Elle aims similar protective energy at any man in Dakota’s life. “I actually screamed at someone for her. I didn’t throw a drink, but I did knock it over and accidentally spilled on the guy,” she says. Dakota is currently single: “I’ve had some doozies lately! But one day….” Elle chimes in with a huff. “These guys. What is wrong with them? How dare they!”
I ask if either of them has dabbled in the invite-only dating app Raya. They exchange a look. “She has never done this. Ever,” says Elle. “And then the other day—”
“I did it for fun,” Dakota interjects. “My girlfriend made it for me.… I was like, if I don’t, then I’m going to think—”
“Maybe my husband is there,” Elle finishes for her.
“I can confirm that he is not,” says Dakota.
Elle urges Dakota to show us her Raya anyway. “I haven’t seen a ton of familiar faces yet,” Dakota says, scrolling through a few suitors. Elle notes, correctly, that they all look exactly the same. Then Dakota reveals why she really made her profile: “Guess what my song is.”
“You already told me,” says Elle. It’s “Salt Shaker,” the biggest hit from early-aughts hip-hop group the Ying Yang Twins. Dakota sighs. “I’m canceling this thing.”
Long after our Dakotas have been emptied, I ask the Fannings what this moment means to them. For Elle, it brings to mind a Donna Lewis song released in the four-year gap between their births: “I love you, always forever / Near and far, closer together / Everywhere, I will be with you /Everything, I will do for you.”
“When I hear that song, I always think of us,” says Elle, her voice breaking. Dakota reaches an arm across the table. Elle starts to cry, then laughs. “I am on my period,” she says, sending us all into hysterics. “And we talked about when I first got my period yesterday too!” (She was 14 and first felt the cramps at a Chanel fashion show in Paris. “Not relatable,” she said then with a laugh and a shrug.)
Perhaps to make her little sister feel less alone, Dakota launches into her own story. “This wasn’t my first period, but it was early days.” Dakota was attending the 2009 NAACP Awards with her castmates from The Secret Life of Bees. “I was in a nude chiffon kind of babydoll dress that I think was BCBG.… We got home, and Mom goes, ‘What is on…. Oh. Dakota….’ It’s covered. Now, I’ve never seen any photographs—”
“OceanUp,” Elle and I say in unison.
Then it’s Dakota’s turn to get mushy. Because of Elle, “I’m able to have confidence and security in my life,” she says. “If I lost every friend I have on the planet—”
“The extremes!” Elle shouts, dabbing her eyes with a cloth napkin.
“I’m just saying,” Dakota continues. “If everyone in my life stopped talking to me, I’d be devastated. But if I still had my sister, I’d be like, ‘Well, I have her.’ ”
Sittings Editor: Dara Allen. Hair, Orlando Pita; Makeup, Fulvia Farolfi; Manicures, Deborah Lippmann; Tailor, Aneta V. Produced on location by Portfolio One. For details, go to VF.com/credits.
