The Favorite Sister

by Jessica Knoll

  I am talking, Jen snaps. She’s mad now. Brett embarrassed her. I know what it’s like to share something with Brett that you’ve put a lot of thought and effort into, and for the Big Chill to make you feel like a complete nerd for trying so hard. I’m telling you this for two reasons. One, because I’m no longer going to allow you to lord it over me, and two, I thought you might want to take a cue from me Prepare your own statement. Get ready for the ensuing shitstorm when everyone finds out that you slept with Vince.

  Thudding silence. Whatever Brett was doing in the kitchen, she’s stopped.

  Vince is foineeeee, Lauren says through a yawn.

  Your sister told me, Jen says, probably in response to the stunned look on Brett’s face. That’s bad, Brett. Not just what you did and what you’ve lied about, but that your own sister is so done with you that she sold you down the river. You’re going to have no one, after this is over. You think Jesse will stand by your side after this? I know Yvette won’t. See, she might not always like me, but she will always love me. The same cannot be true of some girl she met three years ago.

  Yvette. Ugh. Why did Jen have to bring up Yvette? Yvette was Brett’s do-over. She made Brett feel worthy of a mother’s love. Of all that Brett stood to lose if the truth came out, I believe she would have felt Yvette the hardest.

  Brett makes a dismissive noise that just barely masks her full-blown panic. Tell me, did you work with your PR team to craft a statement about the year you spent fucking Vince?

  Jen and Vince?! I scream-thought on the first listen.

  Jen and Vince? On the second.

  Jen and Vince. On the third, I remembered Brett trying to talk to me before we set out for the mountains in Morocco. Something about Jen. I had brushed her off. No. I hadn’t just brushed her off. I had screamed at her that I never wanted to hear another bad word about Jen again. I was just so sick of feeling like she didn’t have my back and also that she was set on sabotaging my relationship with the one person who did. Would things have been different if I knew?

  Would I want them to be?

  Vince is not my best friend’s husband, Jen says, cool as a cucumber, almost as if she was prepared for Brett to bring up the dalliance. That was your best friend. She was good to you. She loved you. And you shit all over her. Think about it, Brett. Women are going to hate you when they find out.

  Brett does seem to think about it. Then she laughs defiantly. Was he your first or something, Greenberg? You are TOTALLY still writing Mrs. Jen DeMarco in your diary, aren’t you? You know I broke it off with him, right? You know he kept pursuing me, even after I got engaged? He is capital O Obbbbbb-sessed with me. That must killllll you. You got yourself a little makeover with your new boobies and your long hair and you thought you were gonna sweep in and win yo man back. Brett gasps, theatrically. Oh my God, look at your face! You did think that. You did. You thought you were going to show Vince what he was missing and instead, he only had eyes for my fat ass. See. This is what you have never understood. Actually, I think you do understand it, and that’s why you hate me. Nobody likes you, Greenberg. You are boring. Being thin is your full-time job and your hobby. Being thin is all you have to offer anyone, because you have no charisma, no sex appeal, no guts. Of course Vince would rather fuck me over a lonely bag of bones in an Ulla Johnson dress and your mother would still rather I was her daughter. Aw, are you going to cry? You know, I’ve never actually seen you cry. Do you cry, like, green kale smoothie tears?

  I held my breath here, on the first listen, because I was so sure this was when it would happen. I would have understood, on some level, if Jen had snapped after an evisceration like that. It was so mean. It was so cruel. It was so true. But somehow, it manages to get worse.

  Because Jen, from what I can gather, turned away. She didn’t engage. She didn’t give Brett the reaction she was looking for.

  Jen, Brett hisses, trying to call her back. Jen. Stop. Jen! And then, I hear Brett’s fast feet on the limestone flooring, that unyielding flooring, and Jen’s grunt. Brett went after Jen. Brett started it.

  Lauren snores lightly as Brett and Jen tangle on the floor, groaning, breathing hard, trading curses. They kept their voices down for a reason: they didn’t want to be stopped.

