The ladies’ room at the club hasn’t been renovated since 1973, which makes it look hopelessly old-fashioned but also comforting. One enters a lounge with rose-colored wall-to-wall carpeting and a rose-colored Naugahyde divan and three stools with needlepointed covers that are positioned under a long counter. Above the counter is a mirror where, for generations, ladies have applied lipstick, powdered their noses, and stared into their own eyes pondering…what? Well, all kinds of things: What am I doing with Roger? Do I have a drinking problem? Why didn’t I pursue a doctorate? How much should I pay the babysitter? Do I look fat? Do I look old? Why can’t Roger stop bashing [Ford/Carter/Reagan] so loudly in public? Why is Helen giving me the silent treatment? How long until I can go home to bed?

There’s a cut-glass bowl of butter mints, individually wrapped in cream-colored cellophane. Out of habit, Mallory takes a handful and drops them into her clutch. Just as Mallory is feeling a small burst of joy at bumping into her old friend the butter mint, she hears a noise coming from the ladies’ room proper. Someone retching.

Mallory quickly enters a stall; the retching continues. Someone has had too much to drink—but who? This wedding reception is decidedly tamer than Cooper’s first. Where is Cooper’s friend Brian from Brookings? He was oodles of fun, and, if Mallory isn’t mistaken, he succeeded in making Jake jealous.

(Brian Novak is married with three children, and because he unwisely invested in a crepe restaurant in the town of Cheverly, Maryland, where he lives, he’s three months behind on his mortgage, his wife has had to take a weekend job as a receptionist at a walk-in emergency clinic, and he can’t come to Cooper’s wedding because he is stuck at home caring for the kids and worrying about foreclosure. At this very moment, Brian is fervently wishing he were in Baltimore, spinning Mallory around on the dance floor. She was cute, with her freckles, ocean-colored eyes, that tiny gap between her lower teeth, and she had a sense of mischievous fun, which is more than Brian can presently say for his wife.)

When Mallory comes out of the stall, she sees Ursula de Gournsey leaning over the sink, rinsing out her mouth. Mallory freezes.

“Are you okay?” Mallory asks. Was it Ursula she heard retching? Apparently—they’re the only two people in the ladies’ room.

Ursula’s eyes meet Mallory’s in the mirror. Her skin is paste gray.

“I think I’m pregnant,” she says.

Pregnant.

It feels like several days pass while Mallory is sucked down into a spiral of agonizing self-pity, jealousy, anger, and spite. In fact, it’s amazing that Mallory is still upright. Let’s return to the tree analogy: It feels like Ursula has taken a freshly sharpened ax and felled the relationship between Mallory and Jake at its very base. Despite this, Mallory takes a step forward, turns on the water in the sink next to Ursula’s, pumps out a dime-size squirt of pearlescent gardenia-scented hand soap (another aspect of this ladies’ room that transports Mallory back to her childhood), smiles into the mirror, and says, “Wow! Congratulations!”

“No,” Ursula says, tears standing in her eyes. “This is awful. This is a disaster.”

Mallory dries her hands on one of the paper hand towels embossed with the country club’s logo and then hurls it into the trash. There’s a flare of pure fury: Having Jake’s baby is awful? It’s a disaster?

Mallory supposes that Ursula is upset about the pregnancy because it will interfere with her trying to make partner at the firm. Jake has made how Ursula feels about work crystal clear.

Just as Mallory is about to shrug and walk away—because Ursula has no right to feel anything other than blessed that she’s carrying Jake’s baby, in Mallory’s opinion—Ursula breaks down into full-blown sobs, and Mallory softens. Maybe Leland was right—Mallory is suggestible, easily swayed. Or maybe our girl is just kind and sympathetic.

“Come here,” Mallory says. She leads Ursula to the lounge and sits next to her on the divan. She places a tentative hand on Ursula’s back; Ursula is so thin, Mallory can feel the distinct knobs of her spine. She isn’t sure what to say, so she nods at the bowl on the counter. “Would you like a butter mint?”

Ursula shakes her head, though the sobbing subsides a bit.

“I’m Mallory Blessing. Cooper’s sister.”

“I know,” Ursula says. “I saw you at the first wedding.”

“I’m sorry you’re upset about this. Is it the timing or…”

Ursula drops her face into her hands and shakes her head. “No. Well, I mean, yes, but that’s not the worst part.”

Mallory produces a tissue from her clutch and presses it on Ursula. This is crazy, right, that she’s here in the bathroom, comforting Ursula?

Yes, it is crazy. But then, a second later, crazy is redefined.

“The problem is,” Ursula says, “it’s not…it’s not…jayblibberkiz.”

“Wait,” Mallory says, because she didn’t catch the second part of Ursula’s sentence. “What? It’s not what?”

The door swings open and the lounge is overtaken by white organza and the sound of Spanish wailing. It’s Valentina. Carlotta dutifully follows behind, holding up Valentina’s prodigious train.

Valentina is hysterical. She looks around the lounge. She clearly needs a place to collapse, but the best spots are occupied by Ursula and Mallory.

Ursula stands up, and she and Valentina execute a do-si-do. Should Mallory ask Valentina what’s wrong? She probably doesn’t want to talk to Mallory, and anyway, she has Carlotta, who can speak her native tongue and who is not her new husband’s sister.

Mallory and Ursula aren’t finished. Or are they? They have no choice but to step out into the hallway, where they can all too clearly hear the band playing “Two Tickets to Paradise.” The moment of confidence between them has been broken, but Mallory gives it one last shot.

“I think I missed part of what you were trying to tell me in there,” she says. “You said, ‘It’s not,’ but I didn’t hear the rest. It’s not…what?” Mallory’s nerves are jangling like the zills of a tambourine. Did Ursula say, “It’s not fair”? Pregnancy and childbirth aren’t particularly fair. Women get the short end of the stick. They have to carry the baby, they endure the pain of delivery, and the time-consuming job of nursing…and that’s only the beginning.

Ursula shakes her head. She looks at Mallory warily now, as though Mallory is trying to wrest away something that Ursula isn’t willing to relinquish.

It’s not…what?

Well, Mallory can guess the unspeakable truth.

It’s not Jake’s baby.

But Ursula will neither confirm nor deny.

“I should get back,” Ursula says. “Thank you for the Kleenex.” As if the damp, disintegrating tissue she’s holding in her hand is the sum total of what Mallory offered.

Before Mallory can respond, Ursula disappears into the ballroom.

Mallory pulls Fray off the dance floor. He’s doing the twist with Geri Gladstone, and how odd is that, considering that Geri’s ex-husband is now shacking up with Fray’s mother, Sloane, in nearby Fells Point? Geri looks to be genuinely enjoying herself and Mallory feels bad about stealing Fray away but…desperate times.