The Favorite Sister

by Jessica Knoll

  “No. Not really surprised.”

  “Not really, huh?” Lauren smirks. “That’s the problem with relationships today. There’s no mystery. No spontaneity. You have a mature talk about where you are headed and then you go to Cartier and buy classic yellow-gold bands together.” She doesn’t just drop my hand, she slams it down, like you would an old-timey phone into its cradle after a heated conversation. “Where’s the romance?” Her voice catches on what she pretends she doesn’t want.

  I laugh at the cameras as though I am confused by Lauren’s angry, despairing reaction, although I’m not. Lauren is tired of being defined by her colorful sex life. She’s getting older. She’s getting lonelier. But she has a role to play. I feel for her. “The reason I wasn’t surprised,” I say, “is because I was the one who did it.”

  “You did it?” Vince gapes.

  Technically both Arch and I did it, but for whatever reason, I’ve found myself telling people this version of events when Arch isn’t around to fact-check. Taking ownership of the decision is helping me feel more confident about the decision. Leap when you’re almost ready is an idiom in the business world, because you will never actually be ready to do something that has the power to change your life for better or for worse.

  “Yeah,” I punch Vince’s pecs, playfully, “don’t sound so shocked.”

  “It’s just, I don’t know. She’s the older one.” Vince runs a hand through his hair, distraught. “I guess I thought she was the . . . you know. The man in the relationship.”

  “The man in the relationship?” I look at Lauren and Jen, assuming they find this stereotypical understanding of same-sex relationships just as offensive as I do.

  “Mmm-mmm. Mmmm-mmm,” Lauren says, shaking her head in vehement agreement with Vince. “Arch is definitely not the man in the relationship. She’s so thin.”

  I guess I should have known better than to have expected an enlightened rebuttal from Lauren when her eyes are approaching half-mast and her jaw is dangerously still. Tonight, it’s Xanax and whatever is masquerading as water in her glass.

  A server penetrates our group with a small silver tray. “Sorry to interrupt. But dayboat scallops with lemon, olive oil, and espelette?”

  “Bless your heart . . . what’s your name?” I raise my eyebrows in wait.

  “Dan,” he says.

  “Dan the man.” I knight him, spearing a scallop with a toothpick and popping it into my mouth in one bite. “Don’t apologize, Dan,” I say, chewing. I hold up a finger, chew, chew, chew, and swallow. “Interrupt me anytime, Dan. Especially if I’m still talking to this crowd the next time you see—” Before I can complete my sentence, a piece of scallop wedges in my throat, triggering another one of those goddamn coughing fits. I thump my chest with a fist, pointing desperately at Lauren’s “glass of water,” but she holds it out of my reach.

  “I have a cold!” she exclaims.

  Jen is staring at me, dead-eyed and comically unconcerned. Had Vince not been there, willing to thrust his glass of red wine into my hands, I might have died at my own surprise engagement party. I manage three sputtering sips. “Ahem,” I declare, “Ahhhh-hem.” My fist expands into a palm, covering my heart. I release a long, centering sigh. “Thanks, Vince,” I say pointedly to Lauren.

  “You just got engaged,” Lauren says, lamely. “I wouldn’t want to get you sick.” She sniffs, twice.

  “Aunt Brett!” I hear from the sidelines, and I see Layla, wearing the graphic tee I recently bought her from Zara. The ends of her hair are a lighter color than her roots, which is new. Also new is Kelly’s decision to leave the house without wearing a bra. Vince checks to be sure. Twice.

  “What’s this?” I tug on a piece of Layla’s hair. Layla has been begging for ombré highlights for the last year, but Kelly has been adamantly opposed.

  “We went with Jen to get her hair done and they had dye left over,” Layla explains. “It’s all-natural so Mom said okay this time.”

  A knot forms in my stomach. Kelly and Layla went with Jen to get her hair done? How did I not know about this?

  “Layla signed up for lacrosse tryouts this year,” Kelly adds. “And I’m proud of her for trying something new.”

  “Why not basketball?” Lauren asks with remarkable oblivion.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” Vince says to Kelly, laughing awkwardly.

