Dollhouse (5 page)

Chapter Eight

Kyle

“C
at on a Hot Tin Roof
is one of Tennessee Williams’s most famous plays,” Benjy told Kyle. “They made a movie out of it, too. Have you seen it?”

“Cat on a hot tanned
what
?” Kyle said distractedly.

She lay back on the chaise longue and admired her own awesome tan. Her legs looked especially stunning against the pale turquoise color of her new bikini, which she had conveniently gotten for free during last Saturday’s shoplifting spree at the mall. Kyle had never shoplifted before, but her friends Ash and Priscilla had talked her into it. It had been a blast, like playing an Xbox game, for real. It had also been surprisingly easy, due to the apparent epidemic of brain-dead security guards.

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,”
Benjy repeated. “We have a test on it in our lit class tomorrow. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Kyle glanced sideways at Benjy, who was sitting cross-legged on the pool deck surrounded by a sea of notebooks, pens, and books, like some geek in a Staples ad. With his brown eyes and tall, lean frame, he looked a little like Beau, except for his I’m-too-much-of-a-nerd-to-bother-with-my-appearance vibe. His wavy light brown hair was long-ish and unruly, his gold-rimmed glasses were crooked, and his Korn T-shirt (really? Korn?) and khaki shorts were wrinkled, as though he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of laundry yet.

Still, he was cute. Correction: he
would
be cute, if he wasn’t her stepbrother.

“You
did
read it, right?” Benjy asked her.

Kyle shrugged nonchalantly. “Can’t you just tell me what it’s about?”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what your mom and my dad had in mind when they hired me to be your tutor.”

“It’ll be our little secret, then.”

Kyle still couldn’t believe that her mother and Beau had given her an ultimatum: show up for these biweekly tutoring sessions and reach a 3.0 average by the end of the trimester, or she would lose her car, phone, and computer privileges for the entire following trimester. Were they serious, threatening her like that? Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do but go along with their diabolical plan. Or
pretend
to go along with it, anyway, until she could think of a better alternative.

Benjy picked up his dog-eared copy of the play and began leafing through it. “Okay, so, did you read
any
of it?”

“Yeah.”

“How far did you get?”

“I don’t know. Some girl named Maddy was bitching out some guy named Brett.”

“Maggie. And Brick. They were probably having one of their big fights.”

“About what?”

“About his drinking. About his messed-up relationship with his dad. About his psycho sister-in-law who’s angling for the family fortune. About his dead best friend, Skipper, who may or may not have wanted to hook up with him. Oh, and speaking of sex, they fight a lot about that, too. She hasn’t gotten any from him in a
long
time.”

Kyle raised her eyebrows. “Why not? The way she looked in that white dress? I totally would have hit that.”

“Oh, so you
did
see the movie?”

“Um, maybe?”

Actually, Kyle had read the play last night, cover to cover, and had liked it so much that she had watched the movie on iTunes, staying up till 2
A.M.
But she wasn’t about to tell Benjy that. It was a lot more fun, making him work for his ten dollars an hour or whatever her Evil-with-a-capital-
E
parental units were paying him.

“And what did you think?” Benjy persisted.

“It was okay. I could have done better, though.”

“What do you mean?”

Kyle studied her nails, which were painted different shades of purple and black. “Like the chick who played the sister-in-law? I thought she was too over-the-top with that part. I would have toned it down, been more subtle. Yeah, Tennessee Williams’s lines were over-the-top to begin with. But why not play around with them, go deeper, give them some texture?”

“Really.”
Benjy stared at her with interest. “I didn’t know you were into acting.”

“Who says I’m into acting?”

“You. The way your voice got all intense just now. And the way you used the word
texture
. You’re a closet thespian, Kyle.”

“I’m not gay. More like bi. Or bi-curious, anyway.”

“
Thespian,
not lesbian. Have you ever considered joining the drama club at school? You should totally check it out, it’s awesome.”

“Yeah, right. Like I’m going to hang out with you losers and recite Shakespeare or some medieval bullshit.”

“Our next production is a new play by a twenty-year-old Chilean writer. It’s based on her experiences as a child prostitute in Santiago.”

Kyle raised her eyebrows. That didn’t sound completely lame. But she wasn’t about to give Benjy the satisfaction.
“Booooring,”
she said out loud.

