Doll Baby

A sample of Doll Baby

Doll Baby

A novel by Emily Singer

Thought Catalog Books · thoughtcatalog.com

Copyright © 2026 Emily Singer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior written consent and permission from Thought Catalog.

Published by Thought Catalog Books®, an imprint of Thought Catalog, a digital magazine owned and operated by The Thought & Expression Co. Inc., an independent media organization founded in 2010 and based in the United States of America. For stocking inquiries, contact stockists@shopcatalog.com.

Produced by Chris Lavergne and Noelle Beams
Art direction and design by KJ Parish
Circulation management by Isidoros Karamitopoulos

thoughtcatalog.com | shopcatalog.com

First Limited Edition Print
Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-965820-21-6

Contents

• fifteen — 9
• sixteen — 27
• seventeen — 43
• eighteen — 61
• nineteen — 75
• twenty — 87
• twenty-one — 99
• twenty-two — 119
• twenty-three — 131
• twenty-four — 147
• twenty-five — 167

to my mom & dad, you are better than I could’ve ever asked for
to my sisters, you are my favorite people to laugh with
to my very large, very Valley family, you are the best of the best
to my friends, for being my angels & whom this
book would not have been as colorful without
to all the people I’ve ever loved, thank you
to Los Angeles, I’m lucky I’m yours

"But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes. People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore."

—Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Fifteen

THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY was hotter than hell in the summer. The air sat heavily on your skin the second you stepped foot outside. The days dragged on leisurely, like Groundhog’s Day or some kind of twisted time warp.

A sigh. Then another, followed by a third. Misery loves company. Anyone taking in this scene would have laughed at the absurdity of that sentiment.

Three fifteen-year-old girls, lounging in unison. Long limbs tangled together, as if the heat wasn’t unbearable. Teenage girls have a way of being so comfortable with one another’s touch. There’s a cap, though. A statute of limitation. That kind of physical intimacy has an expiration date.

Since the second we met in elementary school, Genevieve, Ivy, and I were superglued together—speaking in code and sleeping in queen-size beds only big enough for two. Looking back, we wondered what other kids our age were up to. Maybe they had jobs or summer classes. We were bored and spoiled, wildly out of touch with reality.

We kept to ourselves, the three of us. Always huddling too close together in the hallways, with only bits of air between us. Always whispering in each other’s ears, holding hands or arms circled around each other’s waists. Forcefully peeled off only by the sounds of the alarm that signaled class was starting.

The summer before sophomore year had started off innocent, but there was nothing to do and the days became monotonous. The Valley always faltered between a playground and a prison in our eyes.

This was a Saturday afternoon like any other, spent lounging by my pool. The water rippled. Palm trees danced. We were spindly and angsty things, trying on every version of ourselves and each other.

This particular day, we were just trying to escape the heat. Our fingers rapidly dialed our parents on our Blackberry cell phones, begging for a ride to the beach.

Ivy picked at her cuticles and checked her phone incessantly. Sighing and putting it down every time she saw Jason hadn’t texted her back yet. She was boy crazy. Genevieve and I called it lovesick, but we couldn’t blame her. Ivy had daddy problems.

Her dad was a hotshot movie producer who cheated on her mom with a young starlet when we were kids. Only one that we knew of, at least. Annabella was from Missouri and started her career as an assistant on a studio lot but slept her way up the totem pole of executives. Now she starred in bad horror movies and soft pornos where they usually put her hair in pigtails. She wasn’t classically pretty and she always looked like she was going to fall over from the weight of her chest. I could still picture the spreads in various tabloid magazines. His balding head a foot shorter than her. Her boobs taking up most of the frame.

It was a very nasty, very public divorce, and now Ivy and her mom went to some hippie-dippie celebrity therapist in Topanga Canyon. She had crystals everywhere and her place was dirty and smelled of patchouli. I knew this because I went one time after a sleepover and I couldn’t stop sneezing for three days. The therapist hypnotized them on occasion and now Ivy said things like this is healing my inner child.

As I got older, I learned that cheating was very common, especially in the Valley. Scandals were constant and usually kept quiet until they imploded in a mess of divorce and custody battles and overt loathing. I was lucky, I guess, because even though my dad was usually busy with work, he was always around. He couldn’t function without my mom. If she was gone even an hour, he called to ask when she’d be home.

