The Favorite Sister

by Jessica Knoll

  Kelly would prefer everyone think we’re on the up-and-up now that our funding has been so widely reported in the press. She thinks this makes her a more desirable candidate, even though being broke is what got me my job on the show in the first place. The producers didn’t initially conceive of a Digger in financial straits, but finding an enigmatic gay millennial proved a harder task than they realized, and Jesse was not about to cast the show without at least one of her people represented.

  Once I was in the mix, the producers realized that I added some much-needed texture to the group. I’m the Greek Chorus, the one the audience is rolling their eyes with when Lauren sets off the airport metal detector because she forgot to remove both—count them, both—her Cartier Love bracelets.

  Erin or Erica or whatever the fuck her name is was right that the power dynamics are about to shift this season, and I’m nervous about how that’s going to play out in terms of audience reception. I’ve always been the little guy, the relatable one, the favorite, and I want to make it clear that as I move up in the world, my triumph comes not from being able to afford rent on an apartment with a dishwasher, but in being able to give back to the women who need it most.

  Jesse arches an eyebrow, sexily. She’s a forever bachelorette, a serial model dater who throws pizza parties on this very cliff with the likes of Sheryl Sandberg and Alec Baldwin. Viewers are always calling in to her aftershow, wanting to know when the two of us are just going to admit we’re having an affair. I have something to admit, but it’s not that. “In any case,” she says, “with a unicorn valuation,” she directs her smile at Kelly, “I don’t think you’ll be dining daily on ramen much longer.”

  I point to the sky. “From your lips. But that money doesn’t go to us yet. It’s all for the new studios and our e-bikes.”

  “Brett is being modest,” Kelly insists, tucking her hair behind her ear to pass off my girlfriend’s diamond huggie as her own. Neither of us draw a salary from SPOKE yet, but I make my living through speaking engagements and brand extensions like the book. The show pays less than five thousand a year and for good reason—producers wanted to attract young women who were already established, not those looking for a lily pad.

  “The money will come if you keep doing what you’re good at,” Jesse says. She raises her glass. “Cheers. To the new yoga studio and the book deal and the Series A money and the new girlfriend. Jesus, chica. You’ve got a few things going on, huh?”

  I do a little dance in my seat and Jesse laughs. “When do I get to meet her?”

  “I’ll set something on the calendar soon,” I promise.

  “Does big sister approve of bae?” Jesse asks Kelly.

  Kelly tilts her head, confused.

  “ ‘Bae,’ Kel.” I laugh at her. “It means, like, significant other.” To Jesse, I explain, “She doesn’t get out much.”

  “I know what ‘bae’ means.” Kelly tosses her hair. She got highlights for this meeting. They made her too blond.

  “You lie!”

  Kelly turns to Jesse with an expression that makes my heart thump like a sneaker in the dryer. Shit. I shouldn’t have antagonized her like that in front of Jesse. “You want to know what I think of bae?” Kelly asks, pausing long enough to make me squirm. “We adore her,” she finally says, much too glowingly.

  “So your daughter has met her,” Jesse infers.

  Kelly looks mortified to have reminded Jesse she is a mom for the third time in ten minutes. “Yes. Um. My daughter. Layla.”

  “Pretty name,” Jesse says, hollowly. She turns to me. “Brett, I’m assuming none of the other women have met her?”

  “No. No one. Yet.”

  “Not even Stephanie?”

  “We met after Stephanie and I . . . you know . . .” I trail off and Jesse smiles at me like she does know but she still wants to hear me say it. “Come on,” I groan. “You know what happened.”

  “Could I hear it from you and not TMZ?” She bats her eyelashes.

  I sigh, using my hand to deepen the part in my hair. Massaging the truth for Jesse is dangerous, but Stephanie has left me no other choice. “She started to get funny after I got my book deal. Like . . . I could tell she wasn’t happy for me. There was no congratulations. It was just right off the bat, how much was my advance and this immediate assumption that I would ghost it. And when I started talking about moving out, it was like she wanted to scare me into staying.” I have lived with Stephanie (and Vince, the Husband) on and off for the last few years. The first time, we were filming season two, which made for a darling storyline. Then I met my ex-girlfriend and moved in with her. When the ex and I broke up last year, Sarah got the apartment until the lease ran out and in the meantime, I returned to chez Simmons. My stay was notably less darling the second time around.

