The Better Sister

by Alafair Burke

  I watched with profound discomfort as Valerie offered him a generous hug and a kiss on the cheek, seemingly oblivious to the effect she had on my teenage son. Ethan had never expressed an interest in dating, but I had seen the change in him over the last year and had spoken to a couple of the better teachers at his school. The good news (in my view) was that he had been late to shift his interests from video games and don’t-try-this-nonsense-at-home YouTube videos to actual human girls. The bad news was that he hadn’t quite figured out how to be comfortable around members of the opposite sex.

  “Okay, Valerie,” I said, tapping her shoulder to pull her attention from Ethan. “Thanks again for dolling me up. You really are an artist.”

  As I walked Valerie to the door, I could feel Ethan’s eyes following her. It would be weeks before I asked myself whether that was yet another sign that something was deeply wrong with my son.

  3

  Despite its populist-sounding name, the Press for the People gala was a veritable who’s who of what most of the country would call the “media elite.” But as was typical with the New York City social scene, not all levels of elite were equal. Even with a starting ticket price of $500, the reminders of the night’s hierarchy began at check-in. As the recipient of the night’s major award, I learned that my family and I were seated at Table 2. I took small (and admittedly petty) satisfaction when I overheard a former employee of mine who had left for a minor promotion at a competitor magazine being informed that he’d be enjoying the program from Table 132 on the balcony above the stage.

  “And am I checking in all three in your party, Ms. Taylor?” the young woman asked with a smile. She was not much older than Ethan, probably the daughter of a board member who had volunteered in exchange for another entry on her college applications.

  “My dad’s not coming,” Ethan said. “So we’ll have an extra seat. You know, just in case you need to rest or something.”

  The volunteer’s stylus paused over her electronic tablet, and her eyes shifted from Ethan to me. Her smile grew nervous.

  “My husband’s just running late,” I assured her. “Adam Macintosh.”

  “Certainly. I’ll leave him unchecked then.”

  As we walked away from the table, Ethan groaned in embarrassment. “Oh my god, what was that? I sounded like a total chode.” It was his new favorite word for someone who was a jerk. I had to look it up in the Urban Dictionary.

  Adam had been the one to suggest that I ask if we could bring our son to the banquet. I had done so reluctantly, foreseeing the battle of wills that would erupt when it came time to go. Ethan, in my view, was a normal kid, which meant that a night in a monkey suit with fourteen hundred adults celebrating the value of the First Amendment to a free democracy ranked only slightly above being poked in the eye for three hours straight. Adam, on the other hand, was determined to force Ethan to be some other version of himself. More like Adam, I supposed.

  But now here we were. Ethan had come home on his own, put on the tux we’d bought him last month, and let me help him with his tie without a single grimace. He had even rushed to the car waiting for us at the curb to get the door for me. And his father was still nowhere to be seen.

  Jenna Masters, the board member in charge of the gala committee, spotted me at the tail end of the bar line and rushed over, a seemingly impossible feat in four-inch stilettos. “We need you at the step-and-repeat. Tell me what you need, and I’ll have someone bring it to you.”

  I asked for champagne if they had it, and Ethan said he’d “do” a Coke, and then added a “Please” when I shot him a corrective Mom look.

  The smile plastered on my face felt like someone else’s by the time Jenna finally told me I was finished with my photo duties for the night. Her brow remained impressively uncreased as her gaze dropped to her iPhone screen, right thumb tapping and swiping furiously. “I’m sending you this great shot of you and Darren, if you wouldn’t mind posting to your social. Remember, we’re hashtagging Press for the People, Not the Enemy.”

  “Darren” was Darren Pinker, the multiple Academy Award–winning actor who was serving as honorary cochair of tonight’s gala. He was also a fierce First Amendment advocate and a hero to wishful liberals, who were trying to recruit him to run for president.

  Ethan held out a hand toward me. “Want me to do it?” he offered. “It takes my mom, like, five minutes just to do a tweet.”

