“I need you,” she says. “And that cigarette. Outside.”

Mallory also needs tequila. Two fingers of Patrón Silver, which she procures from the bar and takes with her as she weaves through the tables toward the back door. Jake and Ursula are seated; Ursula has flipped open her phone, of all things, and Jake cocks an eyebrow at the sight of Mallory and Fray leaving together.

It isn’t Jake’s baby. Is this possible? It’s like something out of All My Children, but this isn’t a soap opera, this is real life. Did Ursula cheat on Jake? Mallory feels affronted by the idea—and how hypocritical is that? Mallory is Jake’s Same Time Next Year! She has no room to judge anyone.

If Ursula is pregnant by someone else and Mallory knows it, should she tell Jake? The answer is obviously no. So Mallory should keep the secret and let Jake believe it’s his baby when it’s really not?

Mallory can’t think about it. She follows Fray outside.

They sit on the stone retaining wall on the far edge of the patio, the dark end, so people won’t see them smoking. The people Mallory is worried about are her parents; in so many ways, she still feels like a teenager.

“Did you always smoke?” Mallory asks. “I can’t remember.”

“I started when I stopped drinking,” Fray says. “I needed a new vice, one that would kill me more slowly.”

Mallory is already feeling the tequila three sips in, and the first inhale off the cigarette makes her so heady that she nearly topples off the wall like Humpty Dumpty. She grabs for Fray’s hand and ends up clutching his thigh. Which is a little awkward, right? She steadies herself and taps ashes into the manicured grass. “So how are you?” she asks. “You’re good, right? A millionaire?”

“Six coffee shops in western Vermont and one opening in Plattsburgh at the end of the summer, all operating at a profit,” he says. “Next week I fly to Seattle to see about launching my own brand of coffee. Starbucks did it. Peet’s did it. No reason I can’t do it.”

“You should call it Frayed Edge,” Mallory says. She cackles. “Never mind, that’s a terrible name for a coffee brand.”

(Fray kind of likes the name Frayed Edge. The future of coffee lies with young people, and young people like irreverence. He can see Frayed Edge coffee shops at every major university in the country, girls showing up in their frayed jeans—they buy them intentionally ripped and whiskered now—kids pulling all-nighters during midterms and finals. And, as Fray has learned, what twenty-year-olds want drives business to other demographics, because everyone wants to be twenty.)

“I am going to call it Frayed Edge,” he says. “Thanks, Mal.”

“Give me a commission, please.” She throws back what’s left of her tequila and whoa! It has You’ll pay for this later written all over it, but it does the trick. She feels nothing but a slow, dirty burn inside. “This wedding is…I don’t even know.” She longs to tell Fray about the love triangle that has ruled her life for the past six years, nine months, and two weeks and how it has been, maybe, revealed to have another side. But it would be too much for Fray—or anyone—to digest. And Fray might feel like telling Coop in the name of “protecting” Mallory.

Next, Mallory considers telling Fray that she saw Valentina crying in the bathroom, but she doesn’t want to stir that pot either. The wise thing is to keep quiet.

“I’m going to keep quiet,” she says, because she’s drunk and can’t keep quiet.

Then an astonishing thing happens: Fray turns Mallory’s face toward him and they start kissing. Fray maneuvers himself off the wall and ends up standing to the left of Mallory’s legs, which are bound together by the ballet-slipper-silk skirt of her sheath.

Mallory is enjoying herself. Is it weird that she’s kissing Fray, a person she has known since she was a little girl? She might feel that way tomorrow, but tonight she’s hungry for his attention. Besides, she has always had a thread of sexual curiosity about Fray, deeply sublimated, but come on, he was older, a little dangerous, and off-limits to Mallory because of Cooper and Leland, which only made him that much more intriguing. He’s sober, he knows full well what he’s doing, so Mallory can only think that either Fray has held a torch for her all this time or Mallory has somehow transformed herself into an object of desire, either of which would be gratifying. In any case, she lets Fray lead her to the woods on the far side of the eighteenth hole and they make love leaning against a tree, which sounds rushed and uncomfortable but is, in fact, the opposite. Fray takes his time and deals with the restrictions of her sheath so expertly that Mallory wonders if he often makes love to bridesmaids at wedding receptions while leaning against trees. What neither of them thinks about until the last possible minute is birth control; Fray promises he’ll pull out and then breaks that promise.

When they walk back to the reception, the band is playing “At Last,” which is the song Mallory danced to with Jake at Coop’s first wedding. She seeks him out—and sees him staring right at her and Fray. His eyes remain on her as she reaches up and pulls a leaf from her hair.

He shakes his head almost imperceptibly, or maybe he doesn’t shake his head, maybe Mallory is imagining this gesture of disapproval, of jealousy. Mallory longs to take his hand and pull him onto the dance floor, she longs to whisper in his ear, Yes, I was just in the woods with Fray, but it’s you I love, it has always been you, it will always be you, Jake McCloud.

But she can’t. Ursula is sitting right next to him, shaking the ice in her glass. Ursula has told Mallory she’s pregnant and maybe Ursula told her something else as well, or maybe she didn’t, but either way, Mallory can’t go near Jake for the rest of the night.

“Wanna dance?” Fray asks.

“Sure,” Mallory says.

Labor Day is ten weeks later. Mallory is waiting in the Blazer when Jake steps out of the Nantucket airport. He climbs in without a word. Mallory turns the key in the ignition without a word.

Mallory turns down the no-name road, and dust, sand, and dirt billow behind the Blazer in a cloud, just as they always do. Mallory has burger patties waiting under plastic wrap in the fridge, six ears of corn, shucked, four perfectly ripe tomatoes from Bartlett’s Farm sliced and drizzled with olive oil and balsamic, and a wedge of Brie softening next to an artful pile of water crackers and a small dish of chutney. There are novels stacked on Jake’s side of the bed—this year, Bee Season, by Myla Goldberg, and The Blind Assassin, by Atwood—just as there always are. But this year, something is different. Maybe more than one thing.

Mallory pulls into the driveway, turns off the car, and looks at Jake.

“Home,” she says, trying for cheerful.

“Ursula is pregnant,” he says. “I know I should have called, but I wanted to tell you in person. I thought you deserved that.”

Mallory can’t decide if she should act surprised or not. Not, she decides. She appreciates the effort to get it all out on the table right away so they can talk it through, then enjoy their weekend.

“I understand,” she says. “Better than you know.”

“What?” he says.