Watch Me Disappear

Katherine’s party?”
    Missy looks at her cell phone. It is 10:30. “Probably not,” she says. “I mean, by the time we get there we’ll just have to leave.”
    “Besides,” I say, “Maura’s going to be there.”
    “It’s cool,” Paul says. “I talked to her.”
    “I think you should just take us home,” Missy says.
    Paul drives to Wes’s house first. When we get there, Missy hops out and walks up to the door with him. I roll up the window because I don’t want to hear her pleading with him not to be mad. I want to talk to Paul while we have a moment alone, but I can’t figure out what to say so I just look straight ahead.
    “Do they always have such long goodbyes?” Paul asks after a minute.
    “They’ve been fighting.”
    “You don’t say.”
    I don’t have to look at Paul to know he is grinning.
    “So I told Maura that you and I are just friends,” he says. “She understands.”
    “I doubt it. Unless you admitted it’s Missy you’re after.”
    “Seriously. It’s cool.”
    Thankfully Missy chooses that moment to get back in the car with an apology for taking so long. When we get back to Missy’s house, Paul grabs my arm as I open the door. Missy is already bounding up the front walk. “Thanks,” he says.
    “For what?” All I did was ride in the car with him.
    “I had fun,” he says. “Didn’t you?”
    I think about dancing with Paul at the beginning of the night. “I’d call it a wash, really,” I say.
     “You never give me the response I expect.”
    I reach for the door again and he lets me.
    “See ya Monday,” he says.
    Missy’s dad is relieved we’re home early. He locks the door behind us and goes straight to bed. Apparently he and Anna forgot the extent of sleep deprivation that accompanies a baby. Missy goes to the kitchen and comes back with a half-gallon of cookie dough ice cream and a bag of chips. We settle into the couch to sort out the night.
    Missy is perplexed by Wes’s moodiness. To tell the truth, so am I. I don’t get why he would just want to sit and sulk when he could have been dancing with the prettiest girl in the room. In the summer he’d been easygoing, but since school started he seems touchy and anxious a lot. And, Missy reveals, he had a pretty serious jealous streak. I figure that maybe he hadn’t realized how widely admired Missy would be. Maybe he isn’t confident enough to be the boyfriend of a girl who turns heads everywhere she goes. Then again, he should have seen that coming the first time he set eyes on her. I wonder what we can learn about Wes by talking to some of his exes, like if he dumped them or vice versa.
    “Still, he is sweet when we’re alone,” Missy says, sinking her spoon back into the ice cream.
    I point out that a social person like herself probably needs someone who likes to be out and about doing things.
    “Maybe I’ve been trying to turn him into some high school sweetheart that doesn’t exist,” Missy says.
    I think she is probably right. “What about Paul?” I ask.
    “He’s too slick,” she says. “I don’t think I could ever trust him.”
    I, however, have started to think that Paul is almost as trustworthy as Missy. Somehow I am willing to overlook the fact that he took me to the dance to get close to my friend who already has a boyfriend and that he left us all standing around in the parking lot while he disappeared with his ex behind the school. What I prefer to see in Paul is that he is funny and handsome, that he doesn’t get drunk at parties, and that he always smiles at me. His smile begs me to trust him. He has none of the mystery that I thought I liked in Hunter, but he has triple the personality. As I sit there on Missy’s couch, I realize that Paul is the high school sweetheart I have always wanted, and I am glad Missy is set against liking him.
     
     
     

Chapter 12
     
     
    I am nervous for the ride to school Monday morning. Despite Paul’s reassurances, I don’t know what to expect of Maura, but when I get in the car she acts nicer than usual. Neither of us talk for a couple minutes. Maura taps her fingers on the steering wheel in time with the music from the radio. Then she turns the volume down and glances at me.
    “Paul’s a great guy, isn’t he?” she asks.
    “Yeah, he is,” I say.
    “I was surprised to see you together at the dance. I mean, you’re totally not his type.”
    I know that’s true but I hate to hear Maura say it.
    “But then he told me how