“Gotta play it low-key in the suburbs, Kim.”
“I didn’t say anything!” Kim protests.
Kendall lowers her eyes at Kim, then opens the front door and swings into the driver’s seat. Kim gets into the front passenger seat, and you climb in behind her. Kendall turns the engine over and starts easing the car down the bumpy dirt path, back toward the main road.
Kim is already fiddling with the radio. “No aux cord; not even, like, satellite,” she murmurs to herself.
“KIM!” Kendall says. It’s a very stern warning.
“I’m not complaining! I’m just stating a fact!” Kim says, sitting back.
The car continues in silence for a moment. “So I have a question,” you say when that moment has run its course. Kim turns back and nods expectantly for you to proceed.
“Kendall is alive?”
Kim narrows her eyes suspiciously at Kendall, then reaches over and pokes her firmly, once, in the arm.
“Are you alive?” Kim is smiling evilly; she knows she’s irritating not just her sister but everyone in the car.
Kendall lifts her chin and finds your eyes in the rearview mirror. “Faking my death just freed us up, gave us a little more room to move while we work on our plan. Don’t worry, I won’t be dead for much longer. And in fact, soon I’ll be more famous and popular than I ever was before. I mean, talk about a second act. Coming back from the dead beats being hospitalized for exhaustion any old day. I’ll probably be more famous than the amazing Kim Kardashian.”
“If that happened, I would kill you for real,” Kim says. She tries to poke Kendall again, but Kendall slaps her hand away, and there’s a brief slap fight before silence once again descends upon the car.
You have a million follow-up questions and you’re having trouble picking just one.
“So where are we going?” you ask.
Kim turns toward you and waggles her eyebrows. “Well, Miss File Decrypter, that’s what you’re going to tell us.”
YOU WAKE UP the next morning, calmly, easily. You are in a small twin bed in a room that’s otherwise empty. The shades are drawn, but you can tell from the color of the light that it’s late morning.
There are no other noises in the house, and for a brief moment you panic that you’ve been left here. That Kim and Kendall have ditched you in this random house in the middle of nowhere. They’ve realized that you are boring and dumb and useless and you’re on your own, forever. But then you hear voices, kitchen noises, Kendall yelling at Kim about something, and you relax.
You push back the covers and see you’re still in your Best Buy uniform. Gross. And you don’t even really want to know about your hair situation. You quietly wander out of the bedroom and down the hall toward the kitchen. You smell something heavy and oppressive. Is it gunpowder? Is gunpowder even still a thing people use? The smell is burny and metallic, anyway.
You arrive at the kitchen/eating area and find Kendall and Kim hunched over a laptop. You watch them for a moment. It’s so weird to see them together, just being themselves. They’re looking at something on the screen, and you can’t hear what they’re saying, but there’s a casual gracefulness to their interaction. A comfort. Kendall says something and Kim points to something on the screen, and then Kim starts to say something and Kendall is already tapping away, bringing up another screen, and Kim’s saying something else.
Kim looks up, her eyes instantly finding yours. “Hey, you. Good morning,” she says, smiling.
“Is everything okay?” you ask. “I smelled something burning.”
“FINE. OKAY, I AM NOT THE BEST COOK!” Kim says in mock outrage.
Oops. Whatever you smelled, it definitely had not occurred to you that it might be food.
“Sorry!” you say.
Kendall waves your concern away as unnecessary. “Kim has other skills. Like eating.”
“I heard that!” Kim says. “And I completely agree.”
Kendall motions for you to sit on a stool at the counter and puts a plate of something that looks vaguely breakfast-y in front of you. “Maybe scrape off the black parts?” she suggests.
“So, like, all of it?” you say.
Kendall smiles.
“We’re looking at the file again,” Kim says. “Can you show us what you figured out?”
You nod and push away the alleged plate of breakfast. You lean in over the computer, and Kim moves away, staying close enough to be right next to you but not get in your way. You can feel her hair just barely grazing your skin. Which is distracting. But you give the sisters a quick tutorial, going back over the steps you took to decrypt the file.
