Page 61 of The Favorite Sister

“Ladies,” he says, his hands clasped in prayer, “dessert is served on the Atlas rooftop, along with a special treat.” He holds out an arm, leading the way. “If you will.”

The Atlas rooftop is so named for its unobstructed views of the High Atlas mountain range, its djebels brown and snowcapped in the winter, but only brown now. I stay close to Layla as the rest of theDiggersfan out on the quiet, twinkle-lit rooftop. I can tell she’s reeling after what happened downstairs.

“That’s where we’re going tomorrow,” I tell her, pointing at the mountain range. Tucked into the crests and valleys are mud-thatched Berber villages where the women sing as they weave pom-pom rugs and knead dough for bread, celebrating their emancipation from the walk to get water, their freedom to work.

Layla aims her phone at the view width-wise, snapping a picture for an Instagram story. She attempts a few different captions before giving up with a dispirited sigh.

“You okay?” I ask her.

“Why doesn’t Stephanie like me?” Her mouth tightens andtwists to the left, a sign she’s about to cry. Kelly and I used to take videos when she was a baby, her mouth a little raisin on the side of her face, the veins in her temples straining against her skin. You can hear us giggling in the background,Oh, oh, there she blowwwwws.

I lean against the clay ledge of the rooftop, so that I’m facing her. Under the fat Christmas tree lights, Layla’s face is arresting save for a humdinger of a pimple in the corner of her chin. Marc electric-slides around us, capturing us in a profile shot. “It hurts when it feels like someone doesn’t like you, especially someone you might admire.” I rove my head around, until I find an angle where I catch her eye. “Right? You admire Steph?”

“I do admire her, but I thought...” She exhales with enough force to blow out the candles on a birthday cake, as if frustrated she can’t find the words to explain.

“What?” I ask gently, reaching out to smooth her hair.

Layla ducks out from under my hand. “You wouldn’t get it.” There is something on that word—you—that I have never heard before, at least not directed at me.

I blink, stung. Kelly is the one who loves Layla but doesn’t get her. That’s my job. That’s what Ido—I get people. I try to make her see that I understand. “I admired Stephanie too, and it was important to me that she liked me,” I say. “But something I realized, Layls, is that—”

Layla doesn’t let me finish. “Stop telling me you understand because you don’t. You don’t know what it’s like not knowing anyone who looks like you.”

The statement feels like a concrete barrier erected on a previously open border. I’m shook to my core realizing that Layla feels like this and didn’t tell me. Of course I have worried about her, being one of a handful of black students at her school, but Layla is so far from an outlier. She’s one of the most popular girls in her class. Everyone who meets her falls in love with her. I guess I assumed that being liked was the same thing as belonging. I never stopped to think how meaningful it would be for Layla to meet someone like Stephanie, someone who would understand what life was like for her better than anyone,but who instead has taken a visceral dislike to her. “I feel really stupid for not realizing you might feel like that,” I tell her apologetically. “And for assuming you would just volunteer those feelings if you did. I’m the adult. I’m the one who should be asking if you’re doing okay.”

Layla gives me a half-hearted shrug. “It’s fine. Mom is always asking me anyway. It gets annoying.” But she doesn’t sound annoyed at all.

On the other side of the rooftop, where white benches pen in a short table set with a platter of sour fruit tarts and a mosaic-styled ice bucket, Lauren cries, “Afortune-teller? Maybe she can tell me which one of you hussies planted thePoststory.”

“Shut the fuck up about thePoststory,” Steph roars. “Everyone is so fucking bored of the fuckingPoststory.”

I can practically hear the air being let out of Lauren’s sails from across the rooftop, but I ignore the heated exchange for Layla’s sake. I will do anything to cheer her up. I pop my eyes at her as if to say,A fortune-teller? Fun!

“Come on,” I say, leading her over to the sitting area, where the evening’sspecial treathas turned out to be a plump, fifty-something woman with a sheer yellow scarf draped loosely around her head, shuffling a deck of tarot cards.

As we approach, I hear the butler explaining, “Jamilla only speaks Arabic and French, but I’m told we have a translator for the group.”

Hmm, I wonder who told him that? I study Lisa, my enthusiasm for thisspecial treatwaning. There are very few people I trust on this rooftop right now.

Lauren thrusts her hand into the air, thrilled to provide such a critical service for everyone here. She introduces herself to Jamilla and listens intently to the woman’s response.

“She says that the person she is reading should sit next to her,” Lauren says.

Kelly addresses Layla with a buoyant smile. “Want to go first, Layls?”

I know Kelly is just trying to make up for what happened downstairs, but I don’t want Layla anywhere near this crystal gazer.Even if she isn’t a producer plant, I don’t trust Lauren to translate truthfully.

Layla sidesteps the bench, taking a seat to Jamilla’s left. Jamilla pats the pouf of Layla’s hair, exclaiming delightedly, and poses a question to Lauren, who claps her hands together, hooting at whatever it was Jamilla said to her.

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “No.Elle est sa fille.” She points to Kelly, saying to Stephanie, “She thought Layla was yours!”

“Why is that funny?” Stephanie wants to know.

“Jesus, you are in amoodtonight.” Lauren reaches for a sour fruit tart, checking to make sure the cameras are watching.I eat carbs.

“Let’s let Jen go first,” I intervene. “This is more herbeatanyway.”

Jen purses her lips in what could be considered a smile. “I believe that wellness of mind and body is the best predictor of the future, but sure,” she shrugs, “okay.”