The Favorite Sister

by Jessica Knoll

  The fact that I believe myself to be beautiful—and talented, I might add—does not run counter to my deep-seated insecurities. If anything, it is salt on the ever-open wound that is going through life unseen. But for five minutes on a Tuesday night in a windowless warehouse in the theater district, I felt seen by someone who happened to be incredibly beautiful himself, and that part mattered. Because when we walked down the street holding hands, Vince acted as my conduit. Oh, people thought, making the jump after taking in Vince’s good looks without needing to parse and qualify them first. He’s with her. She must be beautiful too Come to think of it—wow—she is so beautiful. And that’s why Vince.

  It must be said that we were good in the beginning. There is a picture of us on New Year’s Eve, caught mid-kiss in the drunken crowd, unaware the lens was turned on us (those were the days, huh?). Vince had his hands on either side of my face, my lower lip pierced between his teeth. Passion had distorted our faces, made us appear tormented and deprived of some basic human need. Oh, God! I cried, slapping my laptop shut and covering my face in mortification when I saw the photo on Facebook. Something so private and primal should never be for public viewing.

  The sex was no frills, constant, and torrid. Which makes the reality that we don’t have any now—at least not with each other—all the more gutting. You know how couples rarely make it if they have a child who dies? It’s simply too awful a reminder of the life that was lost to stay with the person who helped create it. Sex is the dead baby in my marriage. It rips my heart in two to look at Vince and be reminded of what has been lost. We will not escape the reality TV marital curse. The only question that remains is when. When?

  “You’re a good friend for coming over here and telling us this, Greenberg,” Vince says, stepping in front of me and working some of my pomade through his thick, wavy hair. For a few moments, with Vince’s flat ass in my face, I’m at least spared the replica of my grief in the mirror.

  No matter what anybody says, I know that Vince loved me once, before I was rich and famous. I will go to the grave knowing somebody saw me for who I really am, and he didn’t turn away in revulsion. I don’t think Brett could say the same.

  The doors to the lower terrace of the penthouse are flung open, June at night like a bath you wake up in, lucky you didn’t drown. Outside, lanterns illuminate wisteria-wrapped pergolas and Franny’s hand-stretched dough chars in the wood-burning fireplace. Well, that would have been the scene, had the Greenwich Hotel been willing to sign the release form and had Franny’s not pulled out as the caterers once they discovered they would have to cook their pizzas in a conventional oven. As a result, we are in a very gold bar at a four-star hotel in midtown, trays of oversalted tuna tartar shoved in our faces every seven steps.

  Jen and I trade stiff compliments about the décor because we’ve been mic’d, and the cameras will pick up our audio even though they’re not turned on us yet. This is nice, Jen says, with a half grimace, half smile. My contribution: I never really get to this part of town.

  Natural Selection, the production company employed by the network, allocates three crews that rotate between the five of us for garden-variety home shoots, but for an all-cast event, the whole unit is deployed. Out on the small, cement terrace, catty-corner to a third open bar, two crews have staked out a space. Between the camera operator and the gaffer and the grip and Lisa, they appear like one big roving alien, stalking its target in a square of spotlight. Lisa notices me and raises her arm, wiping the air in short, frenetic waves.

  I pause before our showrunner and she squints at me, yanking the tail of a Canal Street pashmina worn by a production assistant. “Can we maybe . . . ?” She goes to dab at my lips with the scarf, still leashed to a pop-eyed PA. I duck out of her way before she can touch me. Lisa and Jesse hate how much makeup I wear.

  “What am I walking into?” I peer behind her and am relieved to see that it’s only Lauren in the shot.

  “Lauren trying in vain to convince us that she’s not drinking,” Lisa says. Next to me, blotting his forehead with oil absorbing papers, Vince snorts.

  “How many glasses of prosecco have you snuck her in the bathroom?” Lisa asks the PA, who is carefully turning her scarf around her neck again.

  “Four?” she guesses.

  Lisa punches four fingers inches from my face. I gently lower her hand. “Four glasses of prosecco. I get it.”

