Finding Katie: The Diary of Anonymous, a Teenager in Foster Care

by Beatrice Sparks

  Mark called, and at first I really did think he was a girl! Mrs. Jolettea had answered the phone, and she said Sara Selznick was on the line. I was wondering who Sara Selznick was until I heard him laugh. Then all the sunshine of the world flooded in on me. “Hi, Sara,” I said, and I didn’t feel uncomfortable like I thought I would if he ever called.

  I wanted like everything to ask him to come over and play tennis or swim or something, but I didn’t want to be forward. Besides, Daddy probably wouldn’t allow it. He loved having our house be like a convent except when he was having big, wild parties that sometimes rocked the rafters, while I was confined to my room.

  Back to Mark. He asked me if I would like to come to his school dance in March, and my heart nearly leaped out of my mouth as I said, “I’d love to.” Even as I said, “I’d love to” my mind was screaming that there was no way Daddy would let me go! He is from an old European background, which kept the family females in semibondage. Not really bondage, but certainly not the kind of free I’d like to be!

  Mark and I talked for a long time. Mama and Daddy had gone out to dinner and a prescreening, so I felt safe. We talked about everything under the sun. He likes sports like I do, and music, and everything. I was amazed at how comfortable I felt on the phone with him. I wondered how comfortable I’d feel in person. And how I could ever, ever swing going to his dance.

  I called Jennifer as soon as Mark hung up, and she about broke my eardrum as she squealed that she and David had just hung up.

  I envy her. Her parents are strict, but not as strict as mine. We’ve decided that we’re both going to have to sneak out, and we can’t imagine how in the world we’re going to do it. We talked about what the nuns at our strict Catholic school (or our parents) would do to us if they found out. It could be house imprisonment for life, but we don’t care. We’re going to the dance anyway, one way or another!

  Tuesday, January 27

  Jennifer and I are being model students and human beings. We don’t want to do one single thing that would annoy our teachers, parents, or schoolmates. In fact, for the past seven days we have been so hard working and sweet talking and pure and sanctifying that we’re both afraid we’re going to be translated and sucked up into heaven before we can even get to the dance. Fat chance!

  Friday, January 30

  We haven’t yet quite figured out how exactly we’re going to go to the dance, but we’re so happy and positive and filled with joy and love for everyone and everything in the world that it’s rubbing off even on our parents. I was actually talking to Mama for a few minutes before she went to her therapist, and when I asked her if Jennifer could come over and swim or play tennis for a while, she said, “Yes.” At first I thought my ears were betraying me.

  As soon as Mama was out the front door, I called Jennifer. Within thirty minutes Mrs. Jolettea was welcoming Jennifer and her mother. We talked for a while, then Jennifer’s mother drove away and we went down to the pool house where we could talk about anything we wanted. We pretended that David and Mark were coming over in a while and we practiced our most graceful dives and most beautiful swimming strokes. We even decided we were going to teach ourselves a few water ballet routines to impress Mark and David if they ever can make it though our huge stone walls and iron gates.

  Jennifer says her house isn’t quite the stone fortress ours is, but it’s still pretty much a prison in some ways. We’ve even wondered if we could burn candles and stuff to help us, or would that be sacrilegious? Just as we were getting deeply into the sacred; what we could do and what we couldn’t do, Cook came out with snacks. I was really impressed and pretended that it happened often, which it never did. For a minute I wondered if pretending was a sin. I told Jennifer the truth instead and hoped I wasn’t getting myself back on the road to hell. I don’t need that now that things are going so well!

  On the tennis court, Jennifer beat me to a pulp. It was humiliating. She and her brother played nearly every day while I had only my coach, who came to teach me for one hour once a week.

  February, Monday 23

  I’m trying to be more mature!

