Anna sighed inwardly. Normally the dogs knew to make themselves scarce when Eleanor showed up, making a run for the large doggie door in the mudroom, but they must have refused this time as they were still awaiting Anna’s arrival. “Gemma! Jon Snow! Backyard!” she commanded, and the giant snootbears got up and headed toward the kitchen. Anna followed them in case Magda, the head housekeeper, had already started cooking dinner. Jon Snow was a notorious counter thief who once savagely destroyed the Christmas turkey, which Anna swore he had learned from watching A Christmas Story on TV. She let the dogs out the French doors, and they galloped out onto the back lawn, turning around sadly when she shut the door and they realized she wasn’t coming out to play. Sorry guys, blame Eleanor.

Anna had planned to read through dinner, but now she had a feeling Eleanor would invite herself to stay, so she texted Magda that under no circumstance could she serve a multiple-course meal. Later, as the two girls ate a vegetable lasagna in the dining room together, Eleanor finally brought up the real reason for her visit. “Annie, can we real-talk now?” Eleanor asked, using her best grown-up voice, which sounded like a talk-show host on a heavy dose of Adderall. “Pweease?”

Anna hated that Eleanor called her Annie and had asked her several times not to, even once enlisting Alexander to make her stop doing it, too, though that didn’t work, either. And if that wasn’t enough, Eleanor held at least half her conversations in baby talk, which was like nails on a chalkboard to Anna’s ears. “Sure thing, what’s up?”

“I’m still undecided about what I want to do for my birthday. I mean, besides spending it with my BFF, obvi! Mommy wants to throw me a family dinner at the club, so I’m supposed to find out what works best for you and Alexander. Is he coming down this weekend?”

Anna shook her head. “Nope, I was just there and he has a paper to write.”

Eleanor’s face fell at the information, landing on her most annoying pouty look.

“Well, I guess we could do my b-day family din-din the weekend after, but that’s a little sad for me. You know, because my birthday is technically one day closer to this weekend than the next.” This was Eleanor’s specialty: passive-aggressive pouting until she wore you out emotionally and got what she wanted. “Maybe Alexander could write his paper here? I just think my birthday family dinner would be so much better if it was this Sunday night at the club.”