Paxton smiled at the girls as she walked over to them and gave them small bags of chocolate. As president, she always gave the girls gifts at meetings, to make them feel included. They all hugged her, and she squeezed them back. She’d assumed she’d be married and have kids by this age, that she would be grooming her own daughter for this, as her friends were doing. She wanted it so much she would dream about it sometimes, and then she would wake up with the skin at her wrists and neck red from the scratchy lace of the wedding gown she’d dreamed of wearing. But she’d never felt anything for the men she’d dated, nothing beyond her own desperation. And her desire to marry wasn’t strong enough, would never be strong enough, to allow her to marry a man she didn’t love.

She skipped the food, as she always did because of the looks some of her friends gave her, eyeing her wide hips, and went to the front of the room, saying her hellos along the way. A strange breeze slithered by her, which sounded like whispers of secrets. She shook it off distractedly.

She took out her notebooks at the podium. “All right, everyone, come to order. We have a lot to discuss. RSVPs for the gala are pouring in. And Moira has a request that the Madam open to overnight guests early, so that some elderly attendees coming in from out of town can stay there the evening of the gala. But first, the reading of minutes from the last meeting. Stacey?”

Stacey Herbst stood and flipped through her notebook. She had recently started dying her hair red and, though everyone told her they missed her brown hair, the truth was she looked better as a redhead. But she would probably go back to brown soon. What people thought meant too much to her.

Stacey opened her mouth to read the minutes but, amazingly, what came out was, “I steal lipstick every time I go to the drugstore. I can’t help myself. I just drop a tube in my purse and walk out. I love that none of you know, that it’s a secret I keep from you.”

She slapped her hand over her mouth.

Paxton’s brows rose. But before she could say anything, Honor Redford, who had been president of the club before Paxton had taken over, blurted out, “Ever since my husband lost his job I’ve been afraid I won’t be able to afford the club dues, and none of you will like me anymore.”

Moira Kinley turned to the woman sitting next to her and said, “You know why I like going places in public with you? Because I’m prettier, and you make me feel better about myself.”

“I had that new addition built just because I knew it would make you jealous.”

“I really did have a boob job.”

“I know you have a bladder problem, but I tell everyone that the reason you have to go to the bathroom so often is because you’re bulimic.”

Now everyone was talking at once, and each thing they said was more outrageous than the last. Paxton stared at them impatiently. She thought at first that they were playing a joke on her, because some of them thought it was funny to try to get a rise out of her, as she was notoriously unflustered. But then she realized that everyone looked panicked, their eyes like horses running scared. It was as if everything they were secretly thinking had suddenly been given a voice, and they were powerless to stop it.

“Order,” Paxton said. “Everyone come to order.” This had no effect. The din escalated. Paxton stepped up onto her chair and clapped loudly, then yelled, “Come to order! What is the matter with you?”

The noise dissipated as everyone looked up at her. She stepped down. She could feel it now, an uneasiness creeping along her skin. She blinked a few times, because things suddenly seemed distorted, like looking at your reflection in a spoon. She had to stop herself from blurting out that she was in love with someone she shouldn’t be, something she’d never admitted to anyone. But now she was aching to say it. God, it felt like she would die, that she would choke on it, if she didn’t get it out.

She swallowed and managed to say instead, “Kirsty, I think something might be wrong with your air conditioner. I think we’re being affected by fumes.”

“At least I have my own house,” Kirsty murmured as she got up and crossed the room to the thermostat. “At least I don’t live in my parents’ pool house.”

“Excuse me?” Paxton said.

“Wh … I …” Kirsty stammered. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

Paxton rallied everyone and got them to open all the windows and take deep breaths. The sticky July heat crawling into the room quickly made everyone sweat through their light summer powders. The meeting was called to order, and the list of things needing to be addressed was checked off, but Paxton could tell some women just weren’t listening. It was close to ten o’clock when the meeting finally ended. Everyone kissed one another’s cheeks and rushed off to their respective houses to make sure everything was all right, that homes hadn’t burned down, that husbands hadn’t left, that their best dresses still fit.

Paxton sat in her car in Kirsty’s driveway, watching cars peel out, thinking to herself, What in the hell just happened here?

Instead of going home, Paxton drove to Sebastian Rogers’s house. She saw that his lights were still on, so she pulled into his driveway.

When Sebastian moved back to Walls of Water to take over old Dr. Kostovo’s dental practice last year, he’d also bought Dr. Kostovo’s house, because Dr. K was retiring to Nevada to get away from the moist Walls of Water air that bothered his arthritis. It was a dark stone house with a decorative stone turret. It was called Shade Tree Cottage, and Sebastian once told Paxton that he liked the drama of the place, that he liked to pretend he was living in an episode of Dark Shadows.

She knocked on his door. Moments later, Sebastian opened it. “Hello, beautiful,” he said, and opened the door farther for her to enter. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”

“I just wanted to say hi,” she said as she walked in, and the words sounded lame, even to her, as if there necessarily had to be an excuse, even though she knew he didn’t mind her stopping by.

She walked to the living room and sat on the couch, where he’d obviously been watching television. Judging by the outside, one would expect swords and coats of arms on the walls inside, but Sebastian had instead made the interior light and comfortable. He had moved back not long after she’d decided against buying the townhouse, and she’d enjoyed watching this place turn into his own. She even secretly envied his independence sometimes. She took off her shoes and tucked her feet under her as Sebastian sat beside her and crossed his legs at the knees. He was wearing drawstring pants and a T-shirt. His feet were bare, his toenails neatly trimmed.

Sebastian was a beautiful man, his face as delicate as a John Donne poem. Everyone presumed he was gay, but no one really knew for sure. He neither confirmed nor denied it, not in high school, and not now. Paxton was fairly certain, though, that she was the only person here to have ever seen proof. In high school he’d been thin and fair, wore eyeliner and long coats, and carried a satchel when everyone else in school had L.L.Bean backpacks. He’d been hard to miss. That’s why he’d caught her eye in the Asheville Mall their senior year. Asheville was about an hour outside of Walls of Water, and Paxton and her friends went there nearly every Saturday. Sebastian had been in the food court with at least a half-dozen other flamboyant teenage boys, boys not from Walls of Water. This was a different crowd, one not seen in small towns. She and her friends had been walking by when she’d spotted him. Suddenly, one of the exotic boys with black spiky hair and elbow-length black-and-white fingerless gloves leaned over the table and kissed Sebastian full on the mouth, deeply. At some point during the kiss, Sebastian had opened his eyes and seen her. Still kissing the boy, his eyes followed her as she’d walked away. She couldn’t remember ever seeing something as bold and seductive.