Watch Me Disappear

room. They hand us our coats.
    “You ladies come back any time,” Jason says as we shuffle back out to the car.
    By the time we get back to Maura’s, I don’t feel very drunk anymore, and I have a headache. I am so puzzled by the evening we just had that I can’t figure out where to begin.
    “What did you think of Jason’s friends?” Maura asks us.
    “The one with the goatee was cute,” Jessica says.
    Katherine shakes her head. “Not my type.”
    “Jason is so hot,” Maura says.
    “So you just had sex with him?” I blurt out.
    All three of them stare at me. I guess I’m not supposed to say what we had all just witnessed.
    Maura smiles and shrugs.
    “What if he has some disease?” I ask.
    “You worry too much,” Maura says.
    “But you just, like, had sex with him? Just like that?”
    “Sweet little virgin,” Katherine says, sounding bored.
    “I’m a virgin, too,” Jessica says.
    “But any guy will tell you she gives great head,” Katherine says.
    “Hey!” Jessica protests.
    “Whatever,” Katherine says.
    “Let’s all take this quiz,” Maura says, changing the subject, holding up the latest issue of Glamour .
    Contrary to Mrs. Morgan’s promise, we stay up most of the night, and I go home the next morning exhausted, my head pounding. I know the minute my parents see me I won’t have to worry about going out again for a while.
     
    *          *          *
     
    Monday at lunch, I walk into the cafeteria and discover that Missy is not at our usual table. She always gets there before me. Some days she is halfway through with her lunch before I even arrive. I look around and see her waving from the middle of the room—Paul’s table. Of course I should have expected Missy to want to sit with Paul, but somehow I just figured she and I would sit together like we always did. It hadn’t occurred to me that the reason she never sat with Wes at lunch was that Wes is a junior. He isn’t on our lunch.
    I take a deep breath and debate if I should sit in my usual spot or go over there, but before I can decide, Maura comes over and hooks an arm in mine. I let her guide me to her table.
    Sitting at Maura’s table is a revelation. I always buy my lunch. Monday’s special: chicken nuggets, tater tots, chocolate milk, and a cookie. Maura brings her lunch from home: carrot sticks, an apple, and lowfat yogurt. Katherine’s is similar. Jessica buys her lunch, a Snickers bar, at the vending machine. Katherine looks at my tray as if it is toxic and she is afraid to get too close.
    “You can’t eat like that if you want to look like this,” Maura says.
    “Yeah, one day those candy bars are going to catch up to Jessica,” Katherine says, eyeing the chocolate bar.
    “I guess I just like food,” I say, eating a tater tot.
    “Sure, but nothing tastes as good as sexy feels,” Maura says.
    “Don’t listen to them,” Jessica says, taking the last bite of her Snickers. “I don’t.” 
    “All I’m saying is, you liked the makeover we gave you, right?” Maura asks.
    I have on no makeup because I overslept this morning. My hair is in a ponytail. “Yeah, sure,” I say.
    “Right, because everyone likes to be pretty,” she says.
    The implication is that I am not pretty in my natural state. I probably don’t look too hot at the moment, but I have a million tests this week and no time to worry about it.
    “And everyone likes pretty people,” she adds.
    “Thanks for letting me sit with you,” I say sarcastically, but Maura misses my tone.
    “Hey, that’s what friends are for. We’re not going to let you sit over there all alone, are we, girls?” Maura says.
    Jessica smiles and Katherine makes a face that I take as agreement.
    And that’s it. One weekend and one lunch period and my entire social life is turned on its head.
     
     

Chapter 15
     
     
    Paul’s visits have decreased from a few times a week to none.
    “Did you have a fight or something?” my mother wants to know.
    “He’s such a nice boy,” she says a million times a day.
    What she doesn’t say but I’m sure she is thinking is, “You must have done something wrong.” That I told her from that start that Paul was interested in Missy, not me, doesn’t change her opinion one bit, although she has suggested a few times that I should be more like Missy, a suggestion I find hysterical considering how much she objected to Missy at the start.
    I’ve gone out with Missy and Paul a couple of times but it