DOLLHOUSED SISTER'S

THREE: KYLE

~~Charm
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"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 Kay 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 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.