Kyle
“Could you please pass the beef stew”—Kat paused—“Wyatt, is it?”
“It’s White. White Castle,” replied Kyle’s most excellent date for tonight’s Sunday Nightmare Dinner, which is what she called these weekly torture sessions. Tonight it was the whole family—Kyle and her sisters, Kass and Kamille; their two stepsibs, Benjy and Bree; the parents, Kat and Beau (who was technically not a parent but a stepparent)—plus Kat’s obnoxious friend Pippa Ashton-Gould and Pippa’s extremely lame son, Parker.
And, of course, White. As he lifted the heavy tureen, Kyle noticed her mother’s gaze falling on his bare, vampire-pale arm, covered as it was with an assortment of not-very-PG tattoos and what might or might not be several track marks. The min pins, Coco and Chanel, bounded up to the table and went into high-octane begging mode.
“White Castle! That’s a supercool name! Does that mean you love hamburgers, then?” Bree said, stuffing a buttered roll into her mouth. At ten, she was insanely chirpy and friendly. She wasn’t too unbearable, for a little stepsister.
“Actually, I’m a vegan. See?” White pointed to his T-shirt, which had a picture of a headless, bloody chicken and the words DEAD MEAT on it. “That’s our band. I sing lead. Hey, we’re playing at the Bad Touch Lounge over on Sunset this Wednesday. Midnight show. Y’all should check it out.”
“Can I go? Can I go?” Bree squealed.
“No!” Kat and Beau said at the same time. “School night,” Beau added feebly.
“I find vegans so fascinating!” Pippa Ashton-Gould piped up, leaning toward White and giving him a bird’s-eye view of her rock-hard boob job. Pippa had always reminded Kyle of a dead monkey, with her surgically thin, spray-tanned body. She had a way of coming on to younger guys as though she actually had a chance, which she didn’t. It was so pathetic, how old people like Pippa and Kat tried to hang on to the dinosaur remains of their sexuality. They were like fossils.
“Well, frankly, if you don’t believe in eating animals, veganism is the only tenable position,” Pippa’s son, Parker, added. “Conventional vegetarianism is a morally murky middle ground. Animals still have to die in order for milk and eggs to get produced. So I say, either be a vegan or do like I do and be unrepentantly carnivorous! Eat meat!” He speared a piece of beef and chomped down on it gleefully.
What a fucking moron, Kyle thought irritably.
Bree stared in horror at her glass of milk. “There’s dead animals in here?” she cried out.
“No, honey, there’s no dead animals in there! Drink up!” Forcing a smile, Kat turned to Kyle. “Sweetheart, you didn’t tell me your friend was a vegan. I would have made something else,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I’m okay, Mrs., uh, Camero,” White reassured her. “I’m kinda hungover, so I’m not superhungry, anyway.”
Kat shot Kyle a scathing look that was all “Are you serious, bringing that home?” Kyle knew that look well. She aimed to please every Sunday night, inviting over whatever hookup, friend, or total stranger, male or female, was bound to shock her mother the most. (Guests were part of the Sunday Nightmare Dinner tradition.) Last week, it had been the sixteen-year-old daughter of a hotel magnate, who had a reputation for hooking up with older, married men. (Kat had seated her far away from Beau.) The week before, it had been a homeless teenager Kyle found in Griffith Park. Unfortunately, Kat had screwed things up by actually feeling sorry for the girl, giving her clean clothes and money and finding a social worker to help her. Oh, well.
Of course, Kyle got the scathing look on other days of the week as well. She liked to think of it as a game: new and exciting ways to Piss Off Mom. Who deserved it. Sometimes the game got old, but mostly it was entertaining. It was definitely better than trying to get along with her, like Kyle’s ass-kissing sisters.
Speaking of . . .
“Mommy and Beau, did I tell you? My friend Simone said there’s a job opening at her PR firm!” Kamille bubbled. “It’s part-time, and it doesn’t pay very much. But she gets to go to the coolest parties, and she meets all these celebrities, too! I was thinking I might apply.”
“I thought you were going to take singing lessons so you could be the next American Idol,” Kyle reminded her. “Oh, no, that was two Sundays ago. Last Sunday, you were going to move to New York City and intern for some nobody fashion designer you friended on Facebook.”