  “I know I don’t have to answer that,” Kelly snaps at him. It is the exchange of two people who know each other better than I thought they did.

  Vince’s eyes get very big and he puffs his cheeks, actively holding his breath. He digs his hands in his pockets, rocking from the balls of his feet to his heels and back again, trying to think of a way to change the subject. “So. Um,” he says to me. “When is the wedding?”

  “No date yet. But sometime within the year for sure. Neither of us has any interest in planning a wedding for too long.”

  Kelly makes an inflammatory sound.

  “What was that, dear sister?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Kelly says, but she doesn’t have to. She thinks I’m rushing into this. She doesn’t understand what our hurry is. A freeze settles upon the group, everyone stiffening, compacting their shoulders.

  “Steph and I had a short engagement too,” Vince offers, idiotically.

  “Well, in that case,” Kelly says, and Jen covers a cruel smile with her hand. Her compassion for all living creatures does not extend to turkeys or to me, evidently.

  “Layla’s here,” I remind my sister in a low voice.

  “What do you want me to say?” Kelly sighs.

  “Um, how about congratulations?”

  Kelly regards me for a brief, mean moment. “You have red wine on your new dress.”

  Dan the man is taking too long to bring me the club soda I requested, so I head downstairs and ask one of the bartenders at the back end of the restaurant. I’m blotting out the stain when I feel my phone buzz.

  Not sure where you are but it’s late so taking Layla home, Kelly’s text reads. See you at Soho tom?

  I’m just about to respond that I’m on the lower level when I see Kelly and Layla descend the stairs. I’m behind them, near the kitchen, so I know before they do that Vince is following them. He catches up to Kelly by the hostess station, reaching out and brushing her elbow, tentatively, almost as though he knows he shouldn’t be doing this. I’m too far away to hear them, but I watch as Kelly points out the bathroom in the front of the restaurant for Layla. Layla disappears inside, leaving Vince and Kelly alone.

  Vince’s back is to me, but he must be speaking, because Kelly’s lips are still. Puckered but still. When she finally opens her mouth, she jabs a finger at Vince’s chest, never actually touching him, and I’m able to read her lips because she’s speaking slowly for emphasis, punctuating each word with her finger, Leave. It. Alone.

  Suddenly, Kelly drops her hand by her side. She sees me. She says something dismissively to Vince, before rapping on the bathroom door, yelling at Layla to hurry up. I spin on my heel, giving Vince my back as he turns and retraces his path through the restaurant and up the stairs. I’m fast enough that he doesn’t notice me, but not so fast that I don’t take a mental snapshot of his expression. He is dejected, I realize, my chest ablaze with panic. Because if Stephanie finds out that her husband is chasing my sister down darkened stairwells, having what appears to be a lovers’ quarrel in the middle of the West Village’s sceniest restaurant, I don’t know what she would do. Worse, I don’t know what she would say.

  CHAPTER 13

  * * *

  Stephanie

  When Vince hazards on the bedroom door, I am awake with my eyes closed. We go through seasons of sleeping together and sleeping apart. A lot of it is allergy related. In the spring, when the pollen count is higher, Vince tends to snore and it keeps me awake and—oh, I don’t care enough to lie anymore. We only sleep in the same bed when we’re filming. It’s easier to slip into the skin of wedded
bliss when we’re dueling over the same linen top sheet. The closer you can get to believing your own lies, the more palatable they become for mass consumption. Brett doesn’t even know it, but she taught me this.

  Sometimes I wonder if Vince and I would still be having sex if I hadn’t made another cent. I think about all the chaste space my money has created in our marriage. A bi-level home that allows us to spend the better part of the day on unobstructed planes, if we prefer. (Turns out, we prefer.) A living room large enough for two couches, one for each of us should we ever agree on a show to watch. A master bedroom that fits a California king in which we can sleep diagonally, upside down, and inside out without ever so much as grazing a limb. We never touch anymore because we never have to touch anymore. In the first apartment, we were on top of each other. We spooned on the single couch out of necessity and if we got into a fight right before bed, Vince didn’t have the option to hermetically seal himself into the guest bedroom. We didn’t have a guest bedroom. So I wonder, if my success had plateaued, if we had never been able to upgrade to our current conditions, would this coerced contact have saved us? Or was it only ever a palliative treatment for something that was ailing from the start?

