Watch Me Disappear

everything ready.
     “So we’ll take everyone’s keys,” Mrs. Morgan explains, handing me a basket, “and we’ll lock them upstairs until the morning. No one drives.”
    Maura hadn’t mentioned to me that her parents agreed to let everyone drink. I should have realized—why would anyone come if they wouldn’t be allowed to drink? I can just picture everyone outside around the pool, getting drunk and making all kinds of noise at midnight. And next door my mother might just call the cops. I can see her with the phone in her hand, poised to dial 911. Except Mrs. Morgan is her friend. I wonder if that will be enough to stop her.
    “Mother,” Maura says, “once people start arriving, you can’t be down here.” She pouts and crosses her arms.
    “Just until I get everyone’s keys.”
    “Lizzie can do it,” Maura says.
    “Look, David and I agreed—”
    “You’ll embarrass me. These kids could have gone to some other party without worrying about someone’s parents hovering around. It’ll be ridiculous.”
    Mrs. Morgan turns to me. “Lizzie, don’t you think everyone will understand that I want to make sure I get their keys?”
    Maura gives me a look that says, “Back me up or die.”
    “Everybody knows how dangerous drinking and driving is,” I say, satisfying neither of them. I fiddle with the edge of the plastic tablecloth Mrs. Morgan spread across the dining room table.
    “See, Mother. We’re perfectly responsible,” Maura says, taking the basket. “Everyone will be here in like half an hour, so you just leave us alone now.” My own mother would not have let me talk to her like that.
    “I’m upstairs if you need anything,” Mrs. Morgan says calmly.
    Mr. Morgan has been conspicuously absent since I arrived. Maura told me he wasn’t really on board with this whole event, and to show his displeasure, he’s hiding out in the bedroom. Billy is staying at a friend’s house.
    “This is going to be awesome,” Maura says after she hears her parents’ bedroom door shut. “Wanna get a head start?”
    “I’m good,” I say.
    “Oh my god, you’re as bad as my mother! Lighten up!” Maura grabs a plastic cup and walks out onto the patio where a keg sits in a tub of ice. I follow her.
    The pool lights are on and the water glows. It was a warm, sunny day, but it’s nearly eleven o’clock and the air is cool. It is, after all, still only May. It seems like a stupid time for a pool party, but drunk teenagers do a lot of stupid things, so I guess it’s just right.
    Jessica and her date, John, are the first to arrive, followed shortly by Tina and Katherine and their beaus, and then a steady flow of revelers. I am surprised by how many people show up. I wonder if Maura invited them. I’m pretty sure she didn’t. I’m not surprised that Paul and Missy don’t come, but I’m shocked when Hunter does, minus his youthful date (she had a curfew to meet). And then, of course, Jason arrives. Maura didn’t want him to get there until the party was in full-swing because her parents don’t approve. He has a couple of friends with him. They look like real thugs—baggy jeans, hoodies, facial hair. When they walk in, it is like in the movies when the music stops and every head turns to see the newcomers.
    “’Sup,” Jason says to me as he walks by. He heads straight for the beer.
    Meanwhile, I am the little house mother, dashing from one end of the room to the other to stop vases from being knocked over, to put napkins under cups that are leaving rings on the furniture, to pick up plates. It isn’t like I have anything to talk to anyone about anyway. They are all reliving the prom. Who wore what, so-and-so making out on the dance floor, the way some of the teachers tried to demonstrate the hustle.
    What I want is to go back next door to my house and go to bed, but that would be suspicious. My mother expects me to spend the night at Maura’s, and Mrs. Morgan expects me to make sure nothing bad happens. I’m stuck.
    “Having fun?” John asks me as I tie up a trash bag in the kitchen.
    “Oh yeah.”
    “It sucks to be the host, doesn’t it?” he says, helping me hoist the full bag and take it to the garage.
    “I’m not the host,” I say.
    “Well, you sure are acting the part.”
    “This whole thing is ridiculous.” It’s cool and quiet in the garage. I stand there and take a deep breath, savoring the moment.
    “As far as I’m concerned, any party that I’m not in charge of is a