“What can I say to change your mind?”
“I don’t know. You seem to have me figured out pretty well. Why don’t you think of something?”
“That’s the thing,” he said, his voice low and steady. “I can’t figure you out, and it’s driving me insane. I thought I had you pegged, but I realized after you left last night that I’d barely scratched the surface.”
“See, you do want to get to know me,” I said. “I know where this leads, Wilder, and I cannot go down this road. Not at this point in my life.”
“I don’t want to date you, Addison,” he said. “I want to own your body. There’s a difference.”
His voice came to growl over the mention of the word “own,” and it made me shiver. I swallowed the lump in my throat, but it returned as quickly as it’d left. My life was stressful, and Wilder could provide a temporarily relief from that.
“Let me think about it,” I sighed, my heart swinging between clinging onto my polished and controlled way of life or running into the arms of the exciting unknown.
I ended the call with Wilder just as an email popped up from my sister.
Don’t forget. Dinner reservations tonight at CRAVE. 7pm. Don’t be late this time!
xoxo,
Coco
I checked my schedule to make sure I didn’t have any showings that night, and fired back a response letting her know I’d be there. On time. She was such a mother hen sometimes, but it was only fitting given our background. She’d pretty much raised me when our mother, Tammy Lynn, spent most nights at the bar or going home with strange men. Coco was only two years older than me, but she always made sure I was fed and clean and got to school on time.
* * *
“I got here first,” I said in a singsong voice as Coco arrived at our table that night. It was pure luck, though. I had a showing that ran later than expected, but I’d hailed a cab and slipped him an extra twenty to drive like a maniac so I’d get there first.
“Miracles do happen,” Coco teased, setting her jet-black Hermes bag on the empty chair between us. Dark waves like spun silk rested over her the shoulders of her tweed Chanel jacket and spilled down her back, and I quietly envied the fact that rain, snow, or shine, she always looked like a million bucks. Of course it was just part of her job as a weekend morning anchor for the highest-rated news network in the country. She always had to be on.
The restaurant was packed. Coco always picked the hottest places.
“Miss Bissett, I’m sorry to bother you,” a middle-aged woman said as she approached our table. “Can I get a picture with you?”
Coco happily obliged and stood up as the woman handed me her phone. I was always the picture taker, but I was used to it. I was damn proud of my big sister. We’d both risen from nothing. Who knew two girls from a trailer park in Darlington, Kentucky could move to Manhattan and make something of themselves?
The woman scampered away, staring at the screen of her phone, happy as a clam, and Coco took a seat again.
“You’re so nice, Co,” I said, shaking my head.
Less than ten years ago, Coco Bissett was an unknown aspiring broadcast journalist named Dakota Andrews. She’d married well in her early twenties to a prominent Manhattan man named Harrison Bissett, who happened to be about ten years older than she was. Harrison also happened to be a producer for a news show on MBC, which meant he had a whole host of highly coveted connections. It wasn’t long before she kicked her Kentucky accent to the curb and worked one on one with a hosting coach. Shortly after that, she was doing screen tests and fill-ins and the offers began to pour in.
When she landed the weekend morning show, Harrison insisted Coco Bissett sounded more commercial and like a name that would give her more credibility than Dakota Andrews. It was weird thinking of her as anyone other than Coco Bissett anymore, and it was almost as if Dakota Andrews never existed in the first place.
We’d come a long way from crawling around on dirty floors to clicking our Manolos across the marble of some of the most expensive apartment homes in the whole world.
“It’s all part of the job, Addison,” she said anytime I questioned anything.
We each had our own forms of validation. Mine came in the form of signed contracts and six-figure commission checks. Hers came in the form of being loved and adored by complete strangers.
“Did you hear the big news?” Coco asked as she sipped her Perrier. Her big blue eyes, which matched mine right down to the icy gray flints in our irises, twinkled against the flicker of the candlelight.
“No?”
“Mom’s getting married.”
“Again? What is this, number six?”
“Five. I think. If we’re not counting Dale.”
“Oh, God, let’s not count Dale.” I shuddered to think of the hairy man who compulsively lied to our mother and swindled her out of what remained in her pitiful 401k. Coco and I would be taking care of Mom someday, we knew it, but at least we’d always planned for that. The worst part was Dale insisted they be common law married because he was all tied up in a long, ongoing divorce to a woman in Iowa. We found out that woman never existed, and it was all just a scam. He was one of those. “What’s his name?”
“Does it even matter?” Coco rolled her eyes and then plastered her best made-for-TV smile as soon as our server approached us. She controlled her emotions with a switch. “Yes, hi, I’d like a glass of pinot noir, please. Thank you.”