“If you say so.”

Yawning, Kyle picked up her phone and pretended to check her messages. As weird as it was, her stupid stepbrother was right about her. She
was
a closet thespian, which she was pretty sure meant a person in the acting profession. From the time she was five or six, when her father began taking her to private screenings of movies he had produced, she had dreamed about becoming an actress someday. Of course, she had never shared this piece of information with anyone, although her father seemed to just
know,
calling her his “little Audrey Hepburn” and clapping the loudest when she was a sunflower in the elementary school play.

Her father. She didn’t like thinking about him. It made her too depressed, and besides, it made her want to kill someone. Maybe her mother? So it was best to keep her mind a numb, emotionless blank slate as far as he was concerned, unless she wanted to start something. Which she didn’t.

“Yeah, they’re kind of looking for someone for the lead right now,” Benjy was saying. “It’s the young prostitute character who’s based on the playwright.”

“I think you should go for it,” Kyle said lightly. “Some hair extensions, lipstick, the right clothes . . . you’d be perfect!”

“Fuck you. I think I’ll tell your mom that you didn’t show up today.”

“Don’t you dare!”

Benjy held up
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
“I won’t tell if you can describe one of the play’s major themes to me. Like, how about the theme of ‘mendacity’?”

“Men-
what
?”

But Kyle knew perfectly well what mendacity was. It was something she was very good at.

Not being truthful.

Chapter Nine

Kamille

“O
kay, baby girl! Let’s have you stretch across the bed and prop yourself up on your elbows,” Heinrich told Kamille. “Stare straight at the camera. That’s it,
perfect
! Now pout your lips! More! Give me
naughty
!”

Kamille pouted her lips and tried to look naughty for the famous German photographer, feeling extremely foolish as she did so. She was starting to ache from posing for so many hours, and in such uncomfortable positions, and with a giant fan blowing her hair this way and that.

Also, she wasn’t crazy about wearing so little clothing and so much body oil in front of the entire crew and also her mother
. Especially
her mother. Granted, Kamille wasn’t exactly naked. But she might as well be, in her white cotton nightie. And did they have to flatten her boobs with duct tape? Mario, who was the director of the photo shoot, had actually told her that her breasts were
too
big, and that the photos required a look that was more consistent with the name of the perfume, Lolita. (Giles had to explain to her, privately, that Lolita was from a famous novel by a Russian writer named Vladimir Nabokov, in which an old guy became sexually obsessed with a twelve-year-old girl.
Ew?
)

Right now they were shooting in one of the large penthouse suites at the Chateau Marmont, a gorgeous, glamorous hotel on Sunset Boulevard frequented by celebrities. Earlier in the day, they’d shot out in the garden, with Kamille leaning against a flower-covered stone arch . . . then lying on the ground covered by Barbies and rose petals . . . then standing in front of a palm tree, licking an ice cream cone that kept melting and having to be replaced. Kamille had no idea that photo shoots took so long, and were such hard work. She’d always imagined that the whole thing was superquick: get your makeup done, put on some cool clothes, and take pictures for an hour. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Giles was in one corner of the massive bedroom, checking out the photos of Kamille on a computer monitor. Every once in a while he glanced up and gave Kamille a thumbs-up sign. She couldn’t believe that their chance encounter at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, less than two weeks ago, had resulted in
this.
The whole thing was beyond amazing, really—a fairy tale come true.

“Um, excuse me, but could somebody cover up my daughter a little?” Kat called out to a random crew member.

“Mom! I’m
fine
!” Kamille said, blushing. She reached back and tugged at the hem of her nightie, whereupon Heinrich stopped shooting and Mario started yelling and half a dozen assistants swarmed around her, rearranging and powdering and fluffing.
Great.
Why did her mother have to come along today? Kamille was twenty, not two. Besides, she had Giles here to take care of her. She’d wanted Kat to be proud of her and cheer her on from the sidelines—not act all overcontrolling and overprotective.

“Okay, people, let’s try this again,” Mario ordered. “Heinrich, can you get some shots of her in that chair?”

“Fine. Somebody please move those lights for me.” Heinrich pointed to a row of large, boxy lamps, then repositioned his tripod and gazed through the viewfinder. “
Scheisse,
her nose is shiny. Why is her nose shiny? And her breasts got crooked. Where is the damned duct tape?”

