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The Note
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Themes
The Fragility of Trust
The friendship between Lauren, Kelsey, and May first begins when they all meet at Camp Wildwood, a central location for each woman’s coming-of-age experiences. Unfortunately, their time at Wildwood has been marred by scandal and death, and Alafair Burke uses this dynamic as a lens to examine the many unspoken pressures of female friendships. Notably, the three friends’ camaraderie is profoundly affected by the complexities of various romantic relationships, along with career pressures and the ravages of racism. As the details of their multilayered interactions unfolds, it becomes clear that the confluence of secrets, past traumas, and external perceptions can threaten even the most enduring friendships. Thus, the Hamptons weekend precipitates an acute crisis for all three friends, forcing them to reevaluate their bonds and obligations to one another. Ironically, this highly divisive episode begins as a getaway that is intended to rekindle a neglected bond. However, as the friends soon realize, their casual, long-distance habit of playing a word game together every day is much easier than preserving their mutual support and loyalty in the midst of uncovering impactful lies.
Burke notes that in this trio, each person has a comfortable role to play, and the stability of the three-way friendship is contingent on this dynamic. When one person refuses to play their assigned role, the friendship suffers. As the former counselor, Lauren is “the original Queen Bee. The elder. Their glue. The one who had remained close to both May and Kelsey after the May/ Kelsey BFF Duo had fallen out of touch” (24). Given her overarching influence on the friend group, she still takes up a position as the responsible “older sister” even though Kelsey and May are now in their late thirties. Similarly, Kelsey is privileged, funny, and loving, while May is the overachieving worrier who is driven by her moral compass. However, this static understanding of each woman’s role grows threatened when May comes to resent the constant expectation of perfection that was established when she was a teenager, and in the context of the new crisis, she is the first to challenge the status quo in order to follow her instincts as an investigator.
As the events of the weekend in the Hamptons threaten to unravel the friend group completely, Burke shows that friendships can be threatened by growth, since the initial friendship relies on former feelings, self-perception, and values, and each new encounter—even in normal circumstances—forces each member to reevaluate their standing in the group. Confronted with the added stress of this dramatic scenario, the group’s existing rifts and unspoken resentments are brought to the fore, further threatening the women’s trust in each other. For example, Kelsey’s privilege has always driven a wedge between her and her friends, and now, Kelsey is even less in control of this effect, as Luke’s murder has forced her to cede a great deal of control to her father. Likewise, May’s privilege as a “model minority” also causes friction, for she managed to escape some of the systemic racism that Lauren faces every day. After the subway incident creates the public impression that May is racist, May fears that Lauren will also perceive May in this way. Thus, the many conflicts—both explicit and implied—reflect Burke’s efforts to portray a situation in which decades of overt friendship have been eroded by violated boundaries and an inability to trust.
The Burden of Secrets
Kelsey, Lauren, and May are deeply affected by the discovery of hidden truths that strain their long-standing friendship and cause significant personal turmoil, forcing each woman to reevaluate many firmly held beliefs about the past. This issue becomes apparent as the weekend in the Hamptons begins, for May harbors considerable anxiety over the reunion, worrying about how she will feel upon seeing her friends in person. Since she last saw them, her life has taken several unexpected terms; in addition to being asked to leave her law firm, and deciding to become an associate law professor, she has also gotten engaged to a man that her friends do not really like. Thus, even as she keeps certain aspects of her life from her friends, she is also compelled to keep secrets from her fiancé once the investigation into David Smith’s disappearance begins in earnest. May’s detective work, secret arrangements with her friends, and unexpected proximity with her ex-boyfriend Nate all combine to compromise her relationship with Josh, since she chooses not to include her fiancé in the finer points of the investigation. As Josh tries to pull her away from her friends and May clings more stubbornly to maintaining their secrets, she asks herself, “What was a marriage if she wasn’t allowed to make choices he might not agree with?” (366). In this way, the trouble with her friends forces her to realize that her inability to share her deepest concerns with Josh will become a major point of incompatibility with her future husband.