  “Steph just got very scoldy,” I continue, scrunching up my face remembering what it was like as things started to sour for us. “She kept reminding me that book advances are paid in installments and five hundred K actually isn’t as much money as I think it is because it’s doled out over the course of a few years and taxes and blah blah. I read the payment schedule in my contract. I got it. I wasn’t trying to buy a brownstone on the Upper East Side. I’m twenty-seven years old. I’m just looking to get my own place. It was very much the big guy wagging his finger at the little guy to keep me in my place.”

  “And this was all before her memoir came out?” Jesse clarifies, resting her pink cheek in her small palm.

  I nod. “And I thought what you’re probably thinking. She’s stressed. She’s only ever written fiction and now here she is, making these major and incredibly painful revelations about her life. I was willing to let it pass. But then . . .” I sigh. Up until now, nothing has been a lie. There is no turning back after this. “She wanted me to pass an advance copy of the new book to Rihanna. She wanted her to share it on her social, and she also thought Rihanna should play her if the book came out and was a big hit and they wanted to make it into a movie.”

  “It would be a great part for Rihanna,” Jesse says.

  “If Rihanna were five years older and straightened her hair to within an inch of its life and dressed like a local newswoman, then yes, maybe.”

  “Come on now,” Jesse teases, thinking I’m just jealous.

  “I can admit when someone has hit a home run. Stephanie is so brave for coming forward about what she went through when she was younger. She’s helping so many women find their voices. But that doesn’t give her a free pass to place unfair demands on our friendship. Rihanna attended one class and I didn’t feel comfortable emailing her out of the blue to push my castmate’s book on her. That’s a grimy move. I thought that as my friend, Stephanie would understand that. But that’s not how she saw it. She thinks my ego is out of control and that I’m holding out on her. That after everything she’s done for me, I owe her. Meanwhile, she was the one who insisted I move in with her. Both times. I’m obviously grateful”—I cradle my heart to prove how much her hospitality meant to me—“but I never asked. It’s like she only helped me so she gets to say I owe her.”

  “It wouldn’t have been appropriate,” Kelly adds, coming to my defense with cool common sense. “We support Stephanie, but we are trying to cultivate a relationship between Rihanna’s team and SPOKE, and we don’t want to look like we’re taking advantage of her generosity. Class bookings went up two hundred percent the day after those pictures of her surfaced on People and any asks we make of her must be strategic.”

  “And can I just add,” I say, raising a hand like all other points are moot due to this one, “that the book has come out and been a smash hit and Stephanie’s got the Oscar-Nominated Female Director attached to direct. She’s fine.”

  “Have you reached out to congratulate her?” Jesse asks.

  “Has she reached out to congratulate me on the expansion?”

  “Good woman,” Jesse says. “Don’t do anything yet. Let’s get the first confrontation on camera.”
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br />   Hank appears, balancing a blond plank holding appetizers on the palm of his hand. He sets it in the center of the table and remains stooped to say into Kelly’s ear, privately but not quietly, “Your daughter is asking if you have a charger in your purse.”

  Jesse pauses, a coin of sausage halfway to her mouth. “Your daughter?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Kelly says, fumbling through the impossible-to-pronounce purse my girlfriend also lent her for this occasion. “My childcare fell through, unfortunately. I have her waiting in the car—she’s fine.”

  “Are you not married?” Jesse asks, and Kelly uh-uhs like she just wants to move off the subject as quickly as possible.