As the assistants continued fussing over her, Kamille closed her eyes and wondered how much longer the shoot was going to take. She would kill for a double cheeseburger and fries, screw the calories; she’d basically been living on carrot juice these past few days, trying to get thin for today. Maybe with Kass later tonight, if she wasn’t doing anything? Kamille hadn’t seen much of her older sister lately, and when she
did
run into her, at home or the restaurant or the family’s house, Kass was quiet and preoccupied. Why was she acting like this?
Maybe she got an A-minus on a test,
Kamille thought bitchily.

The photo shoot was finally over at six o’clock. They had been there since seven that morning. The mood in the room lightened immediately as soon as Mario uttered the words “And that’s a wrap!” The crew cheered and clapped and buzzed excitedly.

Giles rushed over and hugged her. “Kamille, you were brilliant!”

Kamille beamed. “Really?”

“These photos are exactly what we needed,” Mario called out from the computer monitor, where he was in a huddle with Heinrich. “You’re a natural, Kamille!”

“Ohmigosh, thank you!”

Kat appeared and thrust a terry-cloth robe at her. “Put this on, doll. How do you feel? Are you okay? Let’s get that makeup off your face, and that . . . that . . .
olive oil
off your body. God, you look like a salad. Or a hooker. Just kidding, honey, but
please,
put on this robe.”

“Mom!”

“The girls here will take care of Kamille, and we can send her on her way,” Giles said, smiling reassuringly at Kat. “You should be proud of your daughter; she did a super job today.” He turned to Kamille and squeezed her shoulder. “As I mentioned before, this ad is on a rush schedule. It’s going to start appearing in magazines in a few weeks—the October issues. And be prepared, because it’s going to change your life. You’re going to be a star someday, I can feel it!”

“Really?”
Kamille whispered, feeling dazed.

“Really. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you . . . I got a call from the Flower Power people today. They want to talk to me about maybe using you for their next campaign.”

“No way! Flower Power jeans? I
love
them!”

“So she’ll be wearing
clothes
for that one?” Kat inquired hopefully.

Kamille bit her lip to keep from screaming. She was going to have to chain her mother to her desk or something for all future shoots.

But she wasn’t going to let Kat’s psychotic personality ruin her good mood. Giles had said she was going to be a star someday. A
star
! She couldn’t wait to tell Kass.

If she would stop being PMS long enough to listen, that is. The
real
PMS, not the Psychotic Mom PMS.

Chapter Ten

Kass

K
ass slid the glass door closed and stepped out into the yard, feeling the dewy grass under her bare feet. The early autumn air was pleasantly cool and fragrant with jasmine. As she lifted her face to the dark sky, a cloud passed, revealing a full moon.

A full moon! Maybe
that
was why she was feeling so blue? But that was an old wives’ tale, and Kass didn’t believe in such unscientific nonsense.

She plopped down on a green-and-purple Adirondack chair—she’d painted it herself soon after her father died, because green was his favorite color and purple was hers—and hugged her knees to her chest. She could hear the faint chatter and laughter coming from the dining room inside.

Another Sunday Night Dinner. And another not-so-subtle attempt by her mother to fix her up with Mr. Right. Likely, that was what was making her feel so moody and edgy, not the moon.

Tonight, it was Kat’s accountant’s nephew Dwight, who liked to talk with his mouth full.
(Really
attractive, watching bits of lasagna flying across the table while he pontificated about the merits of Bud versus Heine.) Last week, it was Kat’s favorite salesclerk from Saks, who was nice enough but obviously gay. (Could her mom be more clueless?) And before that, there was Pippa’s boring, pretentious son, Parker. He and Kass hadn’t gotten along when they were five. Why would they get along now?

And could Kamille shut up already about being a supermodel or whatever? Her agent, Giles, had gotten her an early draft of her perfume ad, and she had passed it around at dinner like it was an Oscar or Nobel Prize or something. Granted, the Annie Leibovitz–style shot
was
stunning: Kamille sitting in a blue velvet antique chair, one leg draped provocatively over the armrest, her indigo eyes wide and childlike as she gazed straight on at the camera. The caption simply said:
Innocence in a bottle.
Lolita.
Kamille
did
have that perfect combination of sweetness and sensuality.