  “Don’t be shy about blowing up her spot.” She reaches around me and pats my back, finding my mic pack between my shoulder blades. “Good.”

  “Is Brett . . . ?” I remove a piece of imaginary fuzz from Vince’s shoulder. As if to say, I’m asking about Brett but more concerned about getting my husband camera ready. In a perverse way, I’m dying to see my former best friend. It’s like a criminal who finds reasons to revisit the scene of the crime. I don’t know the psychology behind that, and I’m not the criminal here, but I can tell you what I’m hoping to get out of an encounter with Brett is acknowledgment. I want to hear Brett say that I had every right to try to turn the cast against her. She’s figured out a way to keep herself relevant by proposing to some woman she’s known five minutes, and I get it, it’s self-preservation. But since I’m stuck with her, I deserve, at the very least, to hear her own it. She knows what she did.

  Lisa gives me a witchy grin. “Oh, Brett’s around.” She gives me a gentle push. “Don’t worry, we’ll find you,” she adds in my ear. Vince goes to take a step forward as well, but Lisa’s arm lowers in front of his chest like a safety bar on an amusement park ride. “Not right now, my Hungry Hippo.”

  Vince’s pretty little mouth drops open. He’s missed a greasy patch between his eyebrows with those blotting papers. “Whatever, Lisa,” he mutters. He surveys the room, trying to decide his next move. “I’m getting a drink,” he tells me, unpinning another button on his pajama top for all the women here to meet other women.

  “I’ll take a vodka soda!” Lisa cackles after him. “Go,” she whispers into my ear, with a firm push this time. “Four glasses of prosecco. Thank me later.”

  Lauren is kitted out in a lace bustier and sweatpants rolled several times at her hips, pink furry mules, serving up terminally cool. She sighs when she sees Jen’s chastity plaid. “Oh, Greenberg.”

  “I’m comfortable,” Jen retorts.

  “Comfortable doesn’t get you fucked,” Lauren says, with the vigor of someone who has drunk too much to enjoy sex anyway. “Comfortable doesn’t get you over that dickwad.” Her anger is abrupt and embarrassing. Lauren realizes it and laughs, pretending she was joking. My adrenaline rouses, a static rustling the fine hair on my forearms. Between Brett’s engagement and Jen’s sudden willingness to film with her, Lisa’s comment that I can thank her later, it doesn’t take a veteran reality star to predict that things are about to go down.

  “Phewwww,” Jen says to Lauren, releasing a long, cleansing breath and gesturing for Lauren to do the same. “Big breath. Your energy is too powerful to waste it on anger.”

  Your energy is too powerful to waste it on anger—sigh. I couldn’t admit this before, because I was so desperate to see the good in Jen after I lost Brett, but Jen actually patents certain phrases before the season, then has coffee mugs and sweatshirts made with her inspirational sayings so that she can sell them from her Instagram page when the episode airs. I find myself wishing I had a drink in my hand to take the edge off her etheric drivel. This is a new sensation for me. I could never relate to those people who declare I need a drink! after a long week. I’d rather some stinky cheese, or a massage at the Mandarin. The desire for a cocktail stiff enough to make my eyes water should be a sign—get out while you still can!—but I’m not one to believe in signs.

  Lauren pushes out a short, peppery breath for Jen’s benefit, before staking a toe to swivel in my direction, nearly losing her balance in the process. “You look hot,” she says, assessing me up and down. “I like your nightie thing.”

  “Thanks, it’s Stella�
�”

  “You know, I really admire what you’ve done. Telling your story. Helping women.” Lauren yawns, flitting her hand around as if to say, yada, yada. “But it doesn’t make you a saint.”

  I force myself to respond calmly. “I never claimed to be a saint.”

  Lauren burps silently, sending a whiff of hunger my way. “You claim to tell the truth, though, and you almost never do.”

  Welcome to reality TV, where duplicity is not just encouraged, but a survival skill. The last time I saw Lauren, she was my yessum woman. The last time I saw Jen, she was abusing an abused rescue dog. Now Lauren is an adversary and Jen is peace, love, and light.