  And that’s when I notice it—the designing glint in Jesse’s eyes. I realize, feeling a little faint, Kelly didn’t just lose a point for having a kid out of wedlock. She gained one. I turn to my sister, looking at her through Jesse’s lens: single mom, hustling to support her daughter and make a name for herself. Articulate, camera-friendly. And that’s not even the best of it. The best of it is sitting in our junky car with a dead phone. Twenty feet—or however close the driveway is from the picnic table—is all that separates Kelly from getting the job. Because when Jesse sees that Layla is black, she will be smitten. That is a horrible thing to think, let alone be true. But for Jesse Barnes, nothing is more compelling than the tension between the conventional and the unconventional. Kelly, who looks like a woman who should have a big rock on her finger and a minivan full of budding athletes but instead chose to bring a mixed-race child into this world—independently—exemplifies that tension in a fresh and exciting way. I see that now. I just don’t know how I didn’t see that before.

  “Alone?” Jesse frowns. “Why doesn’t she join us?”

  I need to speak up. Say anything to keep Layla from Jesse. I don’t want my pure-hearted niece anywhere near this flaming Dumpster. Like parents who did drugs when they were younger but punish their kids when they find pot in their backpacks now, the show is only okay when I do it. “She’s got her phone.” I roll my eyes, good-naturedly, as if that’s all anyone needs to survive these days.

  “Her dead phone,” Jesse reminds me. She looks at her watch. “It’s lunchtime. Is she hungry?”

  “There are doughnuts in the car,” I say, too quickly.

  Kelly turns to me, a curious expression on her face. Just minutes ago I was rubbing Layla’s existence in Jesse’s face, and now I want her to remain unseen and unheard. I know she’s wondering—why?

  “Doughnuts are not lunch,” Jesse says.

  “I can make her a grilled cheese,” Hank offers.

  “She does love grilled cheese, doesn’t she, Brett?” Kelly smiles at me in a way I will slash her for later. She’s picked up on my anxiety—there must be a good reason I am fighting so hard to keep Layla from Jesse, a reason that may work in her favor. My sister’s main fault is that she knows me too well, I realize, as she gets up and heads for the car to release Layla on Jesse.

  “Sorry about this,” I say to Jesse.

  “Don’t be,” she says, “your sister is adorable. How old is she?”

  I think on my feet. “She’ll be thirty-two in October.”

  Jesse laughs at me. “That’s like six months from now.”

  I hear Kelly and Layla approaching behind me, but I don’t turn. I stay and watch the delight bloom in Jesse’s face as her latest millennial disrupter actualizes.

  “This is Layla,” Kelly says. “She’s very excited to meet you. She’s a big fan.”

  “I admire all you do for women,” Layla tells Jesse, taking Jesse’s hand with the strong grip I taught her.

  Jesse howls with laughter, making a performance out of clutching her hand after Layla lets go, as though Layla shook so hard she did damage to the bones.

  Kelly is brightening, slowly, like one of those sunrise simulators designed to gently wake you in the morning. She throws up her hands, like this is what she has to deal with. Utter perfection for a child. “Layla is twelve going on twenty-five. Do you know she started an online shop to sell goods made by Imazighen women and children? She refuses to take a cut, but she figured out a way to earn money through sponsored posts.”

  “You’re raising the next generation of Goal Diggers!” Jesse cries.

  I can’t even speak.

  Kelly sets her hand on her daughter’s head of curls, in case Jesse hasn’t noticed how beautiful they are. As though she is a Realtor, showing her around an exclusive new listing—you think the kitchen is something, wait until you see the master bathroom. “She’s pretty special.”

  “And with such great style. Look at you and your Mansur Gavriel.” Jesse’s pronunciation is viciously French.

  “Brett got this for me,” Layla says. She looks like a little off-duty model with the scuffed bag slouching next to her narrow hips.

  And it’s true I did. And it’s also true Kelly tried to make her return it. It was a standoff that lasted nearly a week, with neither Layla nor I speaking much to Kelly, until finally, she spun on me when I asked her curiously why she was only wearing one earring that day. Because I’m fucking tired and sick of being ganged up on by the two of you. She can fucking keep the poorest-made fucking five-hundred-dollar bag I’ve ever seen in my life. It has fucking scratches everywhere!

  It’s supposed to scratch and wear and look used and cool, but I thought better of telling her that in the moment. The only way to let Kelly calm down is to let her spin out.

  “It’s going to look great on TV,” Jesse says.

