Page 25 of The Favorite Sister

Lauren rolls her diamond initial between her thumb and index finger, frowning. “Yeah, but I want to make it clear that the reason Ididn’t invite her is because she’s the one who sent the video of me to Page Six. I don’t want to look like I’m doing Jen’s bidding. Or yours. I want everyone to knowIhave my own issues with her.” We all have ourthingsthat get us dragged on Twitter. Lauren’s is that she’s the show’s most malleable player. You can’t so easily manipulate the rest of us. It would be like trying to crack a brick wall with another brick wall. We’re strong, yet never stronger than each other.

“We have no doubt you will make it clear, Laur,” Jen says, with a knowing snort.My little pit bull, Lisa calls Lauren with genuine affection. And truly, she’s been trained to go for the throat. Don’t be fooled by the lovable floozy act—when Lauren is told to sink her teeth into something, she holds on until she can no longer detect a pulse.

“Did anything come up about compensation?” I ask, knowing that if it had, it would have been the first thing discussed. I’m just looking to gripe that Brett was in the position to ask for more money and she took it.

“She had a Chloe bag,” Lauren reports.

“I heard she negotiated low six figures,” Jen adds.

I clutch my wineglass tighter. “Perepisode?”

Jen snorts. “For the season. I would storm the streets if they were paying her that much per episode. It’s not that much money, once taxes are taken out.” She shrugs, trying not to appear bothered, but we are all bothered. I keep saying it’s not about the money, it’s about the principle, but I am starting to realize it is very much about the money. Five thousand dollars for 120 days of labor is not just criminal, it’s despicable when pay parity is one of your major talking points on the morning talk shows.

“Did you see Jesse onGMAlast week?” I ask.

“The one where she was talking about the second shift and all the emotional labor women take on for free?” Jen’s eyes sail into the back of her head.

In perfect, unplanned harmony, all three of us repeat Jesse’s hollow motto at the same time, “Women need to get their money.”

We erupt into laughter, and I am surprised—surprised and pleased—to feel authentic warmth for these women. I could never disparage Jesse around Brett when we were friends, not when Jesse’s doublespeak applied to everyone but her.

The dogs start to bark, and a key turns in the lock. Yvette stumbles through the door, front-loaded with two bags of groceries.

She steps on her right heel with her left toe, sliding one foot out of her shoe. Yvette Greenberg has to take off her shoes to enter Jen’s apartment and I don’t. Put that on my tombstone.

“Mom!” Jen cries, rushing over to help. Lauren and I are right behind her.

“I’m not an invalid!” Yvette pivots her body, cradling the shopping bags and showing us her back. Her shirt is split between her shoulder blades with a slash of sweat. “I can handle it. Go back to your wine. Itislunchtime.”

“Would you like a glass, Miss Greenberg?” Lauren offers.

“I’m going from here to exercise, otherwise I would say yes.”

Jen’s face darkens. The only organized exercise Yvette partakes in is SPOKE.

“I thought you were coming tomorrow,” Jen hisses, shadowing her mother as she steps over the baby gate in the kitchen.

“No,” Yvette says, setting the bags on the island; Pecan and Cashew spring up around her knees. “I’m going out east tomorrow.”

“But the cleaners came today.”

Yvette groans, remembering something. “The open house.”

“Yes. The open house. On Saturday. I told youfive times, Yvette,” Jen snaps, with a scathing intensity that sends Lauren and me searching for our phones, averting our eyes out of respect for Yvette. Because howhumiliating, for your daughter to speak to you like that in front of her friends who grew up idolizing you. Howhumiliating, that this über-feminist icon has found herself in a place where she has no other recourse but to take it. Yvette is broke, running Jen’s errands for pocket change now that commencement speeches at Sarah Lawrence don’t pay like they used to.

Once Yvette had the Amagansett house as a cushion. But legally, Jen owns it. Jen’s father, whom Yvette never saw reason to marry, left it in Jen’s name when he died twenty years ago. Jen spent the entire winter overseeing an expensive and exhausting remodel. Last month, to Yvette’s absolute devastation, Jen put the house on the market for 3.1 mil. I’m sure Brett has a less forgiving narrative for why Jen chose to sell her childhood home, but I have a sense that Jen will make sure her mother sees some of the money from the sale.

Yvette takes a long, hard look at her daughter. Pecan yaps, and she drops to her knees. “Hi, sweet girls. Yes,” she coos, as they lap at her face. “Hello. Hello.”

“You’re giving them positive reinforcement,” Jen complains, glowering over her.

“For being adorable?” Yvette laughs.

“They were jumping on the furniture.”

Yvette stands with a sigh, brushing dog hair from her slacks. “Slacks” is the exact right word to use to describe Yvette’s clothing. She dresses like Mary Tyler Moore at a march in the seventies, right down to the red, round glasses, lest we forget who she is and what she was up against back then. She has done a lot of good, I will give her that, but I find Yvette’s belief system laughably shortsighted. Specifically this idea that we will succeed as women once we start to celebrate our differences, instead of pretending they aren’t there. How convenient for her to say, this attractive Jewish woman born and raised on the Upper West Side and schooled at Barnard. What differences did she ever have tocelebrate?

Not to mention, I think it’s cruel that Yvette has taken to Brett so garishly, going so far as to offer to adopt her in season two. Yvette and Jen have always had a strained relationship. When I was Brett’s friend I heard it from Yvette’s side, which is that her desperate attempts to connect with her daughter seem to only push her further away. Now that I’ve gotten to know Jen, I see it differently. Yvette is woefully disappointed in how Jen has chosen to make a living, “preying” on women’s body insecurities under the cover of blended-kale wellness. But here Jen is, a homeowner in Manhattan, a successful flipper in theHamptons, a bicoastal business owner, all by her thirtieth birthday. There is much for Yvette to be proud of, but Yvette doesn’t want to be proud. She wants Jen in her likeness. How dare she tell women to celebrate ourdifferenceswhen she can’t even accept her own daughter for who she is.