Watch Me Disappear

having to feel guilty for my duplicity.
    I know Paul is also at midnight Mass tonight, but at Immaculate Conception, across town. I have thought about calling him a few times since Missy left, but I don’t have the nerve.
    And then, of course, there’s Maura. She told me her family doesn’t do much on Christmas Eve. They usually just sit around watching old Christmas cartoons and claymation movies. Probably if I texted her right now, she would instantly write back and would keep my thumbs in motion for the entire Mass.
    How has it happened? How have I ended up seeing Maura as someone I can count on? A few months ago I never would have imagined the possibility.
     
    *          *          *
     
    On the Monday after New Year’s, I finally get my license. I take the test with hands shaking from nerves and hunger. The diet Maura prescribed for us mostly involves not eating. But I pass, amazingly, despite the fact that I’ve had only minimal practice. Tuesday morning, my mom hands me the keys to her car when I come down to breakfast.
    “Don’t think you’ll be driving yourself every day,” she says.
    I grab my lunch from the counter, wrap my bagel in a paper towel, and run out the door, my mother hollering at me about not eating while driving. I get in the car and then call Maura to say that I don’t need a ride. As I only have a junior operator’s license, I technically can’t give her a ride, so although we are leaving from houses all of twenty feet apart and are headed to the same destination, we have to take separate cars. I don’t know if my parents are aware of the annoying Massachusetts law forbidding teenagers from driving other teenagers for six months after getting their licenses. It seems to me that most kids break that rule all the time. They just drive more carefully to avoid getting pulled over. Of course, a lot of other seniors have had their licenses much longer than six months, so they don’t have to worry at all. Anyway, I know Maura will be expecting me to start driving her around soon, and I wonder if my parents will let me or if I’ll have to lie. Then again, I am becoming a good liar, so it won’t really matter either way.
    First period I feel my cell phone vibrating in my pocket. It’s history class. The teacher is so old I think he has firsthand experience of the Civil War. I sit in the last row near the back of the room. He’ll never see me. I slip the phone out of my pocket and hold it low on my lap.
    “Mel’s diner after school? U can drive!” reads a text message from Maura.
    I hadn’t lingered at home that morning long enough to know when my mother expected me home. I’m sure she won’t be happy about not having a car all afternoon, not that she has anywhere to go, but that’s just how she is.
    “Have to get the car back to mom,” I answer, my heart pounding as I glance around to make sure no one is paying attention to my illicit texting.
    “OK but this wkend u r my ride,” Maura replies. I shut off my phone and slip it back into my pocket. I’ve had enough rule breaking for one day, and when I do see Maura I am going to have to remind her to stop texting me. My phone bill is due any day and my parents are going to be pissed.
     
    *          *          *
     
    I am happy when second quarter ends in the middle of January. It means the end of art class, which is only a half-year elective. And without art class, I don’t have to see Paul at all, as long as I don’t look his way in the cafeteria. I was supposed to take psychology second semester, but I told my guidance counselor that I had realized that with my heavy load of AP classes, I should just take a study. She glanced at my sinking second quarter grades, raised an eyebrow, and agreed. Study hall, for the first time in my life. Of course, I won’t get much studying done, because Maura and I are going to be free the same period.
    The Friday after the quarter ends, I go out with Maura to celebrate the unofficial end of all effort in school—colleges won’t be seeing our grades again until they’ve already accepted us. I get home just in time to make curfew, but then I am up half the night anyway, mostly wondering if I did enough to get into any of the colleges I applied to.
    When I come downstairs Saturday morning, my parents are reading the newspaper in the living room. I grab a bowl of cereal and sit down at the bar in the kitchen. As soon as I do, my mother folds her