  My niece and my sister also lose the ability to speak as they turn over Jesse’s statement, to be sure they understand. “Wait?” Layla grins. She has a Lauren Hutton gap in her front teeth, just enough to give her angelic face some character. “You mean, like, I’d be on the show?”

  “Would you like that?” Jesse asks.

  Layla blinks at Jesse for a few seconds. Then she hoots so loudly a dog barks somewhere down the street.

  Kelly shushes her, laughing. “But really, just like that?”

  “It would be Layla and Kelly?” I say, stupid and shell-shocked.

  “This is the perfect example of how to get more women into positions of leadership,” Jesse says, in that rallying voice I usually find so inspiring. “I was just reading how family-controlled businesses have the largest number of female decision-makers. The three of you represent a new path to advancement that I think would be very beneficial for our viewers to see.” Jesse seems to consider something. “We do have to take child labor laws into account, which requires permission from not only you, Kelly, but from her father. Will that be a problem?”

  “My father is Nigerian and he lives in Morocco,” Layla says, with an accusatory glance Kelly’s way.

  Jesse’s face clouds. “So does that mean it would be a problem?”

  Kelly rubs Layla’s back, consolingly. “That’s all we know about him, unfortunately. I never got his full name and by the time I realized I was pregnant, I was already back in the States with no way of getting in touch with him.”

  “Well,” Jesse says to Layla, “I’m sorry, Layla. But it certainly makes things less complicated on our end.”

  “Shouldn’t we talk to Lisa about this?” I try, pathetically. One last bid to stop this train before it leaves the station.

  Jesse flicks away Lisa’s authority with the back of her hand. “The show has gotten too narrow in its definition of a Goal Digger. We’re a shoal of fish, not a school.” She clasps her hands between her knees and addresses Layla like she’s five, not twelve. “Do you know the difference between a shoal of fish and a school?”

  “Um . . .” Layla thinks. “A school of fish swims in the same direction?” How the fuck does she know that? I don’t even know that, at least not that succinctly.

  “That’s right!” Jesse exclaims. “A school of fish swims in the same direction, but a shoal of fish is a group of fish that stays together for social reasons. The group should make sense, socially, but it
doesn’t make for great TV when everyone is swimming in the same direction. So.” She sets her hands on her thighs, like the start of a race. “Let’s at least visit the process. Get both of you on tape. Submit it to the network, introduce you to Lisa, she’s our showrunner, if you don’t know . . .”

  It feels like the iris of a camera is shrinking, narrowing, slowly isolating the terror on my face. I’ve always been afraid that Kelly was too smart and too primed for greatness to play second fiddle to me. It was only a matter of time before she became listless and bored, before Layla wasn’t enough, before she would make a play for the top spot. It’s starting. Her comeback. This will get ugly.

  CHAPTER 2

  * * *

  Stephanie

  The general who wins the battle makes many calculations. I myself am down to two, side by side in my rift-sawn white oak custom closet: the Saint Laurent boots or the platform sneakers that everyone is wearing these days. I am not much for the sprezzatura pox that’s claimed most of the women in New York. When I moved here, twelve years ago, women wore ballet flats on the subway, work heels hooked over the lip of their monogrammed Goyard totes. Sneakers were exclusively aerobic in purpose, never for cocktail dresses and Chanel, New York Fashion Week, and martinis at Bemelmans. Sometimes, even on Madison—even in the eighties—I feel like the last of my kind. Nobody gets dressed anymore.

  I consider the boots, worried they say I’m doing too well, which I am. When your memoir about your abusive teenaged boyfriend has been top three on the bestseller list for the last four months with no sign of slowing down, an Oprah’s Book Club pick, and an Oscar-nominated director’s next passion project, there is never more of a right time to bow your head. People prefer acutely successful women to have no idea how we got here, to call ourselves lucky, blessed, grateful. I hook a finger through the sneaker’s ornamental laces, considering their message on a spin. The sneakers literally level me. And people respond to approachable women, don’t they? It’s part of what the audience loved about Brett, part of what I loved about her, at least in the beginning. I pluck the other sneaker from its custom perch. Show, don’t tell. The bedrock of what I do.