Serial killers, as in the type that not only murder people at whim, but mercilessly and ritualistically torture them to death?
"Here, honey," Sonya whispers. I blink, trying to clear my train of depressing thoughts. Sonya hands me a plate with two strips of turkey bacon. "Eat up before the devil-- I mean your mother catches you," she snickers. I laugh quietly with her.
I chew the pieces quickly. I am not sure when the next time I will have meat will be. Well, it will most likely be with Z—
“THAT’S IT! YOU’RE HAVING A TWO HOUR LUNCH DATE WITH ZAYN TODAY!” my mother screams from outside. I run to the door, shaking so horribly, I feel as though electricity is vibrating in my veins.
“I-I’m coming!” I call back, but my voice quivers. My father glances at me momentarily. Then he snaps his fingers and Sonya refills his coffee. He takes a sip, eyeing the news with great fascination, but not a lick of fear.
I tug my flats on, staring at my father all the while, silently begging him to react somehow so he could calm my racing thoughts.
He places his coffee on the table and rests his right leg over his other knee. “Juvenile delinquency...So strange. So interesting,” he mumbles to himself as he stares at the blank T.V. screen. Then he turns to me.
“Good luck with the fitting,” he offers. Then he leans closer. “And dealing with your mother,” he adds with a snicker. I try to smile.
My mother is outside, by the Range Rover, ranting about my tardiness to our chauffeur. The old man, Marty, hardly blinks, let alone speaks, unlike my mother who can barely keep her botoxed lips shut.
I unwrap a piece of gum and chew it quickly, trying to mask the delicious scent of crisp bacon from my lips. Then I sit down next to my mother in our black Range Rover. She continues to ramble, but I tune her out and watch her face. Every feature has received one lift or tuck of sorts.
I never understood why my mother underwent such extravagant surgeries in order to look like a Barbie. In pictures from her own Debutante, she was exceptionally beautiful with her natural, curly brown hair and electric, hazel eyes. She had a petite, frail figure, but as soon as she married my dad and had me, she began getting small procedures done to maintain her weight.
When I turned thirteen, I could hardly recognize her anymore. The surgeries slowly but surely increased her interest in frivolous things, things that she devotes all her emotional interest in.
“Katarina, you know how I feel about tardiness,” she rolls her heavily lidded eyes. I nod, patting my skirt as I sit down next to her. She has a saying: cover your knees and cover your sneeze.
At my all-girls Catholic Academy of St. Bartholomew, I never need a reminder to dress conservatively. I do it on my own whim. I’ve always enjoyed how bland and loose my uniform is. I dread being noticed for my appearance, let alone displayed in front of others, as an ideal, a prize.
“You have events and meetings lined up for every hour and every day, leading to your Debbie, which is in three days,” mother reminds me, pulling out her I phone.
My stomach grows queasy as I stare down at my jam packed schedule. I quite enjoy having schedules to keep everything neat and orderly, but they still overwhelm me at times, especially this week.
But after the debutante, I will be free— to some extent. There will be no dance lessons, no prepatory tea parties. Nothing. Nothing except smiling and kissing whatever man bids the highest for me at the ball.
“And this is absolutely the worst week to be late for anything,” my mother flicks her hand in the air.
“Then cancel my lunch with Zayn,” I squeak. I want to beg her to cancel the fitting, cancel the dance lessons, cancel the etiquette lessons, cancel the whole ball. For God’s sake, just cancel the ball.
My mother laughs.
Her nose crinkles just a tad and her lips curl. Suddenly, she grimaces, leaning closer to me. “Tomorrow, you will go to lunch with that man and you will smile and hold his hand and kiss him if he asks you to,” she declares in a hushed whisper.
My lips part, but I am unsure what to say. “Do you understand me, Katarina?” she repeats.
“Yes, mother,” I sigh.
As though my schedule wasn’t packed and uncomfortable as it was, now I have secured a long afternoon of being hit on and casually felt up by Zayn. I look over at the chauffeur, momentarily contemplating how to signal for him to take me to McDonalds instead of the dress shop. But he makes no response. The wrinkles under his eyes crease like vanilla cake batter spilling into a mold.
I glanced at my schedule. Suffocating in skin tight dresses is probably much more comforting than having Zayn’s hands lingering on my waist.
My mother pats my thigh and turns her attention to our driver.
“Chop chop, Marty. We don't want to be late,” she reminds him.
“Yes ma’am,” he tips his cap.
My mother knots her fingers in her lap and blinks extensively. That’s the one thing we have in common: fidgeting when we are nervous.
