Phoebe wakes at noon to Lila knocking on her door and immediately asking for an opinion on a sailor-style hat. Phoebe is struck again by Lila's self-absorption, especially because Lila never asks how Phoebe is after Phoebe's openly suicidal crisis. Still, Phoebe now experiences Lila's indifference as a relief, because Phoebe wants to keep the previous night's hot-tub encounter private and preserve it as a life-giving memory.

On the balcony, Lila shifts from the hat to complaining that she can no longer trust her friends Nat and Suz. Lila is angry that they let her walk around with food in her teeth and then praised her mother's reception speech, which Lila found false and painful. As Lila talks, deeper dissatisfaction emerges: Lila resists the idea that everything around her is "wonderful," and when Phoebe asks whether Gary is wonderful, Lila reveals uncertainty about what a husband is even supposed to be. The conversation suggests cracks beneath the polished surface of the wedding week.

Lila then notices Phoebe's unmade bed and offers shallow self-help advice about making the bed, which Phoebe deflects with dark humor. Lila orders room service coffee and breakfast, and the ordinary act of planning food and coffee makes Phoebe realize that, if she is not going to die, she now has to resume living: book a flight, email Bob, face Adam, return to St. Louis, and bury Harry. Lila insists that Phoebe join the wedding group on a sailing trip at two, partly because the boat needs more people and partly because Lila wants her there. Phoebe resists, but Lila has already arranged for Phoebe to keep the room for the week and promises to solve the problem of what Phoebe can wear.

After Lila leaves, Phoebe reflects on how suddenly life can collapse or change direction. Instead of being dead, Phoebe is now eating the absurdly named Patriotic French Toast, hungry and disappointed only that it is not actually patriotic-looking. She washes up, takes a long shower, and begins to enjoy the hotel's small luxuries again. Another knock reveals a bag of clothes from Lila, including something sequined, and Phoebe feels a surprising thrill at the thought of spending the day dressed in another woman's clothes and stepping back into life.