  “Why don’t we discuss this at another time when you’re more clearheaded,” I say to Lauren in an undertone. It’s both an offer to protect my skin (I’ve lied about so many things, I’d rather discuss when I’m prepared to address which lie) and her own (you’re telling everyone you’re not drinking, but I know how many proseccos you’ve had tonight).

  “I’m completely clearheaded.” Lauren makes her eyes wide and alert, as though this is undeniable proof that she is fit to operate a moving vehicle. “And I want to know why you told me Brett was the one who sent the video of me to Page Six when it wasn’t her.”

  If I weren’t on camera, I would sigh with relief. Telling Lauren that Brett was responsible for that item in the press is the least of it all. “I didn’t tell you it was Brett. I said I suspected it was Brett because I know she has a line in to one of the editors there.”

  “So do you!” Lauren trills.

  “And so do you!”

  A few lesbians in imported polyester passing as satin sleepwear stop speaking to stare at us. It will make for some great B-roll.

  “Why don’t we go into the hallway to discuss this so we don’t ruin Lauren’s event?” Jen suggests, and I’ve been at this long enough to be able to translate that to Brett is waiting for us in the hallway.

  I square my shoulders. I thought I was ready to have it out with Brett, but now that the opportunity has been presented, I realize I’m not, and that I don’t think I’ll ever be. I should not be the one who has to apologize to her, which I’ll have to do if I see her tonight. “I’m fine right here.”

  “Of course,” Lauren mutters. “It’s not your event you’re ruining.”

  I release a tinny, exasperated laugh. “You started with me!”

  “Let’s just . . .” Jen puts a palm in the middle of our backs and takes a step toward the doors, our Buddha bellwether, forcing us to follow her. I’m resistant at first, but as we step inside I notice something in the far corner that makes me a willing participant of the cavalcade. It’s my husband, sitting on a love seat by the fireplace, too close to another woman.

  I narrow my eyes and realize the woman is Kelly, wearing a white negligee that looks like it came with the sexy nurse costume from the Halloween store. Vince dips his head and murmurs something into her ear. Kelly plants her hand in the middle of his chest, restraining him with a kind smile. My heart is battering in my ears as I glance back at Lisa, fearful she will have Marc turn his lens on my scoundrel husband, but everyone is too focused on the impending confrontation between Brett and me to have noticed. One less thing to worry about, I think, momentarily relieved, but then I catch Jen’s eye and realize she saw what I saw. Great. Just great.

  Brett is standing by the elevators, wearing the silk pajamas I bought for her last year. This is no happenstance. The pants are wrinkled and if I get close enough to smell her, I’m sure I will discover that they’re in desperate need of a dry cleaning, which is also strategic. She wants me to know she’s been wearing these, that she’s been thinking about me. The crew rings us and waits to see which one of us will speak first.

  “I don’t want to fight with you,” Brett starts, which is a riot. That is exactly what she is here to do.

  I laugh crudely in her face. “Why else would you be here, Brett?”

  “I asked her to come,” Lauren pipes up with glee. How thrilled she is to be the wounded bird at the center of this drama. “It’s my event. I’m allowed to ask anyone I’d like to come. I don’t need your permission, Steph.”

  Jen reaches for Lauren’s hand and clutches it close to her heart. “Laur,” she says, her voice deep and husky. “Remember what we talked about. Speak from a place of vulnerability, not vengeance.”

  “Christ on a gluten-free vegan cracker,” Brett says, making eyes at the camera. When we were filming the first season, we were told to ignore the cameras. It was drilled into us. Then season one aired and we discovered that not only had Brett completely disregarded that rule, but that the viewers loved it, ordaining her the Jim Halpert of the show. Brett is incapable of seeing that private communication for what it is, which is a betrayal of her cast. Staring into the camera at moments like this is analogous to a laugh track. It’s saying to the audience—yeah, I’m laughing at them with you.

  “Do you want me to mediate or not?” Jen says to Brett, dropping the Dalai Lama inflection. Something passes between them, indiscernible to anyone who is not us. They’ve seen each other since I was at Jen’s apartment, I realize. They’ve agreed on something. I am the one on the ropes tonight. I take a moment to gather my bearings—do they have something on me? Have they agreed to their own alliance? I decide, whip fast, that my best course of action is to show remorse.

