Page 47 of The Favorite Sister

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’thave 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-letteredShhhhhhh!,I RSVP’dWill 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 profilein 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. “Jessewas 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 withhis 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.