Dear Diary,
I’m so excited because Dad says that Katie and I can leave the house at the same time to go shopping today! I’m a little bit nervous about being alone with Katie, because I’ve only talked to her a few times. Dad says that we should call her Mom, but I think that it makes her uncomfortable. The last time I did it was a few months ago, outside of the entrance to her very “safe and secure” basement bedroom. “Mom!” I yelled, and ran to give her a hug. She held out her arm to block me. “Cookie?” she whispered, surveying me with hungry eyes. When I shook my head (Dad says we’re not allowed to feed Katie), her body recoiled, and she shuffle stepped, defeated, down the stairs to her room.
We planned the trip last night, when John Travolta was over to do a “secret experiment” in Dad’s “fake bedroom” on the top floor of the house. Everyone was in the kitchen for a pre-bedroom snack. John and Dad were joking around, playing with each other’s hair and going through Katie’s purse. Katie was in her corner, curled in a little ball. I was in my secret hiding spot, in a crawl space in the wall. Conner was recharging at the kitchen table. And for some reason, Suri was no where to be found.
“Oh my god, this looks so bad on me!” John Travolta wheeled around to show my father the lipstick from Katie’s make-up bag that he had just smeared all over his face. “This color is so last season!”
“So totally!” Dad said, in a weirdly jovial mood. I was happy that John was around, because if he hadn’t been then Dad would have been on his secret Facebook page, trying to find people who had said bad things about him so that he could ruin their lives.
“I can’t believe Katie wears this!” John giggled.
“Katie!” my dad shouted in her general direction.
She started crawling towards him, the hem of her jeans, which were actually his jeans, trailing behind her on the floor. She reached his feet, and looked up at him expectantly.
“Popsicle?” She begged.
“No popsicle!” He yelled. “Only diet drinks!”
She flipped over on her back, and stared at the ceiling, like a dead beetle, just as my father had taught her to act when she had made a big mistake.
“Oh my god, Katie,” John said, nudging her with his toes. “You so need a new outfit. Tommy, I have a girl who does the best color chart. You should send Katie over to her tomorrow so that she can upgrade whatever she has going on there.” He gestured over her body. “Big disaster.” He whispered theatrically.
“Alright, I’ll see if Suri is free to take you.” Dad said offhandedly to Katie, as he started striding around the center island.
“Suri…agent…ticket to freedom,” Katie whimpered.
“What did you just say?” My dad asked.
“Suri…agent…” Katie croaked again.
“Oh right, Suri is meeting with an agent tomorrow. Show me the money!” My dad brushed his bangs aside and got into his Jerry Maguire character. “I guess you’ll have to go alone.”
At that very moment, something bit my leg. I whipped around, thinking that it might be the rat who always steals my secret stash of anti-anxiety medication. But no, it was that little Bonpoint clad monster, wearing her mink coat and a tiara. “AAAAAA!” I screamed. “Get off!!!”
Suri stared up at me and smiled, my blood staining her teeth. Then she turned around, looked over her shoulder, and winked at me before riding off on her golden chariot.
“What was that, papi?” John Travolta said languidly, popping his black heads in the mirrored marble surface of the kitchen counter.
“Oh, that was just the beast. I mean Isabella.” Dad corrected himself. “Isabella, come down here!”
I shuffled out from behind the wall, covered in dust, blood streaming down my leg.
“Oh honey.” John Travolta looked at me. “No. No no no no no no NO! So Carrie 1987. Tommy, you have to send her to my girl.”
Dad looked at me, and then down at my newly blossoming breasts. He made a face like he had just eaten something bitter and averted his gaze.
“Isabella,” he said to me, daring me to disobey. “Are you free tomorrow to take Katie shopping?”
“I… I guess so Daddy,” I stammered, my face flushed with pleasure. Daddy never let me go shopping! Unless it was to buy gigantic t-shirts, in sizes he didn’t wear, to cover what he called “the figure I got from my real parents.”
“I’ll arrange for some Scientologists to accompany you,” he said.
“Orange juice?” Katie said hopefully, still on the ground, her face barely moving.
“I’ve had enough of you!” Daddy yelled. “Go to your cage!”
And so the plans were put in motion for my first shopping trip ever. To H&M. With my step-mother Katie.
