Chap­ter 10 opens with the char­ac­ters aboard a small sail­boat, a set­ting that quick­ly becomes a can­vas for play­ful exchanges and sub­tle ten­sion. As they sail, the cap­tain warns them not to lean too far back to pre­vent tip­ping the boat, spark­ing a wave of light-heart­ed ban­ter among the group. Mar­la, ever the crit­ic, jok­ing­ly chal­lenges the captain’s instruc­tion, mak­ing the moment feel more like an inside joke than a gen­uine con­cern. Mean­while, Lila remains com­posed, chat­ting com­fort­ably and request­ing a drink called “Vaca­tions in a Cup,” which sparks a humor­ous debate among the group about how to prop­er­ly plu­ral­ize the drink’s name. This seem­ing­ly triv­ial argu­ment becomes a sym­bol of the play­ful dynam­ics at play with­in the group, par­tic­u­lar­ly high­light­ing Marla’s legal back­ground. Her instinct to argue over tech­ni­cal­i­ties con­trasts sharply with the oth­ers’ more relaxed atti­tude, lead­ing to laughs and shared mem­o­ries, includ­ing a fun­ny sto­ry about their col­lege days spent steal­ing wine from a church. It’s clear from these inter­ac­tions that the group, despite their dif­fer­ing per­son­al­i­ties, shares a bond root­ed in famil­iar­i­ty and a sense of humor.

As the con­ver­sa­tion flows, how­ev­er, a sud­den shift occurs when an awk­ward silence set­tles in. Marla’s inabil­i­ty to read the room becomes evi­dent, her play­ful nature stalling in the pres­ence of unspo­ken ten­sion. Gary, Lila’s fiancé, tries to break the silence and smooth over the dis­com­fort, but his efforts only high­light the com­plex­i­ties with­in his rela­tion­ship with Lila. Their bond, while out­ward­ly har­mo­nious, is taint­ed by Gary’s emo­tion­al bag­gage from past strug­gles, cre­at­ing an under­ly­ing ten­sion that Phoebe begins to notice more acute­ly. Her husband’s strained con­nec­tion with Lila con­trasts with the jovial nature of the rest of the group, rais­ing ques­tions about the authen­tic­i­ty of their love and the emo­tion­al dis­tance between them. This dis­con­nect is fur­ther empha­sized as the group’s light-heart­ed ban­ter, which serves as a mask for deep­er issues, con­tin­ues. Marla’s need for con­stant val­i­da­tion and approval from oth­ers adds to the dis­com­fort, as it becomes appar­ent that while the group is try­ing to main­tain a cheer­ful atmos­phere, there are cracks form­ing in their rela­tion­ships, most notably between Lila and Gary.

Phoebe, now the cen­ter of atten­tion, is asked to weigh in on the gram­mat­i­cal debate regard­ing the plu­ral­iza­tion of the drink. As an Eng­lish pro­fes­sor, she offers a solu­tion that brings a much-need­ed sense of clar­i­ty and comedic relief, cap­tur­ing the group’s atten­tion momen­tar­i­ly. This moment of focus on Phoebe light­ens the atmos­phere, allow­ing every­one to momen­tar­i­ly shift their atten­tion from the under­ly­ing dis­com­fort to the humor of the sit­u­a­tion. The group shares a few drinks in a much-need­ed break from the ten­sion, yet the mood remains under­cut by the loom­ing real­i­ty of Marla’s per­son­al dis­trac­tions. As Mar­la frets over an expired car reg­is­tra­tion, the shift in focus pulls the group’s ener­gy away from the momen­tary joy and back toward the unre­solved issues that seem to plague each of them. Marla’s anx­i­ety over minor incon­ve­niences serves as a metaphor for the larg­er emo­tion­al strug­gles she faces, par­tic­u­lar­ly her need for con­trol in an oth­er­wise chaot­ic life.

Phoebe, though momen­tar­i­ly dis­tract­ed by the group’s dynam­ics, finds her­self in the midst of her own inter­nal tur­moil. Still reel­ing from the loss of her dog, Har­ry, Phoebe grap­ples with feel­ings of dis­con­nec­tion. She begins to reflect on her per­son­al sense of iden­ti­ty, real­iz­ing that her grief is not only linked to the loss of her dog but also to her ongo­ing strug­gles with her place in the world. The chap­ter touch­es on the dis­par­i­ty between Phoebe’s emo­tion­al jour­ney and Marla’s des­per­ate need for order, high­light­ing how each character’s inter­nal bat­tles man­i­fest in dif­fer­ent ways. As Phoebe attempts to recon­nect with her own sense of joy and pur­pose, she reflects on the idea that true emo­tion­al heal­ing often comes from embrac­ing one’s strug­gles, not avoid­ing them. This real­iza­tion brings a sense of clar­i­ty to Phoebe’s per­spec­tive, though it’s clear that her jour­ney is far from over. The emo­tion­al cli­max of the chap­ter comes when Juice, Gary’s daugh­ter, per­forms a makeshift funer­al for her vir­tu­al dog named Human Princess, which leads Phoebe to con­front her own grief. The sim­ple act of hon­or­ing the loss of some­thing, even if it’s just a vir­tu­al dog, res­onates deeply with Phoebe, remind­ing her that grief, while per­son­al, is some­thing that can be shared. It is this con­nec­tion to others—whether through humor or through shared loss—that offers the promise of emo­tion­al res­o­lu­tion in a world filled with uncer­tain­ty. The chap­ter con­cludes with Phoebe con­tem­plat­ing the del­i­cate bal­ance between joy and sor­row, rec­og­niz­ing that while these emo­tions coex­ist, they also shape the paths we take toward heal­ing and under­stand­ing.