Dollhouse (16 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

Kyle

“S
hall I hear more? Or shall I speak at this?” Benjy said in a stage whisper.

“ ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy,” said the pink-haired girl beside him. “Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet . . .”

Kyle leaned back in the auditorium seat, put her feet up, and watched Benjy in action. He and the pink-haired girl were rehearsing a scene from
Romeo and Juliet
by Shakespeare, for the Wesley Eastman Academy Drama Club.

She had to admit, it wasn’t awful. It was actually really
not-
awful. She’d read Shakespeare plays for school, and his dusty, archaic words had put her to sleep faster than cough syrup and Grand Marnier shots (her personal remedy for insomnia). But spoken out loud and acted onstage, they were kind of interesting. And smart. And weirdly psychological.

Her phone buzzed. It was a text from Bree, who was home alone.

HIIIII KY! :)))))

Seriously? Again? Bree had taken to texting her a lot lately. Today seemed to be a record, with twenty, maybe thirty texts. For some reason, Bree seemed to harbor the bizarre idea that she and Kyle were BFFs. Still, Kyle knew Bree was at the house by herself, waiting for her and Benjy to come home. The parents were off running some mystery errand in OC.

Kyle typed:

HEY BRIE CHEESE. EVERYTHING OK?

YESSSSSS!!!!! R U COMING HOME SOON LOL? :)))))

YES. MAKE U DINNER K?

K LUV U LOL!!!!!! :)))))

Kyle tucked her phone back in her pocket and turned her attention back to Benjy and the pink-haired girl, who were wrapping up their scene. Mr. Weaver, the drama teacher, wandered out from the wings, waving a dog-eared script in his hands.

“Fabulous! Super!” Mr. Weaver gushed. “But, India, if I may? It might be nice to see a little more of that youthful, let us even say immature
je ne sais quoi
from you. Remember, our Juliet’s only thirteen.” He clapped. “All right, then, why don’t we rewind and run quickly through Romeo and Benvolio, Act One, Scene One? Is our Benvolio here?”

“He’s out sick,” the pink-haired girl, India, said. “I’m taking off now, I’ve gotta go study for my SATs.”

Benjy glanced around the stage. “Hey, Javier, can you be Benvolio today?”

“No, man, I’m trying to keep this effing prop from falling down,” Javier replied, holding up a roll of duct tape. “Can’t you get someone else to do it?”

“Yeah, like who? Everyone left.” Benjy steepled his hands over his eyes and peered out at the audience. “Kyle, is that you? Hey, can you come up here and read some lines with me?”

Kyle sat up. “Dude, I’m just here to give you a ride home.”

“Come on. A favor. It’ll take like five minutes.”

Kyle rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Five minutes, okay?”

“Great, thanks!”

Kyle walked up to the stage, hoping that her slumped posture and scowling face were communicating her displeasure to Benjy loud and clear. She did not like being pressured into doing . . . well,
anything.

When she reached Benjy, she thrust out her hand. “Okay,
what
am I reading?” she snapped.

Benjy handed her a script and pointed to a highlighted section. “There. You’re Benvolio. I’m Romeo. We’re cousins.”

“Is Benvolio a girl?”

“No, a guy.”

“No way. I’ve gotta play a
guy
?”

Benjy grinned. “That’s why they call it acting, Kyle.”

Kyle sighed. “Fine. God! Let’s just get this over with.”

“Five minutes, I promise.”

Kyle glanced at the highlighted words on the script. “Tell me in sadness who that is . . . I mean, who
is that
you love,” she read out loud. The words felt awkward on her tongue, all twisted and convoluted. “What the fuck? What does that even mean?” she asked Benjy.

“Romeo is in a funk because he thinks he’s in love, and Benvolio’s trying to get him to talk about it,” Benjy explained. “Come on, pretend you’re bullshitting Kass or Kamille into spilling their secrets. You’re good at that, right?”

“Ha-ha.” Kyle turned her attention back to the script. “Tell me in sadness who is that you love,” she repeated, more slowly and earnestly. Okay,
this
time she’d nailed it.

“What, shall I groan and tell thee?” Benjy said.

“Groan! Why, no. But sadly tell me who.”

“Bid a sick man in sadness make his will. Ah, word ill urg’d to one that is so ill! In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.”

“I aim’d so near when I suppos’d you love’d,” Kyle said lightly.