“See? So it’s a time and a location. And if we put it into Google Maps . . .” You pause, waiting for the internet to do its thing. The map comes up, and the location pin indicates a psychiatric hospital.
“That’s only a few hours from here,” Kendall says.
Kim nods. “And the time on the encrypted file was like . . .”
“Tomorrow night,” Kendall answers.
“Whoa,” Kim says, a look passing between them. “Okay. It’s all happening.”
“What’s all happening?” you ask. “Why is the location a secure hospital? What’s happening tomorrow night?”
“That’s when Kylie is breaking out of jail.”
“Um,” you say. You have questions about this. But Kendall interrupts you before you can start expressing them.
“Hey, speaking of,” she says to me, “I think we can find some clothes that fit you in the stuff we brought for Kylie, unless you want to continue to demonstrate your fierce brand loyalty to Best Buy. I have been thinking of investing in a new microwave oven, if you want to help with that.”
“Ugh, yeah, no,” you say, horrified about your appearance. “Please, different clothes.”
Kendall nods understandingly and walks back toward the bedrooms.
Kim is still hunched over the computer, clicking around. “Awww!” she says, looking disappointed. “You didn’t take any selfies while you had the phone. I thought you would have at least tried it. Weren’t you tempted at all?”
“No, I don’t know. I didn’t really think about it.”
Kim shrugs. “You’re so beautiful, though. If I looked like you, I’d be taking selfies all the time.”
“Um, you are taking selfies all the time?” Kendall says, sailing back into the room with a pile of clothes in her arms. She arranges them on the back of a chair for you to look through.
“Shut it, Kendall,” Kim says. Then she turns to you. “Selfies are important. And you’ve got plenty of access to cameras now.” She unplugs the phone and holds it out to you. “You should take a selfie!”
You can feel your cheeks flushing. You’re wearing your smelly and gross chain-store uniform, standing next to two of the most beautiful women of all time. You are not about to embarrass yourself by trying to take a selfie in front of them.
“Ummm, I would rather die,” you say.
“WHAT!” Kim says. “Come on!”
“I mean, I probably shouldn’t? They’re illegal?” you say, mortified at how dumb the words sound as they’re coming out of your mouth.
“Selfies are not illegal,” Kim says, very seriously, very patiently.
“Yes, they are. Do you not remember my boyfriend and his task force shooting at us? Selfies are very illegal.”
“Nope,” Kim says, shaking her head. “Look. Take this phone. Go into the bathroom and take a selfie. We won’t watch, and we won’t look at it afterward. Just go do it. Just take one picture of yourself.”
“I can’t,” you say.
Kim nods understandingly. “Exactly. Because why? Share what you’re feeling right now.”
Kendall and Kim are both watching you, and you feel like you’re about to die under their scrutiny.
“Embarrassment?” you say. “Like I would look dumb. Like it would remind me how ugly I am.”
“That is exactly how they want you to feel,” Kendall says.
“It was never really about selfies,” Kim says. “Selfies aren’t illegal. Your self-esteem is.” Kim comes to you and puts her hands on your arms, gently but firmly. She looks into your eyes. “It is okay to look at yourself. It is okay to think you are beautiful. It is okay to think that you have flaws, but you also have to be mindful that flaws are a construct. It is okay for you to form your own independent feelings about your appearance. And it is not only okay but right, and important, and good, to feel good about yourself.”
“They tried to shame us for taking selfies,” Kendall says. “They tried to make us feel like we were wrong for having positive opinions about ourselves. And when they couldn’t stop us, when they couldn’t change the way we thought about our bodies, our appearances, our selves, they made selfies illegal. So they could keep trying to control us.”
“They do not want us to see how amazing and powerful we are,” Kim says. “They know what we’re capable of, and it terrifies them. They can make it the law that you have to hate yourself, but they can’t prevent you from loving yourself. But it’s okay if you’re not ready. I’m not going to pressure you into anything you don’t want to do. Except change out of that uniform. No offense, but come on.”