  The crack reminds me of the coconuts Brett and I used to raise above our heads and slam into our driveway when we were kids. It is not the crack! of something breaking. It is the crack! of someone breaking something. The intention is deafening. Brett moans, almost in recognition. Ohhhh, this is it for me. Brett’s cause of death was acute subdural hematoma, a blood clot below the inner layer of the dura. The pathologist identified two contusions to the back of her head, caused by two separate blows, only one of which was fatal. But because they came in such quick succession, she could not determine their order. Listening to the tape, I am certain it was the first.

  Still, Jen might have been able to spin this as self-defense, or even an accident, up until this point. She could have called for help, and maybe Brett could have been saved. But then, a second crack. What she believed to be the coup de grâce. There was no calling anyone after that.

  For a while, Jen’s distraught breathing is the unstressed beat to Lauren’s snoring. Brett is silent. Brett died fast.

  She tried to drag her on her own first. I heard it. But there was no way the show’s elfin flower child was going to be able to dispose of my sister’s sizely body without some assistance. A woman wouldn’t have been able to do that on her own, the officer had said, but two women could.

  Lauren. Jen’s voice is a close hiss. Lauren. Wake up.

  This continues for a good minute or so.

  Stop, Lauren finally groans.

  No, Lauren. Wake up.

  No. Hey! Stop! What are you doing? I can imagine Jen dragging Lauren off the couch.

  Help me! Jen snarls at her.

  Is that Brett?

  Get her feet.

  Lauren laughs. Brett is DRUNK. Wake up, Brett!

  Get her—that’s it. You got it. Keep moving.

  Is this Brett?

  Keep moving.

  A door creaks open. A light clicks on.

  Ow, Lauren complains, and there is a sickening plop, then another. Brett’s feet, being dropped to the concrete garage floor.

  Get her feet again!

  Is this Brett?

  A light clicks off.

  Just wait here, Jen tells Lauren. I’m grabbing my keys. Don’t move.

  Lauren is actually able to wait quietly until Jen returns and opens the trunk of her car. It makes sense now, why both of them were so determined to take my car. It makes sense why Lauren didn’t seem to understand her own trepidation. She must have retained only spotty memories of stuffing my sister’s dead body in the trunk of Jen’s car, if any at all. What would Jen have done with Brett if Stephanie hadn’t done what she did, if not for that gruesome stroke of luck? She must have had a rough idea. She must have been the one to send a text to me from Brett’s phone—Called a car to take me back to the city. Over this shit. The police pinned that on Vince too.

  Okay. Lift her up. That’s it. Let go. You can let go now, Lauren.

  The hatch beeps once. I hear it latch shut. Jen waited to be sure it closed.

  Help me, Jen says again, when they are back in the kitchen.

  What is this?

  Just help me clean it up.

  But what is it?

  It’s tomato soup.

  Soup?! Lauren cries.

  Shhh!

  Why is there soup on the floor?

  You spilled it.

  I’m sorry, Jen.

  It’s fine. Just help me clean it up. No! Don’t eat it. Gross. Lauren. No! Jen retches, or maybe that is me.

  I’m hungry.

  I’ll make you pizza after this.

  Do I look like the Long Island Medium?

  You’re fine. Just keep doing what you’re doing.

  The two work without speaking for the next half an hour, cleaning u
p my sister’s blood.

  Okay, Lauren? No, Lauren. Not on the white couch. Let me just get those off you first.

  Don’t touch me, Lauren slurs.

  Just let me get—

  Don’t touch—

  Your jeans off—

  Wanna have sex with me?

  Before you get on the couch, you fucking alcoholic fucking bitch! Jen comes undone, weeping from someplace deep and irrevocably broken.

  I can imagine Lauren, regarding her friend contritely, before asking, Did I pee?

  Jen sobs Yes! with relief, realizing this is the only way to convince Lauren to cooperate.

  Don’t cry, Jen. I’ll take them off.

  I hear the button of Lauren’s jeans cling to the zipper, the sound of denim, sanding skin.