Aim’d so near.
Ha-ha, that was clever! Like Shakespeare was comparing Benvolio’s mental guessing games to shooting an arrow at a target. Kyle was beginning to like this play. Or at least, not hate it.

The five minutes passed quickly, and she actually found herself enjoying the process of reading through lines. Even though subbing as Romeo’s boy cousin for the high school drama club wasn’t exactly a glamorous Hollywood gig. She’d always imagined her acting debut on an HBO miniseries, or maybe a cool indie movie that would premiere at Sundance, so she could walk the red carpet wearing something completely inappropriate and flip off the reporters. Still, this experience didn’t completely suck.

“H
ey, you totally impressed Mr. Weaver,” Benjy told Kyle on the car ride home. “He gave me a flyer to give to you. It’s for this production he’s directing over at the community center this summer. He thought you should audition for it.”

Kyle’s mouth curled up in a half smile. Cool. So the old drama teacher thought she was good?

“Yeah, well, I’m really, really busy this summer,” she said out loud. She wasn’t about to let Benjy know that she might be interested in trying out for this play, whatever it was. She probably couldn’t get a part, anyway. She didn’t have acting experience, like that India girl. “Besides, you were supposed to be ready to be picked up like an hour ago,” she bitched. “My mom made me come get you because she and your dad had to go to Irvine.”

“What’s happening in Irvine?”

“The fuck should I know? Anyway, we have to go straight home and heat up dinner for you, me, and the Bree. I swear, she was texting me like constantly this afternoon. She needs a hobby, like maybe a new puppy to take care of.”

“You know this, right? She had to write an essay for school last week about her ‘personal hero.’ She wrote about you.”

“She did
what
? Why?”

“Ask her to show it to you. It was like, ‘My big sister Kyle is the smartest person I know, blah, blah, blah.’ ”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“I’m serious.”

Kyle stopped at a red light behind an idling yellow Ferrari. The traffic this time of day was insane. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, thinking about Bree’s crazy essay. And smiled. So maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, having
one
person in the family who appreciated her.

She glanced over at Benjy. Or
two
people in the family. He
had
been kind of not-lame to her this academic year, helping her with her homework and encouraging her to get into acting and so forth. And in general keeping things sane in the midst of all the insanity: Kamille’s over-the-top fame-whore wedding, Kass’s soap-opera pregnancy, being trapped in the living room while the parents were having gross old-people sex, etc., etc.

“What?” Benjy grinned. “Why’re you staring at me?”

The light turned green. Kyle slammed her foot on the accelerator and sped up, relishing the look of fear on the Ferrari driver’s face as she passed him. “I was thinking that your haircut makes you look like a girl,” she told Benjy. “A really ugly girl.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Come on, let’s get home and microwave some shit.”

Kyle was in a good mood all of a sudden. Which usually didn’t happen to her unless she was on something. Hmm, maybe she
didn’t
need pot and tequila and all that crap to make her life not completely suck? Which was a revelation.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Kass

“O
kay, ladies, let’s squat down and practice our Kegels!” Candy, the overly cheerful Lamaze instructor, chirped at the class. “Coaches, let’s help our partners get into position!”

Kass grabbed onto Kyle’s arm so she could lower herself into a squat without falling flat on her (massive) butt. God, this was humiliating. She was six, almost seven months along, and she was absolutely
huge
—not like one of those skinny pregnant women who pranced around with tiny, almost imperceptible baby bumps until their babies were born. She felt like a farm animal, enormous and lumbering. It probably didn’t help that she’d been hitting the Double Stuf Oreos and chocolate-chip ice cream in a big way lately.

She swore to herself that she would take up Pilates (and weight lifting and marathon running) as soon as Annabella was born. The day after, even. She could be the most disciplined, determined person in the world when she put her mind to it. Unfortunately, her mind was in a supersized, slow-motion, Oreo-and-ice-cream haze these days.

“Hey, Kass? Why is Candy Bar making you do Kegels?” Kyle piped up. This was her first ten minutes at her first Lamaze class ever, and she had already given the instructor a nickname. Normally, this would amuse (or annoy) Kass. Today, it just made her hungry. “Is that so you can have superhot pregnancy sex?” Kyle rambled on.

“Um, no? It’s so we have strong muscles for pushing out our babies,” Kass replied testily.

