Watch Me Disappear

and click shut again, and then I hear not one voice but two float over the fence—Maura’s and Tina’s.
    “Not gonna happen,” Maura says. I hear the clatter of patio chairs being dragged on the concrete. Adjusting for optimal sun, I assume.
    “Why not? Are your parents sick of paying her when they could have you for free?” Tina asks.
    They’re talking about me. I straighten up in my chair and lean forward, nearly holding my breath.
    “That bitch isn’t coming to this house again,” Maura says.
    “So she was in your room. Big deal,” Tina says.
    Of course I left some obvious clue behind. Sometimes I really am that stupid. Still I can’t imagine what—I thought I’d been so careful.
    “It’s a small price to pay,” Tina says, “for all the freedom you get out of the deal.”
    “It’s not your stuff she’s been going through,” Maura says.
    “Yeah, but it’s not like she stole anything, did she?”
    “Not that I noticed, but—”
    I’m afraid I’m going to hyperventilate. Is Maura planning on setting me up? Is she going to make it look like I stole something? That’s probably what I would do if someone had been snooping through my stuff.
    “I just don’t trust her,” Maura says.
    “Whatever. If you were babysitting, you’d be into every corner of the house seeing what dirt you could dig up,” Tina says. “Admit it.”
    “She was in my computer!” Maura’s voice is shrill.
    “I use your computer all the time.”
    Thank you, Tina, but why is she so willing to defend me?
    “You use my computer when I’m there. This is different.”
    “We’re talking about the party of the summer!” Tina says. So that’s it. Tina just wants Maura to be available for some party. She isn’t trying to defend me.
    “There’ll be more parties.”
    That is all I need to hear to know Maura must be seriously upset. She’s been having me babysit just so she could go to the movies, and now she’s willing to miss a party to be sure I can’t get near her room again.
    “Seriously, what is your deal?” Tina asks. “Did she, like, give your computer a virus or something?”
    “OK, so I figured out she was using my computer because I went online and I was logged out of Facebook, and an Email address that could only be hers was in the login line.”
    “So she used Facebook? I go on Facebook on your computer all the time.”
    “There’s more, if you’d let me finish. Anyway, yesterday I opened Word and in my recently viewed files were file names I haven’t opened in like two years, seriously.”
    “What, she’s been reading your old essays?”
    Why would I want to read her old essays? I was reading much more personal things. Even a dimwit like Tina should be smart enough to figure out that one.
    “That’s what I’m saying. She didn’t just use my computer. She was digging through all my files.”
    “What the hell does she want with your old school stuff?” Tina asks.
    And then I realized Maura’s “BFF” doesn’t know about her poetry.
    “Damned if I know,” Maura answers.
    They’re silent for a few moments. I sit as still as a statue. I need to hear more. Is Maura going to retaliate somehow? How can I have been so stupid? I left an obvious trail on Maura’s computer. Really, though, it’s my parents’ fault. If they let me use the computer more, none of this would have happened. I don’t know how I ever thought my plan would work.
    “So did you, like, tell your mom?” Tina asks finally.
    “What, and all but hand her a letter saying, ‘I’m hiding stuff on my computer that I don’t want you to see’? I do not need my mother in my business.”
    Sweet relief—she didn’t tell on me! If Maura told her mother, Mrs. Morgan would surely tell my mother and that’s more than I need.
    “I wouldn’t have expected her to be such a skank,” Tina says.
    “No shit. You should hear my stupid mom going on and on. Lizzie does the dishes when she watches your brother. Lizzie reads instead of watching TV. Lizzie doesn’t get an allowance. Whatever. She’s a two-faced bitch. And I’ve been nothing but nice to her.”
    When was she nice to me? More like she’d been nothing to me. Or maybe it’d be fair to say that at the cookout she’d been about as nice as she might be to a lab rat that she was going to dissect. And how could Maura call me a two-faced bitch? Maura, who is always talking about her so-called friends behind their backs, whose best friend doesn’t even know she