Watch Me Disappear

seriously going to let him drive?”
    “I can’t drive,” Maura whines. “What if I get pulled over?”
    We stand there for a minute. “Well how are you going to get home from Jason’s if you can’t drive?”
    “I’ll wait,” she says. “You know, until I sober up.”
    Yeah, right, I think. There is no way she is going to hang out at Jason’s and sober up. Being at his house means more drinking.
    “You mean until the morning?”
    “Why are you being so mean? Can’t you just be nice?”
    “I’m leaving,” I say. “Do what you want.”
    “Wait!” Maura steps between me and the car door. “Follow me to Jason’s and then home,” she says. “I’ll feel safer that way.”
    “I’m not hanging around at Jason’s. I have to get home. I told my parents—”
    “Okay, that’s fine. I’ll just drop him off.”
    Something more than a flat tire is wrong. Her big date night had clearly not gone as planned, or she wouldn’t be in such a hurry to ditch Jason. It isn’t even ten o’clock.
    The minute Jason gets out of her car and Maura takes over the driver’s seat, my cell phone rings. Maura wants me to talk her through the drive home. I’m not supposed to talk on the phone while I’m driving. It would be just my luck to get in an accident while on the phone. “Can’t we talk later, after we get home?” I ask. It’s my turn to whine.
    “Do you really have to go home right now?” she asks.
    I don’t. I have until 11:30. She suggests we go to the ’50s Diner, a retro greasy spoon at a truck stop at the entrance to the turnpike.
    The diner is mostly empty. Overhead the fluorescent lights blare. The ugly Formica tabletops seem to glow in the unnatural light. Elvis is playing softly through the ceiling speakers. It smells like French fries, and in the case behind the counter are pies that look better than homemade. Maura and I are on a diet. I wonder why we’re here. In the unforgiving brightness of the diner, I can see Maura’s face clearly. Her eyes are pink, her nose rimmed with red. Her usually powder-smooth complexion looks shiny. I feel a little bad for being short-tempered with her about the tire. Obviously it hasn’t been a good night.
    While we wait for our waitress, Maura fiddles with her paper napkin, twirling it around her fingers. Her hands are tense. Every now and then she sniffles. When she looks at me, I try to smile reassuringly.
    “Well, aren’t you going to ask what’s wrong?” she says after we each order coffee.
    “I didn’t know if you wanted me to—”
    “Why do you think we’re here?”
    “Sorry, I just figured you’d tell me if you wanted to.” I wait a moment, but she doesn’t speak. Finally, I ask, “So, what happened? Aside from the tire, I mean.”
    Turns out Jason’s idea of a date night was not Maura’s. Maura had been planning for this, had bought her slinky little dress, had made reservations at Angelo’s. But when she arrived at Jason’s to pick him up, he was still in his sweat pants, lounging on the couch watching MTV, I imagine with his hand in his pants, as usual. He didn’t want to go. As “the man,” as he apparently put it, he was supposed to be driving her and sweeping her off her feet, but he didn’t have a car, and he didn’t have any money, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be humiliated by having her pay for some fancy dinner. I imagine he belched after he said that, and maybe turned up the volume on the TV.
    “We’ll hang out here,” he said. “I’ll cook.”
    Maura then said something about not wanting to wait until he had a car and money to go on a date. She wanted to go now. I suspect she threw something of a hissy fit, although she doesn’t admit as much. When Jason didn’t move off the couch, she turned to leave, and he didn’t like that one bit. He threw the remote, got up, and grabbed her—as she tells me this she tenderly rubs her hand along her upper right arm—and then he pushed her hard into the wall. Her head hit the wall, hard enough to make her see stars.
    “You gonna cry now?” he said, letting her go.
    Maura couldn’t answer because she knew if she did, she would indeed cry.
    “You’re too used to getting your own damn way. You think you’re some kind of princess.” He moved back to the couch and then realized he didn’t have the remote because he’d hurled it across the room. “Get me the damn remote and sit your ass down,” he said.
    “And he’s never acted this way before?”