Page 20 of The Favorite Sister

CHAPTER 5

Brett

“Garbage?” Arch holds up a copy ofBusiness Plan Writing for Dummiesthat’s seen some things.

I reach for the tome and clutch it to my chest. “Never,” I say, stroking its yellow-and-black cover with inflated sentimentality. “I can never throw this out.”

“Holding on to it until you finally read it?” Kelly quips, tying off a garbage bag in my kitchen.

“Hey,” I say, placing the book tenderly in thekeeppile, “I don’t have to move, you know.”

“Then who are you planning to film with?” Kelly purses her lips at me, sassily, before heading toward the garbage room down the hall.

“Who areyouplanning on filming with?” I call after her, lamely. The door rebounds off the dead bolt, seeming a little bit stunned.

Arch looks up at me from the floor, where she’s seated cross-legged, surrounded by old mail, DVDs, power cords, and Happy Belated Birthday cards from my dad and Susan. Her dark hair hangs over her shoulder in a long braid, and she worms it around her finger with a small, private smile. Arch is an only child and thereby endlessly amused by the ways in which Kelly is able to so easily irritate me.

“Well, that you can trash.” I toe an old copy ofShe’s with Him: A Novelby Stephanie Simmons.Peoplepromises on the cover:The sexiestbeach read you can pack in your beach bag right now.Stephanie hated that her books were reduced to summer reads. They weresmarterthan that, exploring the nuances between working-class and white-collar blackness, and how they manifested in a romantic relationship. TheNew York Timesdid not agree. They passed on reviewing all three in the series, which chronicled the passionate-bordering-on-abusive relationship between a seventeen-year-old prep school girl and a seventeen-year-old rising football star from the wrong side of the tracks. ThinkFifty Shades of Greywith black characters and writing that won’t impair your IQ.

“Can I read it?” Layla asks, emerging from the bedroom wearing a pair of my earrings.

“When you’re thirty-five,” I tell her.

Arch flips open the book. “But she signed it,” she says. Her lips trace the inscription, silently. She is still a moment, then looks up at me strangely.

“What does it say?” I ask, crouching down next to her to read it.To the love of my life Sorry, Vince!She dated it3.21.15. “Whoa,” I say, wholly unprepared for the burning tightness in my throat, that feeling like you’re gurgling your heart. I can’t believe that just two years separates that inscription and the news Lisa delivered yesterday.

“You’re going to hate this,” Lisa had said over the phone, a smile in her voice.

Stephanie, back from her book tour, had a private prod meeting with Lisa. Morocco isn’t going to work for her either. The World Health Organization has issued a Zika warning for North Africa and, well, she’ll let all of us do with that what we will.

I had to squeeze the phone tighter to keep it from sliding out of my damp hand. “She’spregnant?” For as long as I’ve known Stephanie, she has been adamant: Kids are for women with no other path to glory.

“She and Vince are talking about it.”

“Oh, come the fuck on!”

“We will still film you going to Morocco,” Lisa said, suddenly on speaker. I could hear her fingers playing the keyboard. I could feelher retreating, as though my spray of emotions had repelled her to the other side of the battlefield.

“It’s not the same if I go alone,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. Lisa has a freeze response to emotion. “You know that.” If I go alone, the trip and all the Imazighen women who deserve visibility will be reduced to one, maybe two, segments within a single episode. They will be treated as filler, between a scene of Stephanie and Vince pretending like they still have sex and Lauren ordering a third glass of wine at lunch.

“Look.” Lisa sighed. “They all think you got your turn last year with the L.A. trip. It’s someone else’s opportunity.”

“The L.A. trip?” I repeated, incredulous. “That trip was for the group. It was for the show. It had nothing to do with SPOKE.”

“I know.”

“When we went to Paris, it was for Stephanie’s book. When we went to the Hamptons, it was for Jen’s juice stand. When we went to Anguilla, it was for Hayley’s—”

“Hang on a sec?”

I was taken off speaker, and a muffled conversation between Lisa and nobody had ensued.

“Brett, I have to take this. It’s the network.”

“Sure.” I know aget me the fuck off this callmaneuver when I’m the target of one.

“It will work out,” Lisa said. But then she stopped typing. “Or maybe you should talk to Stephanie. She’s convinced them not to film with you.”