person. If she had heard me tell Mrs. Morgan about my dad’s new job as CFO at St. Maria’s Hospital, she would have killed me. When I mentioned it, Mrs. Morgan’s eyes lit up the way cartoon characters’ eyes turn to dollar signs when they think they’ve hit the jackpot. Mrs. Morgan is clever, though. She knew better than to linger on the subject of my parents for long. Instead she asked me how I was adjusting to the new neighborhood.
    The truth: I don’t like it at all. I wanted to live in the New England of Little Women with old houses on a charming town common, but I got McMansions on Corn Row Avenue, Pumpkin Patch Terrace, Hayfield Lane. Seriously. And the whole thing is arranged like a maze with winding streets that sometimes connect to others and sometimes dead end in cul-de-sacs like the one we share with the Morgans. It’s like a medieval fortress designed to confuse advancing armies so they never reach the castle. Every time my mom goes out on an errand, she gets lost coming or going or both. It’s tragic. Since no one ever seems to be out in the perfect green yards, she can’t even ask directions. My dad might have to overcome his hatred of GPS units if she doesn’t figure it out soon.
    But I didn’t say that to Mrs. Morgan. Instead I said, “It’s really quiet.”
    “As long as we keep Maura inside,” Mrs. Morgan said laughing. At the time I didn’t know what she meant, but now I do.
    Anyway my parents eventually came back and as anticipated my mother was pissed that I let a “stranger” in. But she put on her polite face until Mrs. Morgan left. Then she grounded me, which was no punishment at all since I didn’t know anyone here and I had nowhere to go.
     
    *          *          *
     
    “You look like a page right out of the L. L. Bean catalog,” I tell my mother, having been summoned to give my opinion of her outfit for the Morgans’ cookout. I’m pretty sure she actually opened to a page of the catalog and ordered the entire outfit off of one of the models: khaki skirt, nautical blue-and-white-striped twin set with the sweater draped across her shoulders and tied in the front, a woven belt, and slip-on campus boat shoes. I watch her inspect herself in the mirror.
    “You know it’s like 85° out, right?” I ask. “You really won’t need a sweater.”
    “Are you making fun of me?” she asks, turning to look at me. “And what are you going to wear?”
    I stand up from her bed and pose. I have on a jean skirt, a black T-shirt, and flip-flops.
    She frowns. “What about your hair?”
    Again with the hair. She hated it a couple of years ago when I cut it short because it was “too boyish.” She hates it now because “it just hangs there like a mop.” She thinks I need layers to make it “squishy” and “cute.” I like it how it is—simple, shoulder-length, easy to put in a ponytail.
    “Can you put some mousse in it or something, make it look nice? And how about some earrings? Do you have to wear that necklace?”
    I have on a hemp rope necklace with a big multicolored bead in the center of it. My brother Jeff gave it to me for my birthday and I wear it all the time. He’s in college, and this summer he isn’t coming home at all because he has some internship. I don’t blame him for not coming home—I mean, this isn’t any home he’s ever known—but I wish he were here. Everything is easier with him around.
    I agree to put on some earrings and scoot from the room before she can make any more “suggestions.”
     
    *          *          *
     
    From the window of the unpacked mess of my room, I can see into the Morgans’ backyard. The pool water glitters in the sun. The table on the deck has been dressed up with a festive tablecloth. As much as my mother’s obsession with