  Last night I had a most fantastic dream. I was eating dinner on the patio overlooking the tennis court and I told Mama and Daddy how much I wanted to be a great tennis player but how impossible it was when I had no one to play with. Daddy, who is good enough to be professional, and often has professionals come over to play, said, “Hmmmm, that might be a good thing.” I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night, I was so excited. What if he really would think it was a good thing! Jennifer could come over a couple of times a week to practice and…my heart was bubbling over with possibilities! Like Mark and David!

  Tuesday, February 24

  I waited until Daddy seemed to be in a pretty good mood and asked him about me becoming a really fine tennis player. I told him how much I loved to watch him play and envied his great abilities. That made him smile. And when I told him about Jennifer really squashing me, he said, “We can’t have that.” After I told him about Jennifer’s dad owning three of the biggest hotels in the area and building others along the coast and that Jennifer went to my Catholic girls’ school, he said I could start any time I wanted. I almost jumped out of my chair but that would not have been proper, so I just thanked him profusely and put my hand over my heart.

  The minute I was excused from the table, I ran into my room to call Jennifer. She was as excited as I was, and we agreed that we would play tennis together on Wednesdays and Fridays if that was okay with our parents. We didn’t dare say anything about David and Mark on the phone, but inside our heads they were rattling around.

  Wednesday, February 25

  Jennifer and I take the same school van, so I was just dropped off at her house after school. Like we promised our parents, we played hard tennis for an hour, then did schoolwork for an hour—and in between talked about how we were going to manage the David and Mark thing.

  Friday, February 27

  Jennifer came to my house and I honestly almost felt like I was in heaven with my beautiful, wonderful angel friend. She is the only really true friend I have ever had in my whole life. I had nannies when I was little, then when I started school (always private school) I had tutors; some of them nice and warm and friendly, others so strict and cold they often made me feel like a non-person and made me cry a lot.

  Now I feel like I will never have to cry again! Not now that I have Jennifer for a friend! We did our tennis practicing and our lessons as we were supposed to do them and even found time for a little swimming and a lot of talking…mostly about David and Mark.

  Mark is like a gift from heaven. Daddy is always gone on Mondays and Thursdays, usually all night, so Mark and I can talk for an hour twice a week. Last night he said that he felt he had known me forever and that he, who had never been really comfortable around a girl before, felt like we had been friends in a past life. He’s told me everything about himself from the time he was little. His parents are Jewish and he has two brothers. His family travels every summer for a few weeks, and he’s been almost everywhere in the world and seen almost everything. I envy him so-so-much! I guess because I’ve never been out of California. In fact, I’ve rarely been out of our estate, except to school things and stuff my parents consider educational. Oh, how I wish I could live Mark’s life, with his teasing funny brothers and his loving mom and dad.

  Mark said the day he saw me at the museum he thought I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, that I took his breath away. He says all sorts of other wonderful, complimentary things. My parents have never been inclined to praise me in any way, so Mark’s words were like sunshine and perfume floating into my life.

  Mark is as excited as I am about our going to the dance…but I still haven’t found any way to get out. Of course I haven’t told him that! He’s also asked if he could come over, but I’ve always pulled the old thing about my mama being ill and my feeling that I need to be with her since my daddy is gone a lot. Mama really
is ill! She’s getting thinner and whiter every day. Daddy thinks it makes her more beautiful and that her pale green eyes become larger and deeper and more “enticing” each day. He thinks she has a look like “no other woman in the world.” It’s scary to me that he’s so arrogant about her looks and so almost completely uncaring about her health.

  She used to stay in her room in bed a lot, but now she stays there most of the time! Actually, she doesn’t even go to her doctor or her therapist anymore; they come to her. While shopping used to be her main hobby, now she doesn’t care about it at all, which means I wouldn’t ever be able to get out of my cage if I didn’t have the Jennifer-release thing, and the too-wonderful-for-words Mark thing. Those two are my rock, my preservation.