“Okay, Kyle, you know what? Fuck. You,” Kamille snapped.
Kat glared. “Kamille, please! Language! And, Kyle, could you be a little more supportive of your sister?”
“Yeah. Just because I don’t have my whole life planned out like Miss OCD,” Kamille said, casting a sideways glance at Kass.
Kass frowned. “Uh, thanks?”
Kat turned to Parker. “What Kamille means is, Kass is doing so well at USC! She’s about to start her junior year there, and she’s double-majoring in business plus film and television!” She turned to Kass. “And, sweetie, did you know that Parker graduated from Harvard in June? With a degree in geology?”
Gag! Their mother was so obvious about fixing up Parker with Kass, it was painful. On the other hand, Kass did need to get laid, so points to Mom for trying, even though on a scale of one to ten, the chemistry between Kass and Parker was about negative two.
“Yeah, I remember you were into rocks in kindergarten, too,” Kass said to Parker without looking at him. “I think you threw one at my new tricycle and dented the handlebar.”
“Oh, right, that was funny!” Kamille giggled.
Kass whirled around and punched Kamille in the arm. “It was not funny, I loved that tricycle!”
“Hey, that hurts!”
“Not as much as this!” Kass leaned over and yanked on Kamille’s hair. Kamille did the same to Kass. What were they, three years old? They started laughing, although there was an edge to their laughter.
“Who wants some dessert?” Kat said brightly. “It’s lemon cake! We always have it, because it was David’s—the girls’ father’s—favorite,” she explained to White.
“Cool. Is it vegan?” he asked.
“Actually, it has a couple of eggs in it,” Kat replied.
“Eggs, yeah . . . my friend calls them ‘chicken periods,’ ” White remarked.
Kat gasped. Beau put his hand on her arm, probably to keep her from totally losing her shit. Awesome. Kyle reminded herself to bring White to these dinners more often.
“We’ve got some sorbet in the freezer. I’ll bring that out for our guest White here,” Beau said hastily. “Benjy, honey, you want to help me clear?”
“Sure, Dad.” Benjy, who had not said a word during the entire dinner, pushed back his chair and stood up. Kyle scrutinized him. He had been her stepbrother for almost four years now, and he still remained a mystery to her. Sure, she hadn’t exactly bothered to be friendly to him. But why should she? They had nothing in common, other than the fact that they were both juniors at Wesley Eastman Academy. He was a straight-A student and in general a big, fat nerd who was always reading books or rehearsing lines for his dumb drama club. He and Bree lived with them except when they were in Brentwood with their mom. Unless the mom happened to be away at an ashram or in rehab, which was kind of often.
“I never touch dessert because I have to watch my girlish figure,” Pippa said, winking at White.
Okay, enough of the Cougar Show. “Come on, I didn’t give you a tour of the house yet,” Kyle said, grabbing White’s hand.
“A what?”
“Come on!”
“Be back here in five minutes for cake,” Kat ordered Kyle.
“Can I go with you, Ky?” Bree begged.
“No, Brie Cheese. You stay here, I’ll be right back.”
Or not. Once in the hallway, Kyle tried to think of where she could take White that would have the most impact when Kat came looking for them. They could skinny-dip in the pool. Or they could go upstairs and make out on the parents’ bed. Despite his freakish tattoos and raccoon-colored hair, White wouldn’t be too repulsive to touch. Would he?
“Hey, what’s this?” White was staring at an ancient photo of Beau on the wall.
“What? Oh, that’s just Beau,” Kyle said dismissively. She glanced down the hall. Her mother had recently bought an Oriental rug for her home office. Maybe that would be a better place to get down and dirty with White?
Kyle turned to him, smiling provocatively and touching his chest. But he seemed to have lost interest in her all of a sudden. “Dude, your dad’s Beau LeBlanc?” he burst out. “This picture’s from the World Series, right? From like twenty years ago?”
“Beau is not my dad,” Kyle said irritably. She tugged on White’s arm. “Hey, you wanna—”
“Do you think he’d sign my shirt?” White said, hurrying back to the dining room. “Fuck, man! What’s it like having a famous baseball player for a dad?”
“He is not my dad!” Kyle repeated. But White was already gone.
Crap!