  I turned over my phone so he could do his handiwork. He had just finished up when I heard a friendly voice from beneath one of the dinosaurs in the main hall. “There’s our star client!”

  I turned to see Bill Braddock holding up one arm to get my attention. As Ethan and I wove our way through the crowd toward him, I saw that he was standing with four other attorneys from his law firm.

  “Bill, I didn’t expect to see you here,” I said, leaning in to exchange dual pecks on the cheeks.

  “Now how could I let you get this kind of an honor without your octogenarian boyfriend in the house? We’ve got a whole table, in fact. Number seventeen. Not too shabby for a bunch of egghead lawyers.”

  When Bill celebrated his eightieth birthday the summer before, I had adjusted his title as my septuagenarian boyfriend accordingly. Bill was what some people his age—even liberals—called a “confirmed bachelor.” He was also one of the preeminent First Amendment lawyers in the country, having argued more than a dozen constitutional cases before the Supreme Court. He served as counsel for some of the biggest publishing outlets in the world and even a few smaller ones he enjoyed, such as my little magazine. I had first met him through Catherine Lancaster, but he had become my friend as well.

  I didn’t know the names of all of the lawyers around him, but I did extend my hand toward Jake Summer, one of the partners who was closer to my own age. As I watched one of the female attorneys welcome Ethan with a big hug and a remark that he looked like “a grown-ass man,” I realized I needed to make more of an effort to get to know the other lawyers at the firm. After all, they had made Adam a partner nearly two years earlier, in large part because of the push I had made on his behalf with Bill.

  “Where’s your lucky husband?” Bill said, scanning the crowd.

  “He’s running late from work,” I said. “His firm’s a total sweatshop,” I added dramatically.

  “I popped into his office to see if he wanted to leave with us, but he wasn’t around.”

  The comment, from the woman who had been so friendly with Ethan, had a couple of the lawyers exchanging awkward glances. I offered her my hand. “Hi, I’m Chloe. I’m not sure we’ve met.”

  She told me her name was Laurie Connor and that she was an associate in the litigation group.

  “It’s the Gentry Group thing,” I assured them. “He was meeting them near JFK.”

  “I’m not familiar,” Bill said.

  I’d been under the impression that Gentry was a major client. I tried to tell myself that Bill was kidding, but I was beginning to worry that his age was taking a toll.

  I noticed another set of attorney eyes shift toward Jake. Adam was the one who’d brought the Gentry Group on board as a Rives & Braddock client, but I knew for a fact that Jake was working on some complex issues that had come up with regard to the federal government’s jurisdiction over some of their international dealings. I found myself wondering why Jake wouldn’t also be with the client today, if it was really so important.

  Bill smiled and placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Adam will be here. This is a big night for you, after all.”

  “Of course he will.” I managed to sound like I believed it.

  “And if he doesn’t show, you know where to find me. I may be eighty, but I’m meaner than him. I’ll kick his ass.”

  I smiled to myself as I caught sight of Ethan lingering near the entrance to the ballroom, the clutch purse he had offered to hold when he saw me struggling with it between sips and handshakes still tucked awkwardly into his underarm. He looked relieved when I b
egan heading his way.

  “You’re my knight in shining armor tonight, Ethan.” I tried to plant a kiss on the top of his head, the way I used to when I was taller than him, but it landed on his temple instead.

  He feigned repulsion. “How much champagne have you had?”

  “Mom Juice doesn’t count.” I wasn’t a super heavy drinker, but the family joke was that I had an extra liver when it came to Veuve Clicquot.

  “I’ve got to admit, it would be seriously funny if you got up on the stage totally hammered.” He recited a sentence straight from my prepared remarks, slurring his speech and swaying slightly during the delivery.

  “You know my speech?”

  “How could I not? You practiced it, like, a hundred times Tuesday night in the kitchen.”