  “Lauren,” I say, turning to her with my hands steepled in prayer. “I genuinely thought Brett was behind the Page Six article. That wasn’t a lie. If Brett says it wasn’t her, then it wasn’t her, and I’m sorry to have created such confusion. Now, can we just go back in there and celebrate this important and necessary new chapter of SADIE?” Important. Necessary. These are the things every Digger would like to believe about herself.

  Lauren runs a hand through her sunny hair, pluming herself. She’s going to work this conflict to the bone, I realize with a slump. How could the tide have turned against me so quickly? How am I the one on the outs here? “I don’t believe you thought that,” Lauren persists. “I think you told me that to get me on your side and fight your battles for you.”

  I attempt to disarm her with a smile. “Laur, come on, you know me. I can fight my own battles.”

  “Or maybe you did it to try to distract everyone from your marriage issues.” She cocks an eyebrow, lazily, but the trick does very little to assuage the regret on her face. She knows she’s taken it too far by bringing up Vince.

  “Laur,” Brett gasps, disapprovingly, and the eyebrow falls completely. It’s official. Brett is our new puppet master.

  Thank you, Lisa, I think, as I remember what she told me earlier. “You’re not making any sense,” I say to Lauren. “Maybe it was the four glasses of prosecco you’ve smuggled tonight when you’re telling everyone you’re sober?”

  Lauren thinks she lunges at me, but in reality, it’s more of a slow, sad lean. She bumps her shin on the bench between the elevators, doubling over and yowling. Jen grabs her by her upper arm, helping to right her, and that’s when I notice it. The bruising. The puncture wounds. Lauren has gotten her vaccinations for Morocco.

  “Grow up,” Lauren says, clutching her shin with her hand. “You’re too old to be a mean girl.”

  Over Brett’s shoulder, Lisa’s lips form a grotesque o.

  “Steph!” Brett begs after me as I hurry away, crew number two stalking me down the hallway. I’m done. I can’t. I’m done.

  Vince has disappeared, and with the camera crew unrelenting at my back, I don’t risk looking for Kelly in case she might lead me to him. The last thing I need is a storyline that my husband is schtupping the new Digger. The second to last thing I need is for my husband to actually schtup the new Digger. I head for the bathroom, where at least I can sit on the edge of the toilet and not worry what my face is or is not doing in this new reality where I have somehow found myself the villain in the story.

  The door to the bathroom is locked. I rattle the knob to let whomever is
inside know there is a line, and then again a few seconds later, and then again. I can’t get my face away from this camera fast enough. The door blows open with a Jesus, though the woman giggles an apology when she sees the cameras and realizes who I am. I step past her, pulling the door shut behind me, but it catches on something before I can get it to latch. I look down and find the dirty toe of a Golden Goose sneaker.

  Brett turns sideways and fits her body inside, closing the door on the long snout of the camera. This has happened before—Marc stuck outside filming a slammed door, while our mics pick up a “private” conversation. Brett seizes me by the shoulders, pulling me toward her with her lips puckered. I can’t tell if she’s going to kiss me or spit on me. “I won’t let you do this, Steph!” She shakes me, with dramatic effect but very little actual force. “You don’t get to walk out like that. You don’t get to decide when we talk and when we don’t. I’m not your fucking subordinate.” She releases me to bring two fists to her mouth, her shoulders quivering with silent church laughter. She jabs a finger at me, mouthing, Go! You go!

  I stare at Brett for a few long, hard seconds. Give me something, I plead with her inwardly. Give me anything. Brett blinks back at me, the smile dropping away from her face. It seems like she might say something—something real—but instead she starts to cough, abruptly and violently. She coughs so hard she chokes. She coughs so hard tears stream down her face. “Wrong pipe,” she croaks, clutching her throat with one hand, jabbing at the faucet behind me with the other. She means for me to turn it on so she can get some water. The most I’m willing to do is step aside so that she can see to her survival herself.