“You gonna get that?” Marianne asks.
“It’s just Jules,” I tell her. “Again.She won’t leave me alone. She’s trying to get me to come on some crazy vacation with her new in-laws.”
I feel a coil of guilt pulsing in my stomach. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to my sister—more than anything, I want tospill everything that happened last month and hear her tell me she’s on her way from California with brownies and a homemade voodoo doll. The problem is, she’ll actually do it. And right now, she doesn’t have time to play clean-up crew. Besides running the hair salon she opened last year after years of saving, my baby sister Jules is bra deep in planning the wedding of the literal century. But even if Jules and I did keep secrets from each other, which we definitely don’t, I’m notoriously the worst liar of all time. If I answer the phone, I’ll have no choice but to dump my sob story all over her pre-nuptial bliss.
“Her obscenelyrichin-laws? Let me guess,” Marianne says, “They’re trying to kidnap you to the Maldives? Sentence you to ten days hard labor at a Swiss ski chalet?”
I contemplate bopping her with my baguette. When Jules first told me she was dating Harry Warren, the heir apparent to the Warren Entertainment empire, I was more than skeptical. Their rom-com worthy story of a haircut turned seven-hour dream date seemed a few cliches north of believable, especially when a quick google search revealed his net worth to be on par with George Clooney’s.
If there’s anything I learned from the handful of trust-funders I had the displeasure of going to college with, it’s that privilege can make monsters out of otherwise normal kids. So when Jules first brought her new man out to visit last fall, I was honestly expecting an entitled jerk. But despite my best efforts to hate him, Harry won me over in a matter of hours. Not only is he a genuinely nice guy, but he treats my sister like a literal queen, recognizing her for all the amazing qualities men are usually too blinded by her general gorgeousness to see. He even shares her bizarre obsession with Swedish Europop. Still, his flagrant generosity and ungodly expensive watch told me everything I needed to know about the kind of life Jules is signing up for. One that’s very much out of my league.
“Very funny,” I snap back, but I don’t correct her. If Marianne knew where my sister and the Warrens were actually headed, she’d try and convince me to go. And I’ve already made up my mind—there is no way in hell I’m spending two weeks with Harry’s blue-blood family, no matter how nice a guy he seems to be. I have enough reasons to feel like a trainwreck: I don’t need her shiny, perfect family to rub it in.
“Why don’t you go?” Marianne asks anyway. “Sounds like a good excuse to get out of dodge and clear your head for a few days.”
“It’s next week,” I tell her. “Too late.”
“Oh, sorry, I forgot about your extremely busy schedule of watching Meg Ryan movies and binge eating cookie dough,” she retorts. “When was the last time you left this place?”
“Tuesday,” I say, counting on my fingers. Not strictly true—technically I walked out to the elevator and turned back around as soon as I realized I was wearing mismatched shoes.
“Sunday.”
“No, not your apartment. Butsad.”She grimaces. “I mean leftChicago.You’ve been complaining about how much you hate this city since you movedhere. If you finally have the chance to get out of here, you should take it!”
“I need to fix things with the department before I even think about going anywhere. There are letters to write. Contacts to bother…”
Marianne stares me down like the hard-boiled detective she should have become.
“Where are the Warrens going?”
I shake my head.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Stella.” Given her tone, I might think she’s asking me where I hid the bodies. “Where. Is. The vacation.”
Internally, I weigh my options. In the many years I’ve known her, Marianne has only grownmorerelentless. If I tellher where they’re going, I’ll never hear the end of it. I don’t tell her, she’ll absolutely call my sister and get it out of her herself.
“Fiji,” I finally squeak out.
Marianne’s squeal is so loud I almost mistake it for a passing ambulance.
“Fiji? As in, land of turquoise waves and white sand beaches? As in the most beautiful island chain in the universe?”
“No, the water bottle factory,” I joke humorlessly.
“And you’re going to sayno?”
“Did you miss the part where I said Harryand his family? Youtry being trapped on a boat with those elitist snobs if you’re so gung-ho about it.”
“It’s on aboat?” Marianne’s eyes go wide. “Call the doctor,” she says dramatically, leaning back and fanning her face with her croissant. “I’m going into early labor because my best friend is such a stubborn moron.”
“Look, I already feel like human garbage. The last thing I need is to spend two weeks with a family who thinks ‘dishwasher’ is aperson.”
“Stella—unless they’ve invited Vladimir Putin on this boat, I don’t care,” she dismisses me. “You know where my family holds their yearly vacations?Orlando.Home of pit stains, Disney adults, and tortured captive orcas. Not to mention, you don’t even know them! Harry’s great, isn’t he? What’s to say his family will be any different?”
“I know enough,” I inform her. For starters, Jules has never said one nice thing about them, which is basically her version of slander.