  Here, Lauren says, with so much sweetness that Jen sobs again. Her footsteps plod away, those of a woman heavier than she was an hour ago. Lauren starts to snore not long after that. From what I can gather, she never made it to the couch. It’s possible that she slept in the very same spot where my sister died.

  There is always a choice. There is not always a good choice. I can go to the police. I can go to Jesse. I can do nothing. I can go to Jen. Jen, my friend. But I knew what I would do the first time I heard my sister moan, sounding nothing like I want to remember her. Why listen to the recording again and again? The same reason I made two appointments to terminate my pregnancy. I knew the day I missed my period that I would keep the baby. But I let my father and Brett drive me to the clinic twice anyway, to watch the angry men with their angry signs, to know with conviction that walking through the doors marked “Reproductive Services” felt like the wrong choice for me.

  I hide the MP3 player in the leg of a skinny jean and shove it in a storage bin beneath the bed for now. Luckily, Layla rarely steals my clothes. “Too tight.” It is almost time to pick her up from school. I don’t need to look at a clock or my phone to know this, I hear Ellen greeting her audience through the thin wall I share with my neighbor. I am so sick of sharing. I share the bed with Layla and my drawers with Brett’s clothes. Arch folded them very neatly into garbage bags and left them with our doorman a few weeks ago, and this apartment has but one shallow closet by the front door, already stuffed to the gills. I used to hear the words doorman and luxury high-rise—which is how StreetEasy classifies my building—and picture Charlotte York’s apartment, but the reality is much less glamorous. This was Brett’s old apartment, the lease I took over when she moved in with Arch. It made for a suitable bachelorette pad, but it is not practical for a mother and a teenage daughter long term. I looked at a two-bedroom out of my budget last weekend. Fifty-five hundred a month in a failing school zone. No windows in the bedroom. No stove in the kitchen. That was not the first time I heard Stephanie’s voice in my head: Forty-one dollars and sixty-six cents a day.

  I did some research after that. Not on the rental market in Manhattan.

  I want to stay in this neighborhood. I want Layla to continue at the school where she is enrolled, the one with the “splendid” views of the Hudson, the one that scored an A+ on teachers and an A- on diversity from Niche. I want to retain my title at the company that is my joy and passion and finally, slowly, starting to turn a small profit. I want to receive letters from Imazighen women telling me they are the first women in their villages to go to college thanks to SPOKE. I want everyone to remember my sister fondly and I want to be properly compensated for appearing on a TV show that has increased viewership at Saluté by 39 percent. I do not want to be paid per season, or even per episode. I want residuals.

  I find my phone. I have just enough time to call her before I have to meet Layla. The conversation doesn’t need to be long, and better to do it now while I’m fired up about it. I don’t want to ever listen to that recording again.

  Jesse contacts me often, and I am expected to be available, whenever, wherever. But my call goes straight to her voicemail. I take a deep breath while I listen for the beep. “Hey, it’s Kelly. I need to talk to you about something.” My heart beats slowly and loudly. “It’s important, and I’d like to set a meeting to discuss it. Mornings after eight are best for me. Please call me when you can. Thanks. Bye.” I lose my grip on the phone before I can hang up, tacking on a muttered curse to the end of the message. Through the wall, Ellen’s audience cheers as she introduces her second guest. Time to go.

  Outside, I am annoyed to find that it is sunny. It was overcast when I walked Layla to school earlier this morning, and I didn’t bother to grab my sunglasses before I left, thinking the day was still gray. Our apartment doesn’t receive a lot of natural light.

  I decide to just squint and bear it, figuring that it will add another five or ten minutes to go back inside and grab my sunglasses. The elevators are in high demand at this hour, and I always try to beat the dismissal bell. Watching Layla exit the doors of her school tells me more about her day and her life than she will ever offer up to me.

  I make the ten-minute walk in eight, lingering on the northeast corner of the block, knowing Layla exits the south-facing door, and that I will not be in her line of sight when she does.