“Good. ’Cause I can’t imagine any of you getting it on with those ginormous bellies. You’d crush the other person to death, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s a really nice thing to say. Thanks a lot.”

“Or would they just stay on top the whole time? Wow, this is fascinating! Yeah, maybe I’ll check and see if there are any pregnant-lady pornos out there . . .”

Kass sighed. She wasn’t sure what was worse, having Kamille or Kyle as her labor coach. Kyle definitely beat Kamille hands down in the “deranged” category. Kamille was her regular labor coach (she’d insisted on it over Kass’s numerous protests), but today she’d had to skip because of a conflict with a photo shoot for some new lipstick ad. Kass had tried to get her mother to fill in, but she had been tied up at the restaurant.

And so Kass was stuck with Kyle.

“Squeeze it all in . . . tight, tighter, tightest! . . . and then
releeeeease
!” Candy was saying animatedly. “Imagine that you’re sitting on the toilet holding in your pee . . . and then
releeeeeasing
!”

Kyle’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? Is she demented? Are all your classes like this?”

“Pretty much.”

“Shit, remind me never to have a baby!”

“That’s what I told myself, too, when I was your age.”

“Really? I guess you changed your mind, then.”

“Yeah, well, not exactly.”

Kass continued squatting and squeezing and releasing, trying not to feel foolish. She reminded herself that it was necessary to condition herself mentally and physically—especially physically, and especially
down there
—for the rigors of childbirth. This was basically like studying for an econ exam or writing a thirty-page history paper. Kyle might not be into the spirit of things, but everyone else in the room was (i.e., six straight couples, two lesbian couples, and a gay male couple and their surrogate), so it was just a matter of feeding off all that happy expectant-couple energy.

For a brief moment Kass’s thoughts wandered to Eduardo. When school started up again in mid-January, they didn’t have any classes together, so she didn’t see him for a while. She’d composed several long, rambling e-mails to him, trying to explain. But she never ended up sending them, hitting the delete button instead. After a while she stopped writing to him altogether.

She felt so bad about the way she’d treated him. She also missed him a lot. She missed his intellect. She missed his sweetness. She missed his beautiful face. She missed his lips . . .

She wished she had gone to San Diego with him that weekend.

She wished she had never passed that magazine stand the night Annabella was conceived.

She wished she hadn’t waited so long to kiss him. If she hadn’t, would things have turned out differently?

But that was in the past. There was no way they could resume their relationship. The last time she saw him—last month, around the middle of April—she’d run into him in front of the business school. She’d been wearing one of her anti-maternity-clothes T-shirts that revealed her belly in all its huge, farm-animal glory. He’d looked at it in shock, then met her gaze, his eyes full of surprise and hurt. She’d started to say something . . . but a couple of girls interrupted and whisked him away, jabbering about being late for their study group or whatever. She’d half expected him to text her or call her afterward. But he didn’t. And she couldn’t bring herself to call or text him either.

Because what would she say?
Eduardo, I’m so, so sorry for being such a psychotic, bipolar witch to you for so long. I don’t even know how to explain what happened. See, I really, really liked you when we were going out fall semester, which is exactly what made me act like I
didn’t
like you sometimes. And then that night, we were supposed to make love for the first time. It was going to be so amazing. But instead, there was this perfect storm of Really Bad Stuff, and I did the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. That I’ll
ever
do in my entire life. And then just before Christmas, I kissed you and made you think everything was okay between us. And then right
after
Christmas, I lied and told you I didn’t want to see you anymore because I’d met another guy . . .

“Kass? Yo! Snap out of your Kegel-orgasm-trance! Candy-gram says it’s time to lie down on your back for our breathing exercises,” Kyle told her.

“Oh!”

Kass reclined on the soft mat slowly, gingerly, using Kyle’s arm for support. She had to stop thinking about Eduardo. And start focusing on the present. After all, she had a baby to deliver in less than three months.

“S
o thanks for filling in as my labor coach,” Kass told Kyle over dinner at a pub in the neighborhood. “I know it’s not exactly fun or interesting. And you probably had better things to do tonight.”

“Nah, just catching up on the
Twilight Zone
marathon on Syfy,” Kyle said, taking a sip of her chocolate milk shake. “There’s like a zillion episodes. I swear, TiVo can be such a curse. Besides, the Candy Show was a blast. If I ever have to play a hippie-freak labor coach in a movie or whatever, I’ll know who to channel.”

