Khloe floated in and out of preparations like an understudy for fame. She discussed seating charts, tagged designers in photos they had not asked to be in, and once referred to the gala as “basically Vanessa’s coronation.” She also had the bad habit, fatal in women like her, of assuming the least glamorous person in the room was the least important. Because I was quiet, dressed simply, and spent more time on my laptop than in the mirror, she filed me under negligible. That meant she talked too much in front of me.
One afternoon in early June, I was at the kitchen island reviewing spreadsheets when Khloe breezed in on speakerphone with a friend.
“I’m telling you,” she said, opening my refrigerator without asking, “Vanessa literally saved the foundation this year. Half those gifts wouldn’t exist without her. Well—technically Dad’s money, but same difference.”
She laughed.
I looked up.
Khloe noticed too late that I could hear every word. Her hand darted for the phone, but the sentence was already hanging in the air between us, bright and stupid and useful.
“What?” she said defensively.
“Nothing,” I said, and typed the time into a note on my computer.