My family was cookie-cutter, perfect from outside the glass windows. My dad worked in finance and my mom stayed home and took care of Asher and me. My dad called me doll baby and repeated the same five stories about me as a child to anyone who’d listen. I particularly hated the one where I used to tell my mom that I wanted to marry my dad.

I picked up my copy of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. The pages were crisp, pristine. Just as I liked them. I always remembered what page I was on so that I didn’t have to fold the edges. I had several books to read before school started back up again. Genevieve was nursing a strawberry popsicle, but she wasn’t fast enough. It was melting down her chin, sticky and sickly sweet.

Jolie, Genevieve cooed.

G, I responded, without looking away from my book.

How are you already halfway through summer reading? It’s only July.

Because I’m in Honors Lit—

You could’ve just said you’re a nerd, Genevieve cut me off. Her popsicle was finished, but she kept the stick in her mouth, chewing on it while she spoke. Genevieve thought highly of herself. She had a large bout of self-esteem that no other girls our age had seemed to inherit. When we were in the sixth grade, my mom told my dad that Genevieve’s mother was a harlot. I pretended not to hear. I didn’t know what harlot meant but it didn’t sound very nice.

I narrowed my eyes at Genevieve, playfully. Asher had Mrs. Madden and I know she’s going to have it out for me.

Ivy, not listening to the conversation, butted in with her typical drama. He’s not answering, but he read it, she whined. It was something she did often. Complained cyclically until someone gave her the reassurance she was looking for. We rarely did, trying to level set expectations, as her therapist called it.

How do you know? I asked, entertaining her theatrics.

Because, it says read, Ivy responded bitterly.

Genevieve, having enough, got up from the lounge chair. She threw her legs over and huffed dramatically. Ivy, we talked about this. Stop texting him. He’s a toolbag. Sayonara. Ivy looked down bashfully. She never talked back to Genevieve. No one did.

Genevieve jumped in the pool and my gaze followed her into the deep end, uncontrollably. As the summer had progressed, I found that I was acutely more aware of Genevieve than of my own human body. Studying her mannerisms, the lines of her body, her bold sentiments like I’d wanted to wear her skin. Wishing I was more like Genevieve. More sure of myself, more assertive.

Now almost alone with each other, Ivy suddenly turned to me. Ivy often did this. When Genevieve was out of sight, she’d inch closer to me. I was a safe target, softer than Genevieve.

How do you do it? Ivy asked sadly.

Do what? I kept my eyes on Dorian.

Never let anyone break your heart, Ivy whispered, and I swallowed a laugh. The drama! She couldn’t possibly be that heartbroken over Jason. They had only hung out like three times that summer. Ivy always went for guys that only gave her attention on occasion. It probably had something to do with her dad. I watched Genevieve blow bubbles up to the surface from underwater through my peripheral.

I don’t think I’ve let anyone close enough to try, yet. The sun was beating down with a vengeance. Sweat pooled in my non-existent cleavage.

Genevieve swam up to the ledge, breaking us out of the moment. Her hair, slicked back. Her skin, porcelain and freckled from the sun. What did your parents say about the beach?

No dice. My Mom’s at a work thing, Ivy responded.

Mine are away for the weekend. Napa or something, I said nonchalantly, head still in my book. Dorian Gray was going off the rails, poor Sibyl Vane.

Ivy sat up straighter. Why didn’t you say so?

I gnawed on the inside of my lip. I don’t know. Didn’t think about it.

Ivy and Genevieve looked at each other slyly. Jolie, we should have a party tonight, Genevieve purred.

No way. I shook my head.

Why not? Ivy whined.

Because... I trailed off. I didn’t have an answer that was suitable. Asher always had people over when our parents were out of town.

Genevieve pulled herself out of the water, droplets trickling down her sinewy body onto the hot concrete. Ivy climbed atop and straddled me, tossing my book to the side. Her strawberry-blonde hair cascaded down, obscuring my view of Genevieve, who grabbed a towel and dried her hair off behind the lounge. Only a few people. Just friends, Ivy said, eyes wide and head bobbling.