Jacknife

Welcome to Lakeview Village

The party was yet to begin and they all collected at self-appointed stations like swarms of mindless bees. They often wandered aimlessly for hours, trying to 'make sense' of their unjust plumbing fees. One particular friend of the party's host -the guest of honor-went on rambling about how her maid was sexually harassing her husband. "I'm telling you. She grinned a hundred watts at him. Right in front of me!"

They were pathetic, more pitiful than the poor creatures who were forced to spend every waking moment with them. Their children.

Among these unfortunate souls lived Ingrid Duchene, the greatest excuse of a daughter ever conceived. At least that was how her parents saw her. With even worse luck than the rest of the therapy club, Ingrid's parents were neither the mouthy Hollisters nor the empathetic Lanes. Ingrid's parents were the wealthy, healthy and sadistic Donald and Karen Duchene.

"Darling, you really shouldn't grouch," Karen complained. According to Ingrid's biological mother, corsets were growing back in fashion so she took it upon herself to have Ingrid become a trendsetter. It made her reconsider ever telling Karen no one could suck their stomach in for that long.

She needed the ladies' room, Ingrid proclaimed, rushing to her salvation without awaiting Karen's lecture on when she would become a real woman. It was no time to fret over what Karen wanted but rather the excruciating pain encompassing her abdomen.

It pricked her skin like needles, harder to remove than insert. Each time she turned it searching for that one switch it bruised her even more. She could imagine what she sounded like to the other guests who needed a stall.

They probably wandered about slowly, analyzing the depth and pitch of her tone, trying to remotely understand whether something was leaving her body or being sucked into it. Perhaps they associated it with some sick pleasure when they heard her cry for the thing to leave her be, and lingered idly long after her squirm of release. The last passer-by stared at her with a laughably blank expression. 

Ingrid had two options, neither of which offered the lesser consequence. She could either remain in the stall all night and face her mother's wrath the moment the final guest set foot outdoors or she could spend the rest of the evening appeasing Karen and end up in the hospital with a severe case of abdominal pain. That's no contest, she thought. She would take illness over Karen's wrath any day.

"There you go darling," Karen praised in her voice-changer tone. She was patting Ingrid's back only when someone was watching, an uncomfortably systematic process. At least she knew when to expect it.

After long hours of bad stomach upset and even more sickening giggles, Ingrid's only slightly diluted dreaded moment had come to pass. She studied an array of outrageous fashion choices, watching as each left her for dead, heart racing faster and faster as they said their goodbyes.

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Ingrid Duchene was experiencing the worst migraine anyone could think of; one where she could not possibly do so. Sure she had gotten her bag and clothes ready and all, but then came the final stage before departing for school.

The Duchenes played major mind games, mostly when Ingrid wasn't in the mood for them. The breakfast bargain was one of their favorites. The rules were as follows: they had the cook prepare a meal fit for the other night's banquet and repeated the same frustrating line. "What are you going to do, honey?" Their eyes bore into her back as she inhaled the sweet aroma of the world-class buffet served for her. It was not an all-you-can-eat, she knew. Her responsibility was to eat and drink nothing no matter what she was offered. Unfortunately for Karen, Ingrid simply would not do without energy. She felt her scowl in the background.

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"You would not have to go if you hadn't made Maria's food disappear," Karen retorted. Ingrid regretted ever mentioning she needed to use the bathroom even if Karen had literally just started the engine. "I'll only be a minute,"she argued. "That's twenty more on the God Loves Bastards bash." "Excuse me, are you mocking my authority?" Ingrid remained silent. "Well?" Karen pushed with her delectable angry face. "No." And that was that.

Ingrid had trained her bladder to bear with the Duchene's tight schedule. And as the schedule tightened, so did her nerves. But that did not make the procedure any easier. If anything, it made it harder, not only to comprehend the mechanics of why she had to, but the excessive urinal urges her body continued to possess, were a mean joke knowing what she ate now.

Bidding her mother goodbye in front of Lakeview High probably surpassed that level of agony. Ingrid was expected to bend to kiss her mother on the cheek and watch her act like the mere sight of her didn't make her sick. It's just a few seconds, she reassured herself. Then it was a few seven hours of fat taunts and "Hey there, Winnie."