“Is there any way you could drive a dash over the speed limit, Marty?” mother nags. Our driver merely nods and presses on the gas.
I edge toward the window seat and rest my face in my palm, staring out the window. We are making our way out the elite, yet conservative suburbs of Connecticut and heading to Hartford. There are plenty of fancy dress shops in Hartford, but my mother is extremely picky. I am her only child, the one thing she can manipulate and mold to her liking, until the day I turn 18.
“Is there a reason why we can’t just go to Nordstroms or Lord and Taylor? They’re much closer and cheaper compared to Vera Wang and Barney,” I point out softly, speaking mostly to my lap. My mother laughs snarkly.
“Cheaper,” she chuckles. “This is your Debbie we’re talking about, Katarina, there won’t be a single ‘cheap’ garment on you,” she declares, raising a finger. She notices that I don’t seem half as confident in her statement as she is, so she tilts my chin up.
When her eyes met mine, I squint at the tiny specs of green and gold in her irises. They seem to quiver, as if every painful, vulnerable emotion is hiding behind her façade of happiness. My mother never speaks of her family, partially because she is embarrassed of them. I know she didn’t grow up in a wealthy home and to her, that is a disgrace.
I am grateful for the luxuries I have grown up with, I truly am, but the moment someone tries to convince me to live for this lifestyle, for this empty image, that’s when I will draw the line.
My mother adjusts my outfit, fluffing the collar of my laced, but simple blouse, patting my pleated skirt, and tugging my glasses down.
“Hey,” I protest softly, but she pulls them from the arch of my nose. The world looks terribly blurry all of a sudden. My mother holds my glasses in her hands and examines them.
“These glasses are horrid. How can you bear to wear such a bulky hunk of ceramics on your nose?” she gasps, completely perplexed by my tastes and decisions.
“I can’t see anything without them,” I reply plainly. I reach for my glasses, but she raises her brow.
“I’m getting you contacts for the Debbie,” she tells me, holding my glasses behind her.
“Mother—”
“I mean it,” she insists. I hold my hand out, patiently waiting for when she would let me restore my sight.
“Fine,” I agree. “But can I at least have them for the fitting?”
My mother mumbles under her breath, but ends up compromising. I put my glasses back on, setting them smugly on the arch of my nose. I glance out the passing mansions, all white, all polished and trimmed with the same gate design. I feel like I am staring at the pages of a Dr. Seuss book.
The 45 minute drive passes fairly quickly. I watch as the suburban houses and fresh lawns disappear, making way for an urban landscape of apartments and run down houses. I scrunch my nose as the thick smell of gasoline and a growing fog cloak our Range Rover. We are in a rundown neighborhood, now.
“What a pitiful sight,” my mother sighs. She turns away from the window in disgust and pats her forehead with her linen napkin. She closes her eyes faintly, unwilling to gaze upon the people who can’t afford to dress in Armani suits or Gucci gowns.
But I am curious. I practically press my nose to the window in an attempt to absorb the entire town. Unlike my mother, I don't search for differences that divide “us” and “them;” I find a similarity: solitary misery.
The second we pass the tattered town on the outskirts of Hartford, my mother sits upright again. We are in Hartford now and she can practically smell silks and cans of caviar.
We begin walking toward the dress boutique, but something on the opposite end of the street, at least a football field away, catches my eye. There is a forest just past the gates of city and in that forest is a small clearing with a bleak, ashen building, multiple stories high with an entrance that looks about as inviting as a cemetery. It is the only building in the forest and it glows like a dusty, ivory white cloud. There are two massive corinths holding the building up, like those ancient Greek buildings in Athens.
The building has one balcony, just above the wide, medieval-esque double doors. I squint at the sign. There is an ancient symbol or crest of sorts: omega.
“Katarina?” mother snaps.
“Yes?”
My mother rolls her eyes. “You weren’t even listening.” She takes my wrist and leads me into the dress shop. “I asked if you preferred a coral blue, robin’s egg blue, or lilac colored gown,” she repeats.
I rub my temple. All I had heard was a variation of blue. “Umm blue,” I shrug.
“You’re impossible,” she declares. I half-smile. I still feel unnaturally tied to my mother, as though she is my Siamese twin who controls my every move. But I sort of like being called “impossible,” it makes me feel slightly bolder, untamed.
We are greeted by several women in pencil skirts, frilly blouses, plastic cheeks and falsies. They are pretty much all conveniently named “Ashley,” or the occasional, "Chloé" so I just mumble a general “hello” to them all.
My mother pecks their cheeks and giggles like a school girl. The sound of their small talk is absolutely repulsive, like a pact of birds chirping.
