Ursula hugs Cooper. “I’m so sorry, Coop. Jake is in Atlanta on business and couldn’t get away. He sends his condolences, of course.”

Cooper nods. He looks overcome, exhausted and beyond exhausted, weary. “Of course,” he says. “Thank you for coming.” He looks past Ursula to Leland Gladstone, and his face softens. “Hey, Lee.”

That’s it, then; Ursula has been dismissed. She feels a tiny bit put out. She is, after all, a United States senator, and she made time for this today. But that, she supposes, was Jake’s point; there are so many people here that no one is special, and to be a special person and expect special treatment is just obnoxious.

Ursula moves on to the sister, Mallory. Whereas Cooper looks tired, Mallory appears absolutely devastated. Her eyes are like empty sockets; probably, she has taken a pill. She squints at Ursula hard, like she’s looking into the sun, and then she checks behind Ursula—looking for Jake, most likely. Because these are Jake’s people, not Ursula’s.

“Hello?” Mallory says in a way that seems very nonplussed. But then she must remember her manners because she offers her stiff, cold hand. “Thank you for coming, Senator.”

“Ursula, please.” She shakes Mallory’s hand, although she wants to give the poor woman a hug. How awful for her, losing both parents in one fell swoop like that. “Jake wanted to come but he’s away on business. He sends his condolences.”

Mallory nods, though it’s not clear that she’s registering who Jake is.

“We’re very sorry, Mallory. Sorry for your loss.”

“Okay,” Mallory whispers. She, too, peers beyond Ursula to see Leland Gladstone, at which point Mallory breaks down and the two women embrace and rock back and forth, wailing. Ursula looks on for a moment and feels nearly jealous. Ursula doesn’t have a single girlfriend she could cry with like that. She never has.

An usher leads Ursula to the second row. She protests, whispering, “I should be in the back. I hardly…” But the back of the church is standing room only; the last available seats are up front. Ursula internally cringes. She hardly knew Mr. and Mrs. Blessing but she’s getting this prime real estate because she’s a senator. Jake was right; she shouldn’t have come. He always knows best. He’s a social genius; he can read people and situations better than anyone she knows. He should be an ambassador. Why is he not an ambassador? Ursula would like to walk right out of the church, but she’s made her bed, so now she has to lie in it; she sits down. The woman who was behind her in line, Mallory’s friend Leland Gladstone, takes the seat next to her.

Leland leans in and whispers, “I have tissues if you need them, and licorice drops. Would you like a licorice drop?”

Ursula is grateful for the kindness, however perfunctory. “Yes, please,” she says. “I’d love one.”

Leland opens a fancy little tin, European maybe, and hands Ursula a frosted hard candy the size of a pea. “I’ve been Mallory’s best friend since childhood,” she says. “I knew Kitty and Senior my entire life. I can’t remember not knowing them.”

“Mallory is lucky to have you,” Ursula says.

Leland gives a dry laugh. “I don’t know about that,” she says. “I’m difficult.”

“Well, then,” Ursula says. “That makes two of us.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Leland says.

“Sure,” Ursula says—but then the organ music starts and everyone in the church rises.

“We’ll save it for later,” Leland says.

At the graveside, Leland links her arm through Mallory’s. On Mallory’s left are Coop and Fray, Fray’s girlfriend, Anna, who looks nothing like the punk rocker Leland was promised, and Link. Leland’s mother, Geri, is on the opposite side of the two graves with her new boyfriend, John Smith, whom she met on Match.com. (Leland wants her mother to make sure that John Smith is in fact this guy’s name because it sounds like an alias, and John Smith has the bland looks and mild manner of someone who’s trying to erase an unsavory past. The last thing Leland wants to see is Geri duped by some scam artist who meets lonely divorcées on Match.com and then takes them for everything they’re worth.) Leland’s father and Sloane are standing behind Leland somewhere. It should be the other way around—Geri was Kitty’s best friend, so she should be standing on the side with the family while Steve and Sloane watch from afar, but Leland won’t say anything.

Kitty and Senior are dead. That’s all that matters.

The silver lining—and yes, Leland does know how egregious it is that she’s managed to find a silver lining at the funeral of her best friend’s parents—is that Leland now has Senator Ursula de Gournsey’s cell phone number and e-mail address. Ursula has graciously agreed to be interviewed for Leland’s Letter. Leland can’t believe it. It’s such a coup! She wants to tell Mallory, but naturally, it will have to wait.

After the burial, there’s a reception at the country club. It’s a reception worthy of Kitty Blessing—passed hors d’oeuvres (Leland recalls how much Kitty loved gooey Brie and chutney on a water cracker) and a buffet for three hundred that includes carving stations of ham and prime rib. There’s a chamber quartet and an open bar. It’s quite lovely and Leland marvels that Cooper and Mallory managed to arrange all this. She wonders if perhaps Kitty left the staff at the club pages of instructions and a blank check in case of her and Senior’s untimely demise. At least twice, Leland scans the room expecting to see Kitty. But that’s the thing about death—Kitty is no longer. Kitty and Senior are gone, they’re never coming back, and how is that possible? The rest of the world continues, the club is exactly the same, the Deckers and the Whipps are here—they’re talking with Geri and John Smith; no doubt they want to check out the new guy—plus every single person Leland and Mallory and Cooper and Fray knew growing up. All still alive, drinking white wine or bourbon or crisp martinis, plucking tiny crab cakes off passing trays, smearing Bremner wafers with Brie, willfully ignoring the fact that someday they, too, will die and everyone will cry, then hit the raw bar.

Ursula de Gournsey is not at the reception. She had a four o’clock meeting back at the Capitol, she said. The mere phrase back at the Capitol made Leland’s nipples harden. She loves powerful women.

Leland had realized, sort of, that Cooper’s friend Jake, whom Leland had dinner with decades ago on Nantucket, was married to Ursula de Gournsey, but that still didn’t prepare Leland for finding the woman standing in front of her in the receiving line. UDG may not be the most powerful woman in politics—there’s Hillary, Palin, Pelosi, and Feinstein—but she is certainly a media darling. Luckily, Leland has always been good at thinking on her feet. Leland’s Letter, tens of thousands of subscribers, ninety-eight percent women, eighty-five percent college-educated, meaningful content across a wide spectrum, would love to interview you, let my readers get a woman-to-woman understanding of you, wouldn’t take much time at all, a concise phone call, I’m not interested in wasting anyone’s time, not yours, not mine.