  I don’t recognize the two girls flanking Layla as she bounds down the stairs and onto the sidewalk. Then again, I don’t recognize Layla. I used to arrive early to her school in New Jersey too. She walked out alone most days, or with her friend, Liz, though less and less once Liz made the junior soccer team. Brett insisted that Layla was beloved everywhere she went, but she never saw her at pickup, at a school where so few students looked like her. She never saw what I saw, which was that no one had a problem with Layla, but no one went out of their way to befriend her, either.

  The city has been good for Layla; her confidence has blossomed. She picks at her face less; she is rarely with the same group of girls, a sign of not just her popularity but of her generous spirit. She is invited to so many sleepovers and birthday parties that I have to say no to some of them, which of course only makes everyone want both of us more. If anyone were to ever find out the truth about my sister, we would be loathed with the same intensity we are loved now. We would not survive it. Going to the police was an option, but it was never one I was going to take.

  Layla says something that gets a big laugh. She looks almost unbelievably happy, like a kid in an old Sunny Delight commercial. No teen is that excited to discover orange juice in the refrigerator. And yet, this likeness is real. Seeing my daughter’s earnest smile, her surefootedness with her new friends, I can say with conviction that I didn’t make the right choice.

  I made the best one available.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  I want to thank my husband, first and foremost, for his unflinching good mood and his willingness to run out and get me the good coffee anytime I asked. I love you so much and I’m so proud of the chance we took and the life we’re building in our new city.

  I also want to thank the readers of Luckiest Girl Alive, who have reached out to me over the last three years to share experiences so sadly similar to mine. I kept a secret for so long—out of fear, out of shame, out of conditioning—that I never knew the power of the shared experience. I am stronger because of you, so thank you. I hope you are stronger because of me too.

  Thank you to my literary agent, Alyssa Reuben, for fielding countless panicked calls from me over the course of the last year and for always remaining calm, encouraging, and compassionate. You had a vision for my career before I had it for myself, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

  Thank you to my editor, Marysue Rucci, for never hesitating to tell me when something is not working so that I can believe you when you tell me something is working, for your patience, your enthusiasm, and the well-timed martinis.

  Thank you to the team at Simon & Schuster: Amanda Lang, Richard Rhorer, and Elizabeth Breeden, for your dedication to getting this book out there and into the world. To Jon Karp for throwing your support behind both my babies the way you have, and
to Zack Knoll, who I don’t think I’m related to but ya never know, who is on top of things at all times like some kind of warrior-ninja.

  Thank you to Michelle Weiner and Joe Mann at CAA for showing me the ropes in L.A. and for working tirelessly to give my books a second life and my writing career another dimension. And thank you, Kate Childs, rock-star addition to the team at CAA.

  Thank you, Alice Gammill, world’s best assistant, who is also a talented writer and will probably be in a position to give me a job one day.

  Cait Hoyt, just thank you.

  Mom and Dad, thank you for seeing the creative spark in me from day one, for raising me with a strong work ethic, and teaching me to value my ambition, without which I never would have been able to bridge the gap between talent and career.

  Thank you to Katy Burgess and Brady Cunningham at Wall for Apricots, interior designers extraordinaire, for creating a boss office space for me in my new L.A. home.

  This was a hard year. But it would have been a lot harder had I not been under the care of my wonderful therapist, Dr. Debbie Magids, and renegade dietician, Elyse Resch. Debbie first: I was in a lot of pain before I found you, and I know the healing process is a long one, but thank you for helping me find the start of the path. Elyse, thank you for helping me to heal my relationship with food and for teaching me that I am worth more than my weight—a radical notion for a woman.

  Lastly, thank you to the volunteers behind the Southern California Bulldog Rescue. Without you, I wouldn’t have my beloved Beatrice, who snored by my side while I slaved away at my laptop. Her sweet, mushy face and oinking sounds made me laugh on days I didn’t think it possible. My heart is bigger and my days are brighter for all the work you do.

  Books by New York Times bestselling author Jessica Knoll

  HER PERFECT LIFE IS A PERFECT LIE. As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve. But Ani has a secret. The question remains: will breaking her silence destroy all that she has worked for—or, will it at long last, set Ani free?