Miss Manhattan Hangs Out with Wendy and Holden Bittar
What is stepmother doing with the black box?
This week, Miss Manhattan Hangs Out with Wendy and Holden Bittar, but she’s turned the text over to them, instead. Here, a dispatch from their time together.
Hello, Wendy and Holden here. We’ve lived with our dad here in New York for almost five years, before our stripes (Holden) and eyes (Wendy) weren’t so big. At first, we lived in the small apartment with one room, then the bigger apartment with trees in the window, and now we live here, where we look at the big buildings and also the sky.
We love our dad more than anything–when he talks to us, when he pets us. We want to be near him always, especially when there’s space for us to sit on or near his belly. And our stepmother…well, she is also there. She didn’t used to be there. And then she was only there sometimes. We can tell she likes us, that she wants to cuddle us, but we…don’t feel the same. Maybe one day we will, but as of now–well, she just tries too hard. Sometimes we hear her talk about Thai, or is it Ty? One of our cousins, apparently–a Siamese. We didn’t know this cousin, but we imagine they had a similar experience of her. Yes, stepmother, it’s been a year since we’ve been inside the same rooms with you the whole time, but we aren’t on a schedule, okay? We are trying to adjust; we just need time.
One night this week, our stepmother kept pointing this black box at us; we only looked because there was this dangling string near it, much to our shame. Usually we just look at her when we want her to feed us or if we’re bored. Sometimes when she is sitting with dad but we want to sit with him and we can’t. But dad is sitting on the couch talking to us while she points the black box at us, so we don’t feel unsafe, but we do feel watched more than usual.
We try to just go about our business but that dangling string–or, it’s bigger than a string, but it’s attached to the box? Dad doesn’t have one of these, so we’re not quite sure–is just too interesting. So we look, then nap–or try to, since she keeps pointing that black box at us–and we sit on top of the warm, tall box where dad and stepmother keep snacks. We play together, running across the kitchen even though stepmother is always trying to get us off the counter–dad used to try, but we out-cuted him and now we can sit almost wherever we want.
Stepmother points and points the black box with the dangling string, talking to us sometimes. Dad picks up the black box for a little while and points it at us, too. Although we admit that sometimes stepmother does give very good chin scratches, as usual we just want to sit and not be bothered by her. It doesn’t seem possible tonight.
