Page 71 of The Favorite Sister

PART III

Tequila Shot • August 2017

CHAPTER 17

Brett

Apink boob sways from a branch of the Japanese maple on Jen and Yvette’s front lawn. Kelly cuts the engine and squints. It’s eight o’clock in Amagansett in August, roads steaming, sky the color of shark skin. “Is that... a piñata?” She releases her seat belt and puts on her Dad-joke voice, “Or is it atitñata?”

I groan at the bad joke, but it’s a loving groan, anoh my God you’re so corny but I love you anywaygroan. I’m making an effort to be nice to my sister this weekend. Things haven’t been easy for her since we got back from Morocco last month, and they’re about to get so much worse.

We climb out of the car, our feet sliding around our wet sandals as we make our way to the trunk. We both make a stab at chivalry by trying to pass the other her weekend bag. Kelly ordered the same duffel as mine—an army print from Herschel—but at least her outfit doesn’t irritate me to my core.Net-a-Porter, she told me proudly when I asked her where she got her cute white romper, pronouncing it like a person who carries your bags at a hotel.

“Por-tay,” I corrected her, which was me, still being nice! The not-nice thing to do would have been to let her make a fool of herself on camera.Oh shit, she said, covering her eyes, cringing too much. It wasn’tthatembarrassing, but I’m not the only one making an effortto be nice. Kelly is scared, and that chinks my resolve a little, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it mostly feels like standing on a mountain of cocaine with a machine gun slung over my shoulder and two hot bitches on either side of me. Being right is a hell of a drug. And it’s for that reason that I’ve held off having the conversation with Kelly that I need to have. Because what if my judgment is clouded by thesebeing rightgoggles?

My sister and I climb the three steps to the front porch, wobbly with the weight of our weekend bags. Jen has strung a banner across two tall topiaries: “Welcome, BrideS!” It’s curling at the corners and wrinkled by the humidity, making it look weathered and forgotten, like it’s been there for months, like my bachelorette party already happened and this is some sort of weird coma dream in aSopranosepisode. Am I already married? Did I really go through with it?

Kelly ducks beneath the banner and pauses before the red door. “Is this...?”

“She says it’s Rectory Red.”

Kelly peers closer. “Looks a lot like Blazer.”

Blazer is the shade of Farrow & Ball paint used in all my studios. I can barely bother to shrug. That I am an object of imitation for some women is old news. “She says it’s Rectory Red.”

“Well, I mean,” Kelly says, knocking, “we should take it as a compliment.”

We.It’s like a guy you are very obviously blowing off, very obviously getting ready to break up with, who sends you flowers in a last desperate attempt to rekindle the flame.We.

I can hear laughing and revelry inside. A Chainsmokers song that will be dubbed over with some nondescript track. (Production music libraries are much cheaper than licensing commercial music.) I can smell food Jen pretends to eat browning on the stove. It’s a decent imitation of a fun summer party, but it’s the difference between a cardboard cutout of your favorite celebrity and having him rescue you in his big strong movie-star arms after you’ve fainted onto the subway tracks. Usually, by the last group shoot of the season, we’re likerubber bands that have been snapped too many times, all the bite of wet spaghetti. The Martini Shot is an old Hollywood term to describe the final setup of the day—because after that, the next shot is out of a glass. This crew has a taste for a different spirit, and thus, this weekend Lisa is here to get her Tequila Shot. It’s a spectacular display of senioritis, the few days of the year Lisa really earns her paycheck. She circulates the room in an attempt to get a current going, whispering in our ears to remind us of all the season’s petty slights, trying to live-wire the action. But tonight feels different. Tonight feels like the start, the music and the laughing a trap when they only used to be a trick.

Maybe it feels that way because we’ve never been upended by a bombshell this far into the season. Stephanie, man, what were youthinking? In this day and age of digital espionage, you do not tell a lie before youbecomethe lie. If Stephanie wanted to peddle a triumphant survivor’s story as her own, she should have gotten herself invited to dinner at Bill Cosby’s house first.

She’s been in hiding for the last month, ever since we got back from Morocco. She won’t open her door for anyone—not even Jesse, who knocked two days in a row. I heard she’s still selling a lot of books, but theNew York Timeshas removed her name fromThe List, as has her agency’s website. Both outlets extended their heartfelt apologies to women of color who are survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. The Oscar-Nominated Female Director publicly denouncedThe Site of an EvacuationonJimmy Kimmel, calling it a cowardly appropriation of survivor culture, and everyone cheered and clapped. SearchStephanie Simmonsand Google will vomit-spatter all the scorched-earth headlines you can imagine.Is Stephanie Simmons the most hated woman in America? Stephanie Simmons is the reason no one believes abuse victims Four black women will die today at the hands of their abusers and Stephanie Simmons has made millions off their backs.

I don’t know how you come back from this.

I thought about knocking on her door. About sitting with her in her mostly white living room, the Roman shades pulled flat againstthe photographers still skulking around outside. I still love her, though I have no right to.

In the end, I didn’t have the stones. I still don’t know what she knows and doesn’t know about Vince and Kelly and Vince and Jen, and I’m deeply disturbed by what she did in Morocco. Anaccident, we told the reporters who asked about it, but I watched it happen, and she was clear-eyed. Kelly is convinced Stephanie thought Kweller was Layla, but I think the only person Stephanie was aiming for was herself, and at the last moment, she reneged.

The red door swings open on an exuberant Lauren Fun in shredded white jeans and a shredded white tee, braless, barefoot, toenails black. “Happy bachelorette!” she cries, offering me a rainbow-tiered Jell-O shot from the tray she’s balancing on her right palm. She backs up so that we can enter and the crew surrounds us like a rival gang.

“Vegan and alcohol free,” she makes a point of saying, because I guess we are still pretending like she’s not drinking, even though the shot is so loaded with Tito’s it leaves grill marks on the back of my throat. “And also Greenberg’s organic sex sprinkles!”

“So that’s why I’m hard,” I deadpan as I follow her into the kitchen.

“I’m hard for your sister in that adorable little playsuit,” Lauren returns over her shoulder.

“Net-a-Porter,” Kelly says correctly, rubbing the goose bumps out of her arms. It is Siberian in here. The house is designed for indoor/outdoor living, but every window, every double French door is latched shut against the summer. My nipples feel like knives. Good thing Jen’s tree-hugging brand doesn’t advertise its intent to reduce the impact of climate change or anything.

In the kitchen, Jen is shaving corn off the cob with a serious butcher knife. Behind her, three hopeful dog noses press against the glass doors from outside. Yvette told me Jen makes them sleep in the backyard now that the house is done. She is paranoid about dog hair and dog urine, dog laughter and dog joy.

“Our guest of honor is here,” Lauren says, presenting me likethe evening’s entertainment, and for a moment we pause and regard each other somberly. It’s the shaking of the hands before the duel.

“How was traffic?” Jen asks, civilly.

“Not bad.” Kelly drops her bag at her feet. “We just got a late start. I had to get Layla to a friend’s in New Jersey.”