Chapter 1

A jangle of keys, then the slight suction of the door opening, as the weatherstripping let the doorframe go with a rubbery smack. Doreen pushed the door wide with the shopping bag and set her purse down on the foyer table under the mirror, nudging the dried flowers slightly. Then the bag was set down with a thump on the floor.

The house was silent, not just the absence of activity but the absence of any reason for activity, like a shuttered business, an empty bank vault. At first, after Paul's death, the silence had unnerved her; two years on, it was simply how the world was, airless and still. The door closed behind her and the vault was sealed.

She hoisted the bag up again off the floor and carried it to the kitchen, swaying back and forth with each step, like a penguin. Part of that was being put off balance by the bag— too many jars, but there had been specials on single serving spaghetti sauces— but part of it was her weight. Once her hips had swayed around to make her butt wiggle; now they swayed to get around her thick thighs.

She put the bag on the counter, then sank into one of the barstools, its metal legs creaking under her. A droplet of sweat ran down her neck and into her considerable cleavage, presently the color of blush on a peach. She could see her dyed hair reflected in the stainless range hood; no one would mistake the red-brown for a natural color at her age, but it favored her all the same, she liked it. It gave the impression that there might be someone to find her attractive.

She would put the groceries away in a minute but first she wanted to check the mail, which she had pulled out of the box in a bundle and dropped in the bag. Advertising circulars, credit card and funeral pre-planning offers— as quickly as they were picked up, they were dropped into the trash can. But then there was a square envelope, like an invitation. She tried to think if anyone's children she could think of were getting married. She flipped it over and there was a simple sketch, hardly more than a few lines, of a shape—

—the shape of a woman? It was vague enough that you could read a number of things into it. But as soon as she saw a woman's body, she could see nothing else in those lines. You're imagining things out of desire, she laughed at herself. It couldn't be meant to be a woman, she thought. Because if it was a woman, it was a fat one, and who would have meant it to look like that.

She popped the seal on the envelope and pulled out a handwritten card. At the top was the same simple drawing and the words "Zaftig Society." Below that was written:

"It has been suggested by one of our members that you are an unattached woman of the sort that appeals to our club. You are invited to our meetings. We assure you of the utmost respect and discretion from our membership, male and female. Dress code: glAmorous."

Beneath that were listings of a few addresses and dates; the next one was this Friday.

What in God's name? she thought. A prank, a joke. What else could it be. She dropped it in the trash, too, and in a moment she had forgotten it.

But she hadn't. The next day at the travel agency she owned, that she and Paul had owned, the strange card came into her mind. At first she couldn't even think of the name of it— Zippy, Zazzy— but it came to her. She decided to ask Muriel, one of the agents. Muriel was older than she was by a couple of decades, but she was one of those leather-voiced old gals who you know had once been quite the wild dish, back in her day. Which was the one being celebrated on "Mad Men" these days, more or less.

"Muriel, have you ever heard of something called the Zaftig Society?"

Muriel's eyes widened and she let out a laugh that could have come from a seal and smelled of cigarettes stretching back to the Kennedy years. "Now where did you hear that name?"

Something told Doreen that she should distance herself quickly from too close an identification with this topic. "I-- I heard a client say it to someone in his office," she said.

Muriel narrowed her eyes. "Well, let's hope he was talking about you," she said.

"Why? What does it mean?" Doreen said. She could feel herself blushing.

"It was a club, back when I was younger," she said. "A ... swinger's club. A very posh one."

"Oh my!" Doreen said. "I hope he wasn't referring to me!"

"Take compliments where you can get 'em, honey," Muriel said. "It was a club for married people who liked a little action, but they weren't like most of them that were always trying to get the cute young secretaries. Like me," she said, and sighed. "They seemed to go for a more mature type of female."

"So they're not around any more, I hope."

"Christ, if there's any of 'em still around they'd be a hunnerd years old," Muriel said. "It'd have to be somebody pretty old to even remember the name. Who was it, old man Ferguson or somebody? That old goat—"