  Monday, March 1

  Jennifer is coming over after school, so I pulled out my old blue bathing suit, which used to be my favorite. When I tried it on I popped out of it on top before I could even get into it! I had no idea my boobs had expanded so much. Well, I guess they should. I’ll be sweet sixteen at the end of next month. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could have a birthday party with all the fun and laughter that one reads about? That is so impossible it’s not worth even thinking about.

  Tuesday, March 2

  4:23 P.M.

  When I got home from school, Mrs. Jolettea was going shopping for some things for the house. She suggested I ask Mama if I could go along and help her since her husband was in the middle of fixing the clogged storm drain by the pool.

  I begged Mama to get up and get dressed and come with us. Mrs. Jolettea could drop us off at one of Mama’s favorite stores, or we could call a cab. She shook her head the slightest bit and whispered, “No thanks” as she turned over and closed her eyes. Then she surprised me by whispering, “You go with Mrs. Jolettea.”

  I worry about Mama a lot! And I wonder why the doctor and the therapist can’t do anything to help her. But when Daddy comes, she perked up like a normal person…well, almost. I wondered if he was giving her drugs or something…then I hated myself for thinking that. What a suspicious rotten child I am! Daddy wouldn’t…or would he?

  When we got close to Rodeo Drive, I told Mrs. Jolettea about my being too big for my favorite old bathing suit. She laughed and said that would be number one on her priority list. I loved two-piece bathing suits, but I’d never had one. So I bought one one-piece and one two-piece. Maybe I’d never wear the two-piece in the pool, but I could strut in front of the full-walled mirror in my dressing room in it and pretend it was mine. I do a lot of pretending! I’ve done it all my life! Pretending is the only thing in my life that I can depend on.

  Wednesday, March 3

  Just before I left for school, Daddy walked in. He had an armful of the most beautiful, fragrant roses I have ever seen, and he invited me to come into Mama’s room to see what he had in the box. Mama sat up and ran her hands through her tousled blonde hair. In the soft sunlight that streamed through the tiny opening in the drapes, her green eyes looked even greener than ever, and larger than any eyes were ever meant to be.

  Daddy opened the box and inside there was a flowing chiffon dress that was exactly the same shade of green as her eyes! Daddy and I both gasped.

  8:06 P.M.

  Miss Conders, Mama’s dresser, came, and at 7:15 Mama walked down our staircase like a fantasy person, too beautiful to be real.

  As soon as the chauffeur had driven toward the gate, I called Mark. He wasn’t home so I called Jennifer. We talked until I heard her mother yelling at her to come downstairs and finish her homework. That was okay because I had my homework to do, and besides, I couldn’t tell anybody anything about our strange home life, or was it strange? Maybe I was the strange one and everything and everybody else was normal.

  After I talked to Jennifer, I tried on my two-piece pink bathing suit. I’d tried it on at the store but Mrs. Jolettea had been nagging at me to hurry so that she could get her shopping done. I really wasn’t sure I could ever wear it in public, but I loved it! It made my boobs look like real boobs and my innie belly button look like it was begging for a piercing. But I’d never, ever dare do that!

  I strutted in front of the walled mirror in my dressing room, and for the first time in my life, I actually thought I was pretty! The little white daisies around the edge of the suit made it look like a flower garden, and I wanted, for one time in my life, to show off!

  I put on the pink rubber flip-flops that went with the suit and amazed myself even more. The big pink flower in the center of each flip-flop made me look like someone I’d never seen before! I knew I could never be as beautiful as Mama, but at least I wasn’t the pukey pumpkin I’d always thought I was before. The pink in the bathing suit made my green eyes look almost as green as Mama’s, and I took a deep breath and did the Mama stand. I hardly recognized myself. I was a young Mama, and I was amazed at what posture and confidence can do for a person!

