Over the last few years, Brooke worked two jobs to help support her husband’s musical aspirations, but one of her friends explains that “Brooke would’ve done anything necessary to help Julian seek the fame she’s always so desired. Two jobs, ten jobs—none of it mattered, so long as she was married to a celebrity.” The mother of a student enrolled at the elite Upper East Side private school where Brooke offers nutritional counseling reports, “She seems like a perfectly nice person, although my daughter did tell me that she often leaves early or cancels appointments.” The work problems don’t stop there. A colleague at NYU Medical Center explains that “Brooke used to be the number one performer in our entire program, but she’s really slipped lately. Whether she’s distracted by her husband’s career or just bored of her own, it’s been sad to watch.”

As for those pregnancy rumors that were started on the Today show and quickly quashed by US Weekly the following week with photographic evidence that the Alters are not expecting? Well, don’t expect that to change any time soon. An old friend of Julian’s claims that Brooke has been “pushing for a baby since the day they met, but Julian keeps putting her off because he’s still not positive she’s the One.”

And with trouble brewing like that, who can blame him?

“I have complete faith that Julian will do the right thing,” a source close to Julian said recently. “He’s an amazing kid with such a solid head on his shoulders. He’ll find the right path.”

She didn’t know when the tears began, but by the time she finished reading, they had puddled near the keyboard and dampened her cheeks, chin, and lips. There were no words to describe how it felt to read something like that about yourself, to know that it was patently untrue but to wonder—because how couldn’t you?—if there weren’t tiny kernels of truth. Of course all that stuff about how she and Julian met, and why, was ridiculous, but did his parents really hate her? Was her reputation at both her jobs being compromised by how much work she’d missed? Could there be any sliver of truth to the story’s supposed reason why Julian didn’t want a baby right now? It was horrifying beyond comprehension.

Brooke read it a second time and then a third. She may have sat there reading and rereading it all day long, but her phone rang again. It was Julian this time.

“Rook, I can’t even tell you how pissed I am! It’s one thing if they want to write a bunch of trash about me, but when they start in on you . . .”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she lied. She wanted nothing more than to talk about it, to ask Julian point by point if he agreed with any of the twisted claims the article made, but she didn’t have the energy.

“I’ve already spoken to Samara, and she promised me that the legal team at Sony was preparing to—”

“Julian, I really don’t want to talk about it,” she repeated. “It’s horrible and hateful and universally untrue—I hope—and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. We are hosting nine people including ourselves for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I need to start preparing.”

“Brooke, I don’t want you to think for a single second that—”

“Okay, I know. You’re still coming home tomorrow, right?” She held her breath.

“Of course! I’m on the first flight out, so I’ll land around eight and come directly from LaGuardia. Do you need me to pick up anything?”

Brooke clicked the hateful article closed and opened her Thanksgiving shopping list. “I think I’ve got everything . . . actually, a couple more bottles of wine. Maybe one more red and one more white.”

“Of course, baby. I’ll be home in just a little bit and we can work through this, okay? Call you later.”

“Mmm. Okay.” Her voice sounded cold and distant, and even though it wasn’t Julian’s fault, she couldn’t help feeling resentful.

They hung up and she thought first about phoning Nola and then her mother, but decided the only way to deal with this was not to deal with it. She called to check on the table rentals, brined the turkey, washed the potatoes for mashing the next day, made the cranberry sauce, and trimmed the asparagus. After that, it was time for a massive apartment clean and reorganization, which she tackled to the blasting sounds of an old hip-hop CD from high school. She’d planned to go for a manicure around five, but when she peeked out the window, at least two and maybe four men with Escalades and cameras were lurking on the street below. Brooke glanced at her cuticles and back at the men: so not worth it.

By the time she crawled into bed that night with Walter, she had managed to delude herself into believing that the whole thing would just go away. Even though it was the very first thing that popped into her mind when she woke up on Thanksgiving morning, she managed to force the thought back. There was so much to do to get ready, and people would be there in five hours. When Julian arrived home a little after nine, she insisted they change the subject.

“But, Rook, I just don’t think it’s healthy not to discuss this,” he said as he helped push all their living room furniture against the walls to make room for the rented table.

“I just don’t know what there is to say. It’s all a massive bunch of lies, and yes, it’s upsetting—mortifying—to read stuff like that about myself and my marriage, but unless any of it’s actually true, I just don’t see what hashing and rehashing this is going to do. . . .” She looked at him questioningly.

“Not a single word of it is true. Not that crap about my parents, or me not thinking you’re ‘the one’—none of it.”

“So let’s focus on today, okay? What time did your parents say they’re leaving? I won’t have Neha and Rohan come over until they’re gone. I just don’t think we’ll be able to fit everyone at the same time.”

“They’re coming at one for a drink, and I told them they had to be gone by two. Does that work?”

Brooke picked up a stack of magazines and hid them in the hallway closet. “That’s perfect. Everyone else is arriving at two. Tell me again I shouldn’t feel guilty that we’re kicking them out.”

Julian snorted. “We’re hardly kicking them out. They’re going to the Kamens’. Trust me, they won’t want to stay a minute longer.”