“So lovely to see you, Anastasia!” one of the women gushes, tugging my mother in an embrace. “You look stunning! Did you lose weight?” she lies straight through her teeth.
My mother certainly has not lost weight, but that’s just how she and her friends speak to one another. They compliment the other person, but as soon as they turn around, they throw daggers with their eyes and words.
“No, not at all!” my mother blushes.
“But your hair looks so shiny and lustrous today. Are you using that new guacamole extract I told you about?” the blonde woman, Chloé persists, touching a strand of my mother’s silky black hair.
They ramble on for another minute before Juliana glances at me. I suck in a breath. As much as I hate it, I would rather hear their meaningless chitchat than be the subject of their conversation.
“Katarina,” Chloé gasps. She takes my wrists in hers and scans me up and down. I stand there quietly, fiddling my fingers. “Natural,” is all she says.
I don’t know whether that is a compliment or a flaw. “Just a few tugs hand tweaks here and there and you’ll shine like the priceless star you are,” Chloé whispers. I try to smile, to seem polite.
“Thank you,” I mumble.
“When do we start?” my mother interrupts. Her eyes glow with impatience. Juliana leads my mother and I down a hallway, to twin French doors, from which the silhouette of dozens of women and dress racks can be spotted. She stands in front of the door, building up the anticipation.
“Welcome to Paradise,” she whispers hauntingly. My mother takes my wrist and pulls me inside. She and Juliana frantically begin choosing dresses for me. They don’t stop until they collect every hue of the rainbow.
She and Chloé go about the store, gathering their favorites. Though I love painting and drawing, the whirl of dress colors make me dizzy. Chloé and my mother hand the dresses to a petite seamstress.
They lead me to the fitting room and stand me on the circular pedestal, which connects to a mini runway in front of the 360 view mirror. Neither my mother nor Chloé give me a chance to take a deep breath before they start stripping me off.
I am glad I shaved my legs and under my arms this morning. Having any stubble would be been awkward and uncomfortable. Plus, I’ve known the fitting is today for weeks, regardless of the fact that I never wanted to go.
I wrap my arms awkwardly around my chest and hips. Chloé laughs. I feel my mother’s eyes scrutinizing the excessive curve of my bum, the thickness of my thighs, my knobby knees, and the dozen, tiny round freckles that are scattered all over my body.
“You’re going to the gym after lunch,” my mother tells me sternly. That is all she needs to say for me to look down disappointedly.
Chloé notices the drop in my already meager self-confidence.
“Nevermind that,” she waves a hand carelessly. “At least she can fill in the dress like a woman. I can’t tell you how many girls come in here, thin as washboards, trying to pull off a Wang gown,” she shakes her head of ginger curls. I smile appreciatively, but my body feels terribly heavy, like my limbs are tree branches. Being that I am quite tall, the tree image does work.
Chloé and my mother both assist me in putting the gowns on. They pluck and prod me with needles and pins. All the while, I merely stand there like a doll.
All the dresses are extravagant, made of lace, silk, studded with intricate gems and pearls and designs of every sort. Some of them are bulkier, more Cinderella-style, while others are shorter, with scandalous necklines, which my mother isn’t too fond of.
Chloé finishes fitting me into the first dress, a royal blue gown that draped around my body, squeezing my chest flat while emphasizing my already thick thighs and round behind.
“You look beautiful,” Chloé smiles. My mother shakes her head in disapproval.
I glance at the rack of dresses they have chosen. None of them will make a difference. I’ll feel uncomfortable in everything they stick me into. It is a shame, really. Not even the most beautiful gown can make me make a plain girl like me stand out.
My mother looks up at me and sighs loudly.
"Those glasses ugh," she shakes her head at me.
I adjust my glasses and squint into the distance, at a figure up on a balcony of the seemingly-deserted building I had seen earlier. The woman is decked in a scandalous v-plunge, red lace dress that emphasizes her beautifully straight, icy blonde hair. It is so sleek and blonde that it looks white.
She leans against the balcony, coolly, casually, as though she is too important to be with anyone, and swirls her drink in her glass. Her long, ivory white fingers tap at the end of her cigarette, letting the ashes fall like snowflakes.
As she turns, I notice a black scar or tattoo of sorts on her back: the Greek letter Omega. The woman's bleak grey eyes look in my direction. She squints, knowing she has been spotted. Immediately, she covers the mark on her back.
****
P.S. I've been receiving messages and tweets from people who have made me covers. The new one is by @thtcurlyboy on twitter. Please message or tweet me @/Atlantis094 if you would like to make me a cover! Thanks
-Mariam Xx