It was a wonder Mallory and Leland had remained friends. They had done so only because Mallory had chosen to overlook Leland’s faults. Their friendship had history—not only the moments Mallory readily recalls but also the times she knows she’s forgotten. Driving in Steve Gladstone’s Saab to the Owings Mills Mall, pooling their money to buy Chick-Fil-A, stopping to put two dollars’ worth of gas in the car so they didn’t return it to Steve bone-dry, listening to Songs in the Attic by Billy Joel. “Captain Jack” was their favorite song; Mallory knew the lyrics a little better than Leland did, and she had been proud of that. Going back even further, there were countless summer days at the country club, handstands in the pool, backflips off the diving board, hitting a tennis ball against the concrete practice wall, both of them wearing only their one-piece bathing suits and their Tretorns, before the age of body-consciousness. They rode their bikes all over Roland Park, one time venturing a block farther than they should have when a carful of older boys stopped to ask their names. Leland, thinking fast on her feet, had given the name Laura Templeton, and Mallory, following suit, had said, Jackie Templeton. These were characters from General Hospital. One of the older boys had said, “Are you two sisters? You don’t look alike. Who’s older?” Leland had opened her mouth to answer—she was most certainly going to say that she was older—but at the last minute she had pushed off the sidewalk and started pedaling furiously down the block, and Mallory had followed. They didn’t stop until they safely coasted into Leland’s driveway, and only then did they let themselves acknowledge that they might have been in real danger, like girls in an after-school special.

They used to have shifting crushes on Mel Gibson, Kevin Costner, Mickey Rourke. They had both been madly in love with Mickey Rourke, but it was a rule that they couldn’t have a crush on the same person, so Leland got Mickey Rourke because she was the one who had the poster of him from 9½ Weeks on her wall. Mallory remembers harboring bitterness about that because there has never been a more desirable photograph of a man than Mickey Rourke in 9½ Weeks.

Leland had been the alpha, Mallory the beta—there was no way to argue that point. Mallory hadn’t cared. In later years, she came to realize that the only person’s approval she needed was her own. She didn’t need to move the needle on American culture. All she needed to do was be a good teacher and a better mother and the best person she could be.

She has one weak spot, one fault line: Jake. And now the world knows it. Leland has exposed her.

Mallory wants to be the kind of person who lets this go. Cooper reached deep and covered for her. Ursula, hopefully, bought it, and the article that hundreds of thousands of American women will read will be forgotten by next week.

Mallory isn’t that person.

Her second choice is to be the kind of person who quietly erases Leland from her life. She will block Leland from her phone and her e-mail. Her parents’ house has been sold; there’s no longer any reason to return to Baltimore for the holidays. Link can see Sloane, his grandmother, and Steve Gladstone, his grandmother’s boyfriend, on Fray’s watch.

But she isn’t this person either.

She is a person who has been manipulated and pushed around and treated poorly by her best friend for over thirty years, but this is the last time. Mallory is angry. The anger, she knows, will fade, but before that happens, she’s going to make Leland feel the searing burn, the acrid bitterness.

She calls Leland.

“Mal?”

Mallory stares into the bedroom mirror as she talks. “I saw the article. ‘Same Time Next Year.’” Mallory is proud of herself. Her voice is steady and clear. She holds her own gaze.

Silence.

“Ursula called Cooper.”

“Oh God.”

“That’s not what bothers me about this,” Mallory says. “That’s an outcome, which is separate from the betrayal itself.”

“It wasn’t a betrayal, Mal—”

“I told you that in confidence. Extremely sensitive top-secret confidence. I was drunk, I own that, and I was sad. It was the night of my parents’ funeral. I shared something with you, my best friend since forever, and you turned right around and laid it out in your blog”—Mallory says this like it’s a dirty word—“for all to see. You used my secret as clickbait.”

“I didn’t give your name—”

“You might as well have,” Mallory says. “Ursula called Cooper!” Her face is blotching; she feels her good sense unspooling like the string of a kite snatched by the wind. There it goes! Mallory sets the phone down on her dresser. She can hear Leland’s voice, though not her actual words. Her excuses. Her obsequious apologies. Mallory takes a deep breath. Hang up, she thinks. Except she’s not finished. She brings the phone back to her ear.

Silence. Then: “Mal? Are you still there?”

“It doesn’t matter if you gave my name. It doesn’t matter about Ursula. What matters is that you broke your promise to me. That was an ugly, disingenuous thing to do, Lee. It was precisely the same thoughtless, self-serving behavior you’ve demonstrated all your life, except exponentially worse. You dealt this friendship a death blow. I will feel sad without you, but my guess is that you’ll feel worse than I do because you have to live with the guilt of knowing that you are such an empty, morally bankrupt person that you would cash in on your best friend’s deepest secret for…what? Some likes? Some follows? Some advertisers? The admiration of strangers?” Mallory takes a breath. “I hope you find what you’re looking for. Maybe it’s Fifi’s approval, maybe it’s your father’s love—I have no idea. And I don’t care. Goodbye, Lee.”

“Mal—”

Mallory hangs up. Leland calls back four times and leaves three messages, which Mallory deletes without listening to. She blocks Leland’s cell number, she blocks her e-mail, and she blocks the Leland’s Letter website, marking it inappropriate. When all that is done, it’s time to go back to the beach to pick up Link.

When Link gets into the car, hair wet and sculpted into crazy waves and spiky peaks, smelling of salt and sweat and sunblock, feet and legs covered with sand, he says, “Have you been crying, Mom?”

It must be crystal clear the answer is yes, but Mallory shakes her head.

Link says, “Tomorrow I’ll have the guys over to the house and you can cook for us, okay, Mama?”

She feels the corners of her mouth lift, like they have a mind of their own. “Okay,” she says.

It’s a week before Christmas and Link is taking out the kitchen trash after dinner, a chore he enjoys this time of year because the air is cold and smells of wood smoke, and the ocean mist glitters like tinsel. On the horizon, he can just pick out the lights of a giant wreath that their closest neighbor hangs on the side of his house.

As he’s tying up the bag outside on the back porch, he sees a soft package in a brown UPS bag that has been stuffed halfway down. Further inspection reveals Link’s name on the front.

What?

Link pulls the bag out from underneath a chicken carcass and potato peelings and junk mail. It’s a package addressed to him from L. Gladstone, Brooklyn, NY 11211. Auntie Leland. What is it doing in the trash?