  He’d had his Beats headphones on in the living room. There was no way he could have heard me unless he’d wanted to. He was actually proud of me.

  “You’re such a good kid.” I felt my eyes begin to water.

  “Oh my god, you are drunk,” he said with a smile.

  “Should I see if I can get us into the banquet room a little early? I want to look at my speech one last time before the program begins.”

  “That’d be good. Maybe we can sober you up, ya big lush.”

  The president of the foundation took the stage, explaining that the award was to honor a journalist whose work had changed the lives of ordinary people. “To introduce this year’s honoree, it’s my honor to introduce the editor we all know as the quintessential ‘City Woman’: Catherine Lancaster.”

  I let out a little gasp and joined in the applause. Catherine had told me she needed to be in Los Angeles tonight and wouldn’t be able to make it. Next to me, Ethan was grinning knowingly.

  “You were in on this, weren’t you?”

  Catherine had turned seventy-three in March but could easily pass for fifty. Her gown was a peacock-blue shirtdress style with a big, dramatic pointed collar. Her bright orange hair was pulled up, wrapped in one of her signature turbans, and her makeup was minimal with the exception of dark brick-red lipstick.

  She began by telling the audience that I’d had no idea she was going to be at the gala that night. “If I had told her, she would have felt obligated to write my remarks for me—a side effect of the deep and abiding fear that resides within all of my former employees—for reasons I cannot fathom, of course.”

  I never guessed when I began working at City Woman that Catherine would become not only my mentor but also one of my closest friends. But hearing her marvel at my accomplishments was utterly surreal. “I told Chloe early in her career, ‘You’ve got a smart gut; just learn how to trust it.’ But, watching her over the years, I’ve realized she has raw gut instincts, yes, but she also has an enormous heart filled with passion and empathy. And it’s that combination that makes her so exciting as a writer and publisher. I have never told Chloe this, but she has far surpassed any work I even dreamed of doing at her age. Or at this age, in fact—the tender age of thirty-five.” She paused for the laughter. “So it is my honor tonight to introduce my dear friend—a talented and gutsy warrior: Chloe Taylor.”

  Even though I had memorized my speech, I could feel my eyes darting to my notes on the podium—better than the alternative of staring into the sea of glaring lights. I couldn’t make out any faces in the audience. And I had to trust on blind faith that the tech people were displaying the photographs on the huge screen above my head as I had requested. They were pictures of the women whose stories I had published. It seemed fitting to keep the focus on them tonight. No one needed a close-up of me at the podium.

  When I was finished, I heard applause break out immediately, along with the sound of chairs scooting as people rose to their feet for a standing ovation. A loud wolf whistle caught my attention as I edged toward the stairs at the side of the stage. It was from Table 2. Ethan held one fist above his head. “Yeah, Mom!”

  Next to him came another loud whistle. Adam was there, his pinkies pressed into his mouth.

  Of course he was there. When push came to shove, he always came through.

  4

  I had to admit, Nicky did call it.

  When Adam got the court’s permission to move to New York two years after he left Nicky, my mom phoned me and made me promise that I wasn’t “messing around” with him.

  “Ew, he’s my brother-in-law. No.”

  “Former brother-in-law,” she reminded me. “Nicky’s convinced that’s why he’s moving there—to be with you.”

  “Nicky’s paranoid,” I said. “He has a good job here, Mom. Like, really good. And, besides, I have a boyfriend. Matt, remember?”

  Nicky was wrong about anything going on between Adam and me back then, but I wasn’t wholly uninvolved in Adam’s move to the city. He had been trying to make things work as a divorced dad in Cleveland, downsizing to an apartment and finding a day care two blocks from the courthouse that a lot of the female prosecutors relied on. My mom and dad even pitched in sometimes, since Adam’s parents had both passed away while he was still in college, not that he would have wanted them around his son in any event.