  “How was it?” I ask him without opening my eyes.

  “Oh.” He stumbles, probably over my suitcase, which is packed for the next book tour and the dinner in L.A. “You’re awake.”

  I open my eyes to find Vince shirtless, his lower belly more pronounced than usual after too much free champagne, drunkenly grappling with the buckle on his belt. Not exactly a view to get the motor running. Vince has never tried very hard to have a great body, and there is something so arrogant about all those times he’s blown off the trainer he begged me to hire, as though he has decided someone with his face doesn’t need a six-pack too.

  He spreads onto the bed in his boxers, the stench of him spilling over onto my side, despite what feels like a full Manhattan avenue between us. If he were an air freshener, what would we call him? Partially Metabolized Champagne Breeze. Radiant Herpes. “It was fun, babe,” he says. “You should have come.”

  I told Brett and Lisa that I left for my book tour today, but I actually leave tomorrow. I’m stopping in three cities, making my way across the country to L.A., the trip culminating in the all-important dinner with the Female Director. I always make my own travel reservations (production won’t fly us business—the show features women so successful they should already fly business), so no one has any idea that I was actually in New York on the night of Brett’s surprise engagement party.

  When I received Arch’s Evite with the bossy, bubble-lettered Shhhhhhh!, I RSVP’d Will attend! for two. But as the date approached, a special cocktail of venom seemed to pool in my glands. I could not bear the thought of raising a glass of champagne to the happy couple, one half of which is a nasty cold-blooded animal, the same temperature of whatever her environment happens to be that day.

  I mash a fist into my pillow, carving out a view of Vince’s profile in the bright city dark. “Did everyone think it was weird that you were there without me? I just thought one of us should represent. I don’t want them to think I’m, you know, holding a grudge.”

  Vince shuts his eyes, and not because he’s tired. “No, babe. No one thinks that. They all believe you made up.”

  This is the perfect opening to address something that has been eating away at me for months but that I haven’t had the pluck to ask. Does Vince know? “Do you believe we made up?” I ask, my voice going hoarse. It’s a chickenshit way around it, but it’s better than the willful ignorance I’ve been affecting since Brett moved out.

  Vince takes his time, choosing his words wisely. “I don’t think you should have to make up with her if you don’t want to,” he says, which is an answer not nearly as ambiguous as it sounds. It’s the closest we have gotten to the truth in a long while. My breath feels like acid in my nostrils and there are tears in my eyes, but I hide it from my voice.

  “I appreciate that. I’m relieved no one said anything. I thought for sure Lisa might.”

  “Lisa didn’t say anything. Brett didn’t say anything. Jesse didn’t say anything. You’re good. I promise.”

  I hurl myself upright, my weepiness expunged, my heart like a jumping fish in my throat. “Jesse was there?”

  Vince flings a forearm over his eyes with a groan, regretting the admission instantly. He knows Jesse only makes an appearance on set if the scene is of paramount importance. Jesse will be meeting up with me in L.A.—a first for me, and something I was immensely proud of. Now an engagement party—to celebrate the most banal of life achievements—is on par with a dinner with an Oscar-Nominated Female Director? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Yvette Greenberg was right. The show has lost its way.

  “She stopped by for, like, five minutes,” Vince says, trying to make it sound as if it’s not as big a deal as it is.

  “Did she say anything about doing a spinoff with Brett for her wedding?”

  “Oh my God, babe.” Vince flops onto his side, punishing me with his back. “She was there, like, two seconds. I don’t know. Maybe. But I doubt it. That wedding’s never going to happen.”

  I am still sitting up in bed, chewing on a thumb, but my panic tapers ever so slightly. “You think so?”

  Vince answers with a short, confident laugh. “It’s all for a storyline. You know that.”

