Serena could feel Maggie and Liza studying her, and it made her self-conscious. What could they be thinking? She didn’t know them well enough to presume anything at all. Finally, a question from Tricia snapped her back to the room. “Can you tell us about your immediate plans?”

For a second, Serena struggled to understand the question, thinking that it was about lunch or what she was going to do this afternoon. Then realized it was about The Announcement: what she was going to tell the world and when. She didn’t get caught in that quicksand. “I’ve decided to take a sabbatical from my job at Straight Up. I’ve been grinding along for fifteen years without a break from deadlines and work. I ran into Lucy Winthrop yesterday and it turns out she has a guest cottage available. She’s a close friend of my mother’s. It was a spur-of-the-moment opportunity and I grabbed it. I’ll be here all summer figuring out what’s next for me. This is the right place to do that.”

“Take a sabbatical or resign?” Nothing got past Tricia when she was in the zone. Straight Up was on its last legs. Nobody takes “a sabbatical” from a failing business.

Serena was stalling, not wanting to clarify her intentions when Maggie, who’d been quiet since she stopped sobbing, saved her by erupting, “Oh my God, I remember that guest cottage. Ben Winthrop! Remember him, Liza?

He was so cute. He went to Exeter. Remember that night after Molly Miller’s deb party? That cheesy square dance thing in her barn and then we all went to the Winthrops’ giant house because they had a foosball table.”

Maggie used air quotes around foosball table and what it really meant was anyone’s guess, but it cracked the two of them up. “And he kept trying to rap that Jay-Z song even though he’s like the whitest guy ever. His dad has been our congressman for what, like, forty years?”

“Eighteen terms,” Tricia corrected Maggie.

“The congressman and his wife are one of the few Southport connections I have in DC. They invite me to things all the time, as a former constituent,”

Serena said, not adding that as a member of the press, there was an ulterior motive to most of the invites. Lucy Winthrop’s strategy was Always Be Pitching.

“The congressman and Mrs. Winthrop were at the White House when our father was an honoree,” Liza said, then immediately regretted her words.

She sounded like the worst kind of entitled namedropper. It was the sort of comment she would have lectured Fitz or Vivi about on the car ride home.

She quickly changed the subject. “Going back to the foosball night, Mags, you had on those purple cowboy boots and that crumpled cowboy hat. And what was that tank top?”

“I was going for Sheryl Crow, the early years. I thought I looked good.”

“So did Ben Winthrop, Foosball Master.”

The amount of time any Sweeney could carry on a serious conversation without a break for irreverence was limited, especially Liza and Maggie, who had shared so many misadventures. For years, Tricia had nodded along with any Liza and Maggie memory, because she was usually too young to have been included, but had heard the same stories over and over again, so at some point it became imprinted in her hippocampus like she had been there. Despite wanting to stay detached, Tricia, too, was laughing at “Ben Winthrop, Foosball Master.” It had become a family catchphrase for whenever one of the sisters met a guy who was really into himself.

Maggie observed Serena’s silence and apologized. “Sorry, old family joke.”

The sisters settled down, taking the conversation back to the endless questions about Serena’s life. Tricia asked about her job, her outside interests and volunteer work, her travels. Liza was interested in Georgetown, claiming she was thinking of opening up a branch of her gallery there. (It was true. Whit had gone to college there and Liza was smitten by the area, but Serena assumed she was bluffing in an attempt to suss out her living situation.) And Maggie asked Serena about her boyfriends, her skin care regimen, and whether she still played tennis. The conversation was light and bright with many mutual connections and common points of interest, but Serena couldn’t shake the feeling of being an outsider. Would she ever?

“She’s a writer, she’s going to write about this,” Tricia said. The sisters stood at the window of Richardson & Blix, watching this new character in their lives get into her car, a generic rental sedan. No doubt Serena could feel six eyes on her, but she didn’t look up. Tricia admired her discipline, but urged caution. “I don’t like the fact that she quit her job to hang out here all summer in the foosball palace. What’s that about? I’ll tell you what.

She’s writing a book proposal.”

“You’re paranoid. I like her,” Maggie said shrugging her shoulders and daring Tricia to challenge her assessment. “She’s interesting and she’s interested. She’s like us but with better SAT scores.”

“Hey, speak for yourself.” Tricia rarely threw her superior test-taking skills and Ivy League education in her sisters’ faces, but, in this instance, she made an exception. “I feel like I could take her in Jeopardy! ”

“I liked her, too.” Liza sided with Maggie on emotional issues and with Tricia on pragmatic matters. This was pure emotion.

“Like her how? What does that mean in practical terms? Sunday dinners at the house? Do we send out a Christmas card announcement with a picture of the four of us in matching sweaters that says, Meet our new sister, Serena Tucker Sweeney? Is that what we want?”

“I’m only saying I like her.” Liza pushed back. “She’s professional and she’s got her act together. She’s clearly not some gold digger. Did you see that trio of diamond bangles? Spectacular. I don’t think she’s in it for the forty-two bucks we’re going to inherit. Plus, you know those Tuckers are old money. There’s a bank account somewhere with Serena’s name on it—

the house in Georgetown, the trips to Jackson Hole she mentioned. You don’t get those on a journalist’s salary. But didn’t she seem like one of us?”

Tricia was not backing down. “First of all, everyone’s in it for the money.

That may not be her motivation now, but it will become paramount. Trust me. And second, everybody we grew up with in this tiny bubble seems like one of us on the surface. We knew all the same people. We had all the same experiences. Public school, private school, prep school—it didn’t matter here. We all went to the Browns’ Christmas party every year. Of course there’s a certain familiarity.”

“I’d invite her to Thanksgiving,” Maggie declared, though never in her life had she ever hosted a holiday meal. “What are you afraid of? That she might be a really lovely addition to our family? I think it’s wild that she’s a writer, like Dad. I mean, none of us are. Like we were afraid to compete against Mom and especially Dad in that arena. But not Serena. And that she looks so much like you, Tricia. How had we not noticed that before?”

“Because we weren’t on the lookout for neighbors who looked like us.

Why would we suspect that our neighbor was really our sister? That’s like a soap plot, not real life.” Tricia was not softening. The fact that there was a physical resemblance only made her feel more resentful, not less.

“Well, it’s our real life now,” Maggie said. “All I’m saying is that I’m not opposed to, you know, welcoming her.”

“Is this because you feel bad that it was your fault because you took that damn DNA test?”

“You know what, Tricia? It wasn’t my fault. It was Dad’s fault, okay?”

Maggie was right and her tone shut Tricia up on that subject for good. “And maybe in your world, people are perfect, but not in mine. I think forgiveness and happiness go hand in hand. Letting a new person into your life may bring you immeasurable gifts. Gifts you can’t imagine right now in this wood-paneled law office with the unflattering lighting. You should open yourself up to the possibility that Serena might be a gift. She may help us work through all the crap that Dad left us to handle. Maybe she’s the reward. That’s all.” Every once in a while, all the mumbo jumbo that Maggie had internalized through meditation retreats, and self-improvement classes, and Burning Man bubbled up to the surface in a cohesive statement that impressed listeners. “Let’s stay open to what our relationship with Serena might become.” Liza nodded in agreement. Tricia was outnumbered.

“One thing’s for sure. I’m not leaving. There’s no way I can go back to work until we find this manuscript and get everything sorted out at the house,” Tricia said, turning to Liza, who was surprised by the announcement.