  Thursday, March 4

  This has been a perfectly horrible, horrendous, embarrassing day. I finished my English paper and then left it on the hall table. Sister Mary chewed me out and made me feel incompetent and stupid. It wasn’t like I did it on purpose! Then I caught my skirt in my locker and had to wear it all straggly for the rest of the day. Lucy Capputto called me Raggedy Ann. I hated it!

  It’s amazing how yesterday I felt so good and maybe even a kind of special me. Now I feel like crap again. Where has the pretty, confident, pink-bathing-suit me gone? Will she ever come back?

  Jennifer and Mark both phoned tonight, but I couldn’t take either of their calls because I was so depressed.

  I tried to talk to Mama but she was out in fog land as usual.

  I tried to talk to Mrs. Jolettea but she was too busy.

  Daddy is out of town for a few days, but it doesn’t matter because I never have been able to really talk to him!

  So I talk to myself. Not very good company!

  10:42 P.M.

  Some kind of black explosive energy was growing inside me until I felt like I was going to pop and splatter all over my walls and ceiling. I wondered if I put on my magical pink two-piece bathing suit and flip-flops I could coax back a small, confident part of the yesterday me.

  I decided it couldn’t hurt or make things worse. As I stood in front of my mirror and put on first the top and then the bottom. I truly did begin to feel different vibes! It was magic! And sure enough, as I looked in the mirror, I was smiling…both inside and outside! And standing and walking like the beauty queen winner! Not the runner-up!

  Without even putting on a robe, I dashed downstairs and out the patio door, across the lawn and onto the diving board. Feeling like a beautiful flying bird I dove into the water. It felt cool and protective and I wanted to stay there forever.

  Over and over I practiced each of my dives, my water ballet, and even a little dance routine on the edge of the pool. All the negativity and sadness in me was washed away! I’d once seen an old Esther Williams swimming movie and I felt like a young “her” beautiful, talented, supremely happy, confident, and self-reliant.

  When my head popped out of a complete underwater pool swim, I looked up to see Daddy’s face staring down at me. I was so scared and frustrated that I started swallowing water and choking. Before I knew what was happening Daddy had jumped into the shallow end of the pool with his clothes on and was slapping me on the back, then carrying me up the steps, hugging me so hard I could barely breathe.

  I was shaking with fear at the thought of what he would do to me when he placed me on a lounge then settled cross-legged on the tile floor beside me.

  I was totally surprised when he tenderly picked up my hand, kissed it, and told me I was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen in his life, and that he had been standing at his window watching me from the minute I walked down the patio steps. Over and over he said wonderful, heartwarming things about me. Things I never thought he would.

  It was strange because I’d always thought he didn’t like me very much. After
a few minutes he sloshed into the cabana to get me a huge warm towel. As he picked me up to wrap me in it, he held me tightly against his body. I pulled away but of course that was “my evil thought.”

  Sister Mary has told me a number of times that I’m full of evil thoughts.

  Oh please, dear God, don’t let me have evil thoughts about my dear daddy.

  After a little more verbal soothing and him stroking my arms and hair, we walked into the house hand in hand, and he continued to say warm, special, loving things about me.

  He says I am “the light of his life,” that I always have been and always will be!

  I went to go to sleep thinking Daddy loves me! Daddy loves me! Daddy loves me! What more could I possibly ask out of life?

  Oh, and Daddy says he’s going to start calling me Kathryn instead of Katie now that I’m a young adult.

  He kissed me gently on the cheek and said, “Good night precious Kathryn, sleep well” before he left my room. My whole insides were about to burst.

  I am filled from my feet to the tip of my head with joy and gratefulness!

  Friday, March 5

  Even Sister Mary noticed the change in my attitude; love and kindness and caring were flowing out of me like a “holy stream.” I’m going to try, with all my heart, to keep my life like this, every minute of every single day as long as ever I shall live.

  I truly believe now that Sister Mary is right, “As one loves others, they will love back.” That was probably my problem with Daddy. I was afraid of him, so I couldn’t love him. Now it’s going to be like we totally understand each other.