Spoiled by Heather Cocks Page A

she’d brought to the table was a Chloé bag
     Molly knew wasn’t on sale yet to the great unwashed masses. Molly glanced at her own comfy hoodie and kicked herself for treating
     this like just another movie night with Charmaine.
    “I can’t believe you’re really here! This is amazing! So tell me everything!” Brooke said in a mad rush of exclamatory speech.
     “When did you get here! How was the flight! How do you like your room! Isn’t the view amazing! Your sweatshirt is fantastic!
     Isn’t it fantastic, Daddy! So authentic! We are so glad you’re here!”
    “Um, thanks,” Molly said, still shell-shocked by this perky onslaught, and unsure which of Brooke’s statements were actual
     questions she was supposed to tackle. None of her varied and dramatic imaginings of Brooke included an attitude this, well,
nice
. “I’m really happy to be—”
    “You are
so
welcome!” Brooke twittered. “Recognize my dress, Daddy?”
    “Rodarte, right?” Molly offered, relieved to have something to contribute to this dinner after all. “
Vogue
loved that season’s collection.”
    Brooke looked as surprised as if her tan had fallen off. “You read
Vogue
? Seriously?”
    “I caught up on the flight,” Molly said. “It was a long trip from Indiana.”
    “Look at you two. Bonding already,” Brick said fondly, and bit into a giant piece of steak.
    “It’s like a dream!” Brooke bubbled, shooting Molly a blinding, toothy grin as she stabbed at a piece of yellowtail with the
     crystal-encrusted chopsticks on her plate.
    “So how’d you get a fresh Rodarte like that?” Molly pressed on, encouraged by Brooke’s smile. “Do you know the Mulleavys?
     I just read that they’re from somewhere around here.”
    Brooke’s laugh was the sound of a tiny bell on a storefront door. “So much to learn! They’re in Pasadena. That’s a whole other
     area code!”
    “I met them at Fashion Week when I was doing a movie with Juliette Lewis,” Brick explained. “They sent her a bunch of stuff,
     but this one was too big for her.”
    Brooke flared her nostrils. “More like, it’s far too stylish for someone who wears curtains on her head.”
    “How
is
Fashion Week?” Molly wondered. “I’ve always wanted to go.”
    “Daddy won’t let me, because—”
    “Well, we’ll just have to see what we can do about that!” Brick boomed at the same time, adding a dorky wink. “I bet we can
     talk your school into calling it extra credit.”
    Brooke slammed down the soy sauce with a tad toomuch vigor. Molly chanced a long glance at her. Brooke’s enthusiastic welcome was an extremely pleasant surprise, but Molly
     had read enough articles by the
Hey!
body language experts to recognize tension when she saw it. Brooke beamed at her again, though, so Molly decided to believe
     that whatever was making her half sister so squirrelly had nothing to do with her arrival.
    “I guess Fashion Week might be a little intense, right?” Molly asked to fill the silence. “Today in the car with all those
     photographers was bad enough, and that was behind a window.”
    “Oh, you got papped?” Brooke said with sympathy. “Isn’t it so inconsiderate? I mean, what if you’d had airplane spinach in
     your teeth? Daddy, I can’t believe you let that happen to my sister.”
    “They’re doing
My Fair Lady
at school this year, Molly,” Brick said, ignoring Brooke completely. “What are your feelings about theater?”
    “I used to help my mom make the costumes for our school plays, but I can’t act at all,” Molly said. “Guess I got her genes.”
    Yikes. It was probably too soon for DNA jokes. Molly shoved a piece of meat into her mouth so that she couldn’t talk again
     for a while.
    “Costumes are fantastic! So important,” Brick boomed. “An actor is naked without his clothes.”
    “Don’t change the subject, Daddy,” Brooke said, her voice pure saccharine. “Don’t you think it was rude of youto expose Molly to all