Page 58 of The Favorite Sister

I took my time examining a SPOKE-red beaded gandoura. I asked how much in my spotty French. The merchant rattled a response too quickly for me to understand.

“He said four hundred and forty dirham for one, eight hundred dirham if your sister wants one too,” Lauren translated for me. Lauren speaks French like a rich college girl dripping in Patagonia and Van Cleef, which is who she was once. Even I can hear that her accent is a travesty.

“Rude,” I joked, hoping for a pardon.

“Right?” Lauren agreed, playing along. “Likewecould be sisters.”

“Mother, daughter, maybe,” I said, grinning, and Lauren gasped, truly stricken I would say such a thing on camera.

We continued on our way after bargaining down to seven hundred and sixty dirham for two caftans, red for me and virgin white for Lauren.

“So how old again?” Lauren asked.

I stopped to admire a pair of sandals. “How old again what?”

Lauren smiled at me, patiently, while the camera looked on. “Layla.”

“Twelve.” I held up the sandals. “What do you think of these?”

“Cute,” Lauren said without looking at them. “And so, has Kelly been with anyone in all that time?”

I bartered with the vendor before answering her. “I really don’t like to think about my sisterbeingwith anyone, Laur.” I shuddered as if to say,Kelly? Naked? Ick.

“She must be pretty lonely then.”

I shrugged, counting out thirty dirham.

“She must be prettypent up. I can’t even imagine going that long without the D.”

I handed the money to the vendor without answering, trying not to think about what happened the last time Kelly feltpent up, right here in Marrakesh.

When I open the door to my hotel room, the lights are off, an episode ofKeeping Up with the Kardashianson but muted. It’s an old one; Khloe still has her original face.

Stephanie is asleep on top of a creamy, sequined Moroccan wedding quilt, barefoot but dressed in the same clothes she’s worn from L.A. to New York to London to here. The pink polish on her toenails is chipped, which brings me to a full stop. I’ve only ever seen Stephanie with a perfect pedicure. She wraps her toes in plastic before going to the beach in the Hamptons, to keep the sand from dulling the topcoat. It used to drive Lisa crazy.Cut the princess off at the feet, she’d tell Marc, at a pitch dogs could hear.

Steph’s phone is charging on the floor next to the bed. I check my battery—16 percent—and drop to my heels. When I unplug her phone, the screen lights up long enough for me to read a text message from Vince.If anyone asks me about it, I’m telling the truth. I’m done lying for you, Steph.

The hair on the back of my neck stands to attention, as though summoned. I look up. Stephanie is in the exact same position she was in when I entered the room, only her eyes are wide open, watching me.

“Steph!” I fall back with a startled gasp. “Sorry. Can I...? Do you mind?” I hold up the cord of her charger because the way she is looking at me has rendered me incapable of speaking in complete sentences.

Stephanie reaches for her phone. She skims the message from Vince, then regards me, coldly. “Help yourself.”

“I was going to shower,” I tell her, standing unsteadily. All theblood rushes to my head, blinding me for a moment. I put my hand on the cool lime wall until my vision clears. “Unless you want to first?”

Stephanie closes her eyes. “You go.” She slips her phone under her pillow, like you would a gun.

The women are sitting cross-legged on a smattering of quatrefoil-printed pillows, facing the cameras with their backs to the fire. When I came to Morocco for the first time at fifteen—twelve years ago now!—I was surprised to find that a fire would be necessary at night. When I pictured Morocco, I pictured rolling orange dunes, wavy in the heat, men in turbans hallucinating pools of fresh water. Basically, a dumb American’s caricature of a country that I found later to be as diverse in geography and climate as my own. In June, in Marrakesh, the weather is what my mother would callpleasant. A far cry from New York, right now a festering septic tank of loogies and dog piss and two million colony-forming units of bacteria per square inch. Bless its yucky heart, I miss it.

The clover-shaped windows are open, calling the flames west. Maybe north. I’m such a girl when it comes to directions, though I know better than to say so out loud and perpetuate such a stereotype. Lisa holds up a hand in question, wanting to know where Stephanie is. I mime applying mascara while one of the sound guys mics me up.

Lisa rolls her eyes. “So another two hours then?”

I spread my palms—what do you wantmeto do?—and enter the shot. “Salut, les filles,” I say, tugging on Layla’s pony and wedging myself between her and Jen, who, I shit you not, is wearing a red fez like she’s motherfucking Aladdin. “How was today?”

“Oh my God. We walked, like, ten miles,” Layla says, leaning forward to dunk a cracker into a bowl of hummus. The fire sets off a sterling flash at her neck.

“This is new,” I tell her, pinching the charm between my thumb and index finger.