Page 43 of The Favorite Sister

Brett is visibly uncomfortable, as I’d hoped.

Victorious, I turn my attention to my feet. “Which ones for dinner with the Female Director?”

“The sandals,” Brett says, without hesitation. “Definitely.”

“The pink ones with abow?” I hoot. “That girl has made you soft.”

Brett stands up straighter. She didn’t like that. I knew she wouldn’t. “They look beige to me.”

I sit down and thread the ankle strap through the buckle. “Blush,” I say with a tiny little smirk. Brett is far girlier than she lets on. “They’re blush.” I look up as the saleswoman approaches. “I’ll take the Isabel Marant boots and the Aquazzura sandals—but the Aquazzuras in a size eight.”

“Do you want to try them on first to be sure they fit?” the saleswoman asks.

“No,” I tilt my head in Brett’s direction, “but she does.”

Brett chops the air with her hands, refusing. “No,” she says. “Absolutely not.”

“Absolutely yes,” I say, firmly. I cannot let my book be my present, not after we were both caught on camera gifting each other our own swag. “This is my engagement gift to you. I’m going on a book tour again, and then I have this dinner in L.A. obviously, and I feel bad I can’t make your...” I stop. Brett’s engagement party is meant to be a surprise. “I mean, I feel bad I haven’t gotten to celebrate with you yet.”

Brett gives me a quizzical look, but she doesn’t probe, just stoops to pick up the sandal and check the price tag on its arch. She gasps and sets it back down. “Get me a candle or something,” she says. “This is too much.”

“Give me a break,” I scoff. “They’re not much more than those rattythings.” I raise an eyebrow at her sneakers. Brett turns her toes inward as Marc lowers the lens, as though trying to conceal the incriminating label on the tongue. All it takes is one Google search to find out that our hopeful young striver paid five hundred dollars for a pair of gym shoes.

The saleswoman returns with the sandals in Brett’s size and reluctantly, she slips off her sneakers and buckles them on. Everything about her changes with those vampy four inches. It’s as though her appearance finally matches what I know about her. I cast about for some kind of veiled insult.

“Giving your upper appendages a break?” I comment, noticing her latest tattoo along the inseam of her foot, some word in another language, looks like Arabic. The ink is SPOKE red, of course.

Brett rolls her eyes. “For now, Mom.”

I blink, protectively, as though she has aimed a laser pointer at my eyes. Whether she meant to highlight our age difference or not, how dare she.

“You are one of the most generous people I know, Steph,” Brett rushes to say, hearing how the joke landed. “But I can’t accept. Putting your baby-making on hold to come to Morocco is more than enough of an engagement gift.”

I rummage around in my purse for my wallet. She is leaving with those shoes, if I have to stake them in her eyeballs. “My doctor said Zika isn’t even in Morocco right now. There’s really no sacrifice. Besides,” I find the steel-colored card I intend to use, “they’re bridal-looking. You’ll have plenty of events to wear them to in the near future.” I lock eyes with her. It feels like the moment in a wedding ceremony when the priest addresses the crowd:If anyone can show just cause why this couple cannot lawfully be joined together in matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.

“I still can’t believe you’re going to have a baby,” Brett says instead.

“I still can’t believe you’re getting married,” I reply without missing a beat. We smile out of formality, both of us holding our peace for now.