  I remove my thumb from my mouth before I ruin my L.A. manicure, suddenly flush with appreciation for Vince, that he looks at Brett and sees what I see: an overhyped, overfed grandstander who’s cozened women’s empowerment into a brand for money and fame. Appreciation and something more: determination to make this charade less of a charade, to embark on the next venture designed to maintain my relevancy. I curl into my husband’s pale, hairless back, slinging an arm over his narrow hip. “Well. Thanks for representing us tonight. I just worried what it looked like to back out at the last minute. But I couldn’t bring myself to go either.”

  “It’s fine,” Vince says, voice as taut as his body when he feels my roving hand. It takes some effort to weasel it between his thighs.

  “Jesus,” he gasps, “your hands are cold.”

  Seven years ago, even three years ago, Vince’s rejection would have flattened me. But I have developed a tolerance for my husband’s apathy. I rise on all fours, grit overpowering dignity, and stake a hand on either side of Vince’s face, a knee on either side of his hips. He does nothing for a few agonizing moments, before releasing his knees and straightening out to face me on his back.

  “You have to get up early,” he tries.

  I kiss him. His breath is putrid.

  I worm a hand beneath the elastic band of his boxer shorts and capture him in my thumb and index finger. His penis is baby soft and pliable, spineless in its faithful state. Is it just in my mind or has he gotten smaller? Like the opposite of Pinocchio—every time he lies, it shrinks.

  Vince wraps his fingers around my wrist, removing my hand from his boxers and setting it on the mattress with a consolatory pat. For a few long moments, that is that. I’m about to retreat to my side of the bed when Vince changes his mind, flipping me onto my back, then waiting, unhelping, while I wiggle out of my pajama bottoms. He does lean down to kiss me—there’s that—but it’s a wet, cold kiss, too many front teeth, and we abandon pretense to focus on getting his dick inside of me, which hasn’t happened since I went off birth control three months ago.

  Vince is humping the seam of my inner thigh, wheezing, working dutifully for an ember. This outlives my capacity for dirty talk, and there are only so many times one can say, I want you to fuck me, before its rehearsed timbre incurs the opposite of its intended effect.

  Vince slams onto his back with a sharp cry of frustration. He pounds his temple, a caveman’s show of self-flagellation. His angry breathing moderates into soothing neighs. “It’s not you,” he assures me. “I just drank too much tonight.” He drags me onto his pale, wimpy che
st, nuzzling the top of my head and rubbing my back, like I’m the one who should be upset, even though there is nothing wrong with me. I should be the one consoling him Yes, dear, it’s perfectly normal that I have cashmere sweaters harder than your dick. “You’re so beautiful,” he continues, moronically. “I want you so much.”

  “Thank you, babe,” I say. I prop my chin in my hand, my elbow sharp above my husband’s fickle heart. “You tell all the girls that when it doesn’t work?”

  Vince doesn’t even call me crazy as I roll onto my side, my turn to punish him with my back. My intelligence isn’t worth insulting anymore, apparently. I can say anything, I realize. I can really be crazy now.

  “No reservation, you said?” The hostess consults her seating plan. She’s the only other black person in the lobby besides me.

  “Right,” I tell her for the second time. “But I just want to eat at the bar.”

  “We take reservations for the bar.”

  “There’s nowhere that’s first come, first serve?”

  The hostess looks up at me. She is wearing no makeup except for goth lipstick, no jewelry except for a jade bangle. “You can see if there’s anything open.”

  I tip my head at her. “So the bar is first come, first serve?”

  “Only if it doesn’t have a place setting. If it has a place setting it’s being held for a reservation.”

  “Eleven Madison isn’t even as tough as this.” I smile easily, letting her know I’m no stranger to the vagaries of posh restaurants.

  The hostess is unbelievably annoyed. “Huh?”

  “It’s in New York,” I say, pathetically.

  The little bitch shrugs. As if New York is over and the dining room at this four-star boutique hotel in Phoenix is where it’s at. She looks like someone who would watch the show, but she certainly doesn’t recognize me. I find myself wishing I told the camera crew to follow me to dinner (they went back to their hotel—a three-star chain—after my reading), so this haughty newborn would realize she should be clamoring to make nice with me. Not that I have any right to complain. I avoided the other two black kids in my class studiously. On my own, I was a refreshing breeze. Two would have been a twister, everyone in my town hiding in the basement.