Kass perked up. Kyle didn’t generally express interest in much besides drinking and surfing the Internet and getting under their mother’s skin. “Oh! So you’re into acting now?” she said curiously.

“Nah, not really. I was just talking. So how are you doing, anyway? Are you peeing a lot? Waking up in the middle of the night?” She leaned forward and added, “Keeping in touch with your baby daddy?”

“Kyle, I told you before that—”

“I know what you told the fam. But it’s me,
Kyle.
Your awesome little sister. You can trust me with anything. I won’t tell, I promise.”

Kass wasn’t sure where this was coming from. Sure, she’d consumed a bathtub full of booze that night in November and spilled her guts to Kyle. But other than that, they didn’t exactly have a sharing kind of relationship.

Kass picked up a bottle of ketchup and dumped it on her burger. “I don’t really have anything to add,” she said evasively. “I’m doing fine. Really. I finished up all my work for the semester, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have a 4.0 going into my senior year. Kamille’s moving into, uh, Chase’s house after the wedding, so I’m going to turn her room into the nursery. Mom’s been buying me tons of baby stuff, so I’m all set with that. She and Beau offered to subsidize my rent for the next year, so that’ll be a big help. And I have some money saved up, too, from the restaurant and from birthday presents and savings bonds and all that.”

“Uh-huh. That’s superinteresting.
And?
”

“And . . . well . . . yeah, you’re right, it’s not easy, not being able to talk about the baby’s father. I don’t like keeping secrets. Especially from the people I love most in the world,” Kass blurted out.

“Then why do you? Keep secrets, that is.”

Kass sighed. “Because if I tell the truth, I’ll end up hurting somebody. Really, really badly. Plus, everyone will hate me.”

Kyle munched on a french fry and nodded thoughtfully. “Got it. But you know what, Kass? Secrets never stay secrets. The truth always comes out eventually. So, my advice? It’s best to spill now versus later. That way, you’re in control of the spin—not someone else who might distort the facts in a way that will make you seem even douchier than you already are.”

“Oh! I hadn’t thought of that!”

Kass grabbed a handful of french fries and stuffed them in her mouth. (Mmm. Maybe it was time she replaced her daily Oreo-and-ice-cream habit with a daily french-fry habit.) She thought about Kyle’s words. The only two people who could possibly know about the baby’s paternity were her and Chase. And because of Kass’s brilliant DNA story, Chase thought the baby was someone else’s, not his.

But.
What if something unexpected happened (besides Chase putting two and two together, that is)? Like, what if Annabella was born with a medical condition that required genetic information from both parents . . . or, God forbid, some kind of transplant from a genetic match? Then Kass would be forced to confess the truth to Chase (and Kamille and the rest of her family) in the heat of the moment—a difficult, emotionally charged, possibly life-or-death moment—regardless of the consequences. Wouldn’t it be better to come clean now, when the stakes weren’t so high? And she, Kass, could be “in control of the spin” (as Kyle so artfully put it)?

On top of which . . . what if the tabloids got wind of the story? Kass wasn’t sure how that could happen, but one never knew with them. They were relentless, they had resources, and they were evil. Pure evil. She knew personally, because they’d called her an ugly man or whatever. It would be disastrous if Kamille or anyone else read about Kass’s drunken hookup with Chase on the Internet.

“Yeah, you should just tell me who the baby daddy is right now,” Kyle was saying. “It’ll be off your conscience, then. And I can help you figure out what to say to Mom and Beau and stuff. I’m good at that.”

“Yeah? Since when?”

“Since I started getting A’s in school and all that bullshit. Mom thinks I walk on water now. She even said yes when I asked her for a loan so I could buy Uncle Desi’s old Expedition. I gave her this whole made-up speech about how I was responsible enough to have my own car now, and how I wanted to keep honing my responsibility skills through long-term car ownership. That’s the word I used,
honing
. And she actually believed me.”

“Wow, that’s comforting.”

“Right? So you can trust me. I can help you.”

“Let me think about it, okay?”

Kyle wagged a french fry in the air. “Okay. But don’t think too long,” she warned.

Kass frowned. Kyle’s words reminded her of her
other
advice to Kass, last November.
Think less, hook up more.
That hadn’t gone so well.

But maybe Kyle was right, this time? Maybe Kass shouldn’t overanalyze the situation?

She grabbed more french fries. And flagged down the waitress for another order.