How far back does the property reach? Odilie wondered. It seemed to stretch for miles, the horizon receding into infinity. It must be a trick of the light, she thought, something to do with how the grounds were laid out. She was about to ask Peri about the perimeters of the property, but Peri quickly became engaged in a conversation with a tiny blonde, her teeth too big for her face, her sunken, speckled chest giving away her age more truthfully than her face did. “Louisa, this is my friend, Odilie Patterson. Louisa is our host for the evening!” she heard Peri say, and as Odilie extended her arm to shake this woman’s hand she felt Louisa’s gaze hover over Odilie’s shoulder, as if she were so uninteresting, she didn’t even merit a moment of eye contact.

“You have such a lovely home,” Odilie tried. Louisa murmured something in response and took Peri by the arm, guiding her away.

“There are some people I want you to meet. I introduced Tom to them earlier, but they’re thrilled by the idea of meeting the beauty behind his brains...” And the two of them wandered off, leaving Odilie standing there with her flute of champagne, conspicuously alone. Just like the evening at the Sanderses’ party.

Odilie knew Peri wanted her to try, to go up to people and speak with them, make her presence known. That was what people with gumption did, anyway. But Odilie knew that no one was interested in speaking with her without Peri there, especially in an older crowd like this, less likely to get wasted or coked up and spill their secrets to anyone or anything, including drying plaster.

So Odilie began to walk in the direction of the ponies, through the boundless expanse that was this lawn. She took off her heels so she could walk on the grass, feeling the lush greenery on the soles of her feet. It almost didn’t seem real, the texture of the blades between her toes.

She walked on, away from the swarming partygoers, their sounds becoming more and more muted, the lights from the pool and the house diminishing as she kept advancing forward. Maybe it was the expensive champagne, but her body, it felt different, lighter, like her feet were now barely touching the ground. All the speed and cigarettes, Odilie had found that she’d grown too used to them, that her body was beginning to reject them, that after months she could now feel the swell of hunger again.