  But Nicky was still a problem. A couple of cops had mentioned seeing her acting sloppy in the usual haunts, and she had shown up twice at day care without permission—both times acting intoxicated. It had gotten to the point that Adam had to tell the day care and babysitters to call 911 if they received any contact from her. He’d never really be able to protect Ethan while he was still in Cleveland.

  I was the one who slipped his résumé to a friend who worked in the US Attorney’s Office. Apparently the hiring team thought they could use some lawyers who didn’t go to the same five law schools, and they were also touched by Adam’s personal story. He had needed a judge’s permission to move, but the combination of Nicky’s bad behavior and an offer to be a federal prosecutor in the most prestigious district in the country had done the trick.

  I helped him find an apartment in Tribeca. It wasn’t exactly Brooklyn Heights, but it was kid-friendly by Manhattan standards, and not too far from his office. It was also a straight shot to my place in Chelsea. I became his regular Wednesday-night babysitter. The highlight of my week was seeing Ethan’s chubby little face light up when he saw his aunt “Glow-y.” He hadn’t spoken until he was nearly four, even with the work of speech therapists, so every word—however imperfect—was exciting to hear.

  At the time, my only goal in life as far as kids were concerned was to be the beloved aunt. Even though women weren’t supposed to say this, I never particularly liked babies or little kids. You hear people say that one of the greatest rewards of parenthood is seeing your children develop into adults, but with my parents and Nicky, I’d seen the downside of that equation as well. I knew at some cognitive level that my parents were proud of me, and took some amount of responsibility for the fact that I’d turned out pretty well by most measures. But was it worth all the heartache they’d suffered because of their children overall?

  As far as motherhood was concerned, I could leave it just as well as take it.

  Some weeks, Adam didn’t have a need for my sitting services, so we’d hang out instead, ordering takeout and playing with Ethan. I could see how hard it was for him to adjust to Manhattan. He was a nice, good-looking thirty-five-year-old man with a cool job in a fun neighborhood. In theory, he could be out with models every night. But he also had Ethan, and he was too solid of a guy to be serious with any woman who didn’t take an interest in his son.

  For more than a year, we were just buddies. Then my birthday happened.

  I had sent out invitations to four other couples, a month in advance, for a dinner party at my apartment. I’d need to rent an extra table, and borrow a taxi-trunk full of folding chairs from the office, but I was thrilled to be able to host a bona fide adult dinner party. I was turning twenty-nine. I was done drinking from red Solo cups. I scoured Food & Wine for the perfect menu, something impressive, but still manageable
on my own. When I didn’t have a pot large enough to hold the braised short ribs I wanted, I bought one. When Matt asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I snipped a page from the Williams Sonoma catalog and asked him for a white serving platter, and could I please have it the day before the party, just in case something was wrong and I needed to exchange it?

  I never did get the platter. Four days before my birthday, Matt dumped me. He said he was young and still having fun, and that my birthday had him realizing that his friends had been right about me all along.

  “I thought your friends liked me.”

  “They do. But you’re . . . a lot, Chloe. I can’t do this with you.”

  “Do what?”

  “Be that couple. With the parties and the platters and the Sunday Styles wedding announcement.”

  “Wedding? I never said anything about getting married.”

  “You didn’t have to. You plan every single thing, and then you’re miserable once it’s over and go looking for the next thing to worry about. I guarantee you, the second this party’s over, you’ll be pressing me about Christmas. And New Year’s. And then an engagement ring on Valentine’s Day.”

  I gave Adam the abbreviated version the following night during our regular Wednesday hangout. We were sitting on the floor, putting more effort into the Legos than Ethan was.

  “You know what’s really embarrassing? I actually asked him if he could go to the dinner on Saturday anyway.”

  “Oof.”

  “I know. But now I’m going to be the ninth wheel at my own party. Is it too late to cancel?”

  “Do not cancel. Being with your friends will cheer you up. Besides . . .” He reached over and touched my ankle. “You’re smart and successful and pretty nice to look at. You’d have no problems finding another plus-one, if that’s what you wanted.”