While Lauren is not the focus on the novel’s attention, she also bears the burden of secrets in her quiet way, for in her relationship with Thomas, she continues the same affair that got her fired from Wildwood camp and resulted in a highly public scandal. As she enters the weekend excited for a reunion with her friends, she nonetheless remains wary of the expectation of emotional closeness. Unlike Kelsey and May, she has never been an over-sharer, and she keeps her cards close to her chest. For most of the novel, Lauren acts as a relatively objective bystander, mirroring her past role as a camp counselor, and she consciously chooses to help Kelsey and May rather than engaging directly with the unfolding drama. However, when she realizes that May, not Marnie, was the one who sent the note to the Wildwood administrators, publicly announcing her relationship with Thomas and leading to the decision to fire her, this revelation comes as a shock and forces Lauren to realize that her trust in May was misplaced.
Of all the friends, Kelsey is the most deeply affected by the group’s work to uncover past secrets. Despite her privileged status in society and the benefits of her father’s wealth and influence, her life has been marked by loss, and she has had to endure the death of her mother, her father’s divorce from Jeanie, and her husband’s murder in the midst of a pending divorce of her own. Her ongoing trauma over these tumultuous events—and the resulting scandal and accompanying harassment—is reflected in the elaborate measures that she takes to avoid public attention. While the early chapters are designed to raise general suspicions around her deceptive behavior, the novel eventually reveals that many of her secrets are an unwanted burden that she feels compelled to carry for her own safety and well-being. In this light, her already fractured reality threatens to collapse completely when she learns that her stepbrother is the author of much of her life’s anguish. Ultimately, all three friends must recognize and address the long-term effects of the secrets that have haunted their lives.
The Impact of Personal History on Identity
Kelsey, Lauren, and May directly experience how personal history shapes their current identities, for as each woman attempts to escape the trauma of her past, she remains burdened by the ramifications of the choices made in her youth. May in particular embodies the complexities involved in reinventing personal identity, for she is deeply ashamed of anything resembling failure, and she cannot bear to share such moments with the people who are closest to her. As the narrative states, “She had never told anyone, not even her mother or Josh, that her departure from the law firm wasn’t exactly voluntary” (110). A self-proclaimed rule follower, May has spent her life crafting a careful image of competence and professionalism, but this painstakingly curated persona is shattered when a viral video captures an unflattering confrontation between her and a Black man on a subway platform. This incident alters how the world perceives her and deeply affects her perception of herself. Even as she attempts to move forward, the shame of the event lingers, making her hyper-aware of public perception.
This issue is further compounded by her childhood. Shaped by her single mother’s sacrifices and her absent father’s rejection, May harbors a drive for control and achievement, and her past abandonment leaves her with an underlying fear of vulnerability. These unresolved issues manifest in her romantic choices as she prioritizes stability over passion and settles for a relationship with Josh that feels safe rather than deeply fulfilling. Deeply affected by the widespread violence and prejudice against Chinese Americans during the COVID pandemic, May finds that her personality has changed because of the quarantine, and she has become “a person who […] needed downtime, who found energy in solitude” (110). May does not like the person she has become, and she hopes that associating with her friends will help her to reclaim her old self.
Just as May must contend with the fallout of the viral video, Lauren must also reinvent her sense of self in the wake of the public scandal over her relationship with Thomas. Additionally, although Lauren is a woman of immense talent, she cannot fully escape the label of “the other woman.” No matter how many professional successes she accumulates, her personal history taints how she is perceived by the public. Likewise, she finds herself haunted by the drowning of Marnie Mann, an incident for which she was unfairly blamed.
Finally, Kelsey undergoes a range of challenges despite the fact that she has been raised in a privileged family. In some ways, her background makes her ill-equipped to handle her present circumstances. She has always been accustomed to controlling narratives, and she is therefore frustrated by her inability to control how the world sees her after Luke’s murder. In a desperate attempt to improve her own reality, Kelsey becomes fixated on the idea of having a child, reasoning that if she were to become the kind of mother that she longed to have, she might be able to reclaim some form of agency over her life. Ultimately, Burke uses the three women’s unique challenges to explore the ways past decisions and experiences affect current career choices, relationships, and internal struggles.
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