Mom looked confused. She turned to me. I must have looked as nauseous as I felt, because her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "She's already here," Mom called.
My outfit. My makeup. OhGodNo—Karl could not see me like this. I had to wash my face. I had to change. I had to move. I staggered toward the bathroom. "I'm just going to—"
"Stay right there," Mom warned.
Karl's footsteps thundered downstairs. I could see the credit card bill in his hand. He stopped halfway down the steps, his piercing eyes taking me in. Then they shifted to my mother.
"How long have you known?" he spat.
"Known what?" Mom said. "Cara told me she got dressed up for an oral presentation as part of her French exam."
Karl walked down the rest of the staircase with me fixed in his glare. "So you lied to your mother. Very nice," he said.
I could never be a criminal. The torture of waiting for Karl's revelation and everything that would come next was unbearable. Karl handed Mom the bill and watched my face as she read it.
"I don't understand..." Mom began.
"Of course you don't," Karl said. "Luckily, I'm smarter than the both of you, so I do. The biggest bill is the hair, which we knew about but which you never told us cost anywhere near this much. I'd expect more responsibility from you, Cara. At least I used to expect more responsibility from you."
"Karl, I'm sorry. I—"
He held up a finger. "Did I say I was done? Now, the second highest bill is from a store called Hot Topic. It's not one I frequent, so I used something called 'the Internet' and looked it up. Turns out the store has some very cute clothes. That made me think, 'If Cara bought some very cute clothes—even if she spent a little too much money on them—why wouldn't she show them to her mother and me? After all, she always shows us when she buys something she's excited about.' So I poked around the store's website a little more, and I realized that in addition to some very cute clothes, they also sell some very inappropriate clothes. Could Cara have bought these inappropriate clothes—a very sizable amount of these inappropriate clothes—and hidden the purchase from us?"
My mom's eyes were wide now. "Cara?"
Karl shook his head. "Not yet, Harriet."
He turned back to me. "So I went through your room. And sure enough, tucked away behind other things in your drawers and your closet was a whole other wardrobe of clothing. Clothing not dissimilar to what you're wearing now. Of course, not all of it was put away. Quite a bit of the clothing was balled up in your closet—dirty, one would imagine, from being worn. Now, until this moment, I haven't seen you wearing any of this clothing. Harriet, have you?"
"No," my mom said, looking at me with a terrible mix of anger and brutal disappointment.
"Which can only lead me to believe that you've been fooling us, wearing one set of clothes when we've seen you and another when you get somewhere else. Presumably to school. Would that be correct?"
There was no point in saying otherwise. "Yes," I admitted.
Karl smiled, triumphant. Mom looked like I had punched her in the stomach.
"So our whole conversation ... you were lying to me? To my face?" she asked.
I couldn't answer out loud. I just nodded.
"Excellent." Karl beamed at the confession. "So here's what I've done so far: I've confiscated all your clothing and all your makeup."
"You... what?"
"When you want to get dressed in the morning, you will ask your mother to pick you out an outfit. If you want makeup, your mother can apply it for you."
"Karl—" Mom said, but Karl shut her up with a glare.
"Since you have proven you can't be trusted with privacy, you'll notice your room no longer has a door," Karl said. "Your bathroom does have a door, but that door no longer can lock. Both rooms are subject to spot checks at my discretion, and I reserve the right to confiscate whatever I see fit. For example, the pile of diaries under your bed is now mine, and I look forward to perusing them at my leisure."
"You took my journals?"
"I don't see that I had a choice," Karl said. "I have a stranger in my house. That's a dangerous situation for me. The only way I can protect myself is to find out everything about her that I can."