Still . . . couldn’t she handle her good fortune with humility and grace? Instead, she had to go on and on about it . . . and oh, did she happen to mention that a paparazzo had taken a picture of her this morning as she was leaving Giles’s office with him? And did she also happen to mention the hot date she had tomorrow night with a hot music producer—okay, music producer’s
assistant
—she met at some sick party at the Thompson Hotel that Giles invited her to?
Blah, blah, blah . . .

“Kassie!”

Kass glanced up, startled. Kamille was walking across the lawn toward her.
Oops.
Hopefully her sister hadn’t suddenly developed telepathic abilities.

“I thought you might need this,” Kamille said, holding up a bottle of Chardonnay and two glasses.

Kass smiled, relieved. “Thanks, that’s nice of you,” she said.

Kamille sat down next to her. She poured two glasses and handed one to Kass. “What’s wrong, doll? Everyone’s worried about you,” she said gently.

Kass took a sip. “What do you mean? I’m fine.”

“No, you’re
not
fine. I’m your sister and your best friend, remember? I know you better than you know yourself.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. What can I do to help? You wanna talk? Or go out? Or, hey! Maybe we should take a few days off and do a road trip! When was the last time we did that?”

Kass tried to remember. “Santa Barbara, when you dragged me to that spa,” she said after a moment. “No, that was in June! It was July, when we went to Vegas for my twenty-first birthday. Mom and Beau were
not
happy that we snuck off without the rest of the family.”

“Yeah, I remember. They figured out where we were and surprised us. I think we were a little out of it when they found us.”

“Yeah, just a little.” Kass winced at the memory of their mother, Beau, Kyle, Benjy, and Bree walking into their suite at the Bellagio—a suite that Kamille had somehow talked the manager into comping them—and finding the two girls semi-passed-out on the floor like a couple of winos. Kass had never been able to handle liquor well, and Kamille had drunk enough for four people.

“It’s Mom, isn’t it?” Kamille said suddenly.

“What?”

“All those lame guys she’s been inviting to the Sunday Night Dinners, trying to hook you up.
That’s
what’s depressing you. I would be depressed, too.”

And you haven’t helped with your celebrity princess attitude,
Kass thought wryly. “Mom’s just being Mom. But yeah, those guys
are
pretty awful,” she said out loud.

“Hey, I know!” Kamille reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She began typing. “We need to do this ourselves!”

“Do what ourselves?”

Kamille didn’t reply. After a moment she held the phone out to Kass. “What do you think of him?”

Kass stared at the screen, at a head shot of an attractive blond guy in a turquoise polo. “Cute, I guess? Who is he?”

“I have no idea!” Kamille giggled.

“
Huh?
Kam, are you wasted?”

“Not yet! Kassie, this is the website for one of those online dating services. We’ve gotta sign you up so you can meet him—and other guys like him, too!”

Kass shook her head so hard that she spilled half her wine on her skirt. “Oh, no! No
way
! I am
not
doing online dating!” she protested.

“Why not? Would you rather go out with Mr. Beer Gut inside? Oh, and what about Parker Ashton-Gould? Yeah, I could tell you were really into him when he and Pippa came over. The sparks were
flyyyy-ing
!” Kamille waved her hands in the air, cracking up.

Kass made a face.
Grrr.
Why did her sister have to be right? “Fine!
God!
Let me see that phone,” she mumbled.

Kamille beamed and scooted her chair closer to Kass’s. She scrolled through the website. “Check
him
out. And
him
! Oooh, he’s a
hottie
! It says that he’s a . . . huh? . . . lin-guis-tics major at UCLA. What in the hell is that? Does that have something to do with linguine?”

“No, you idiot. Linguistics is the study of language. Really? Where does it say that?”

The two girls continued scanning the website. Kamille polished off the rest of the bottle of wine while Kass stuck to what remained of her glass. Still, she must have gotten a wee bit buzzed, because by the time they went back inside, she had let Kamille talk her into signing up for a thirty-day trial membership to Lovematch.com.

Was she nuts? Probably. But it was definitely better than putting up with another Sunday Night Dinner with another Dwight or Parker . . . or worse.