“There must be more books,” said Asher.

Dilly shook her head.

“What about Away We Fly?” Ivan asked, winking at him. Asher shivered in delight. Ivan took a special interest in Asher during book club. Mostly, Asher was sure, because Asher was the malest person present. Outside the ecosystem of the meetings, Ivan barely responded to Asher’s texts. Ivan would probably reject anyone without a “real” dick. But even if Asher had been assigned male at birth, Ivan, with his boyish face and mischievous mouth, his black flop of hair and long, athletic body, perpetually relaxed in crisply fresh cotton sweaters, would’ve been miles beyond his league.

“Away We Fly is not feminist,” Dilly said, fluffing her bushy red ponytail.

“What about Hegar’s Mouth?” asked Hera. Hera’s queerness had not yet manifested but was the subject of speculation among the three other members. Why was she there? In what way could she be queer? This sturdy Pakistani woman, forty at least, the director of some youth program, short and serious and earnest, hair gleaming against her scalp, coiled at the neck like a pretzel.

“Decidedly antifeminist,” said Dilly.

“Antifeminist?” Asher had loved Hegar’s Mouth, had been roused by the private world of men he’d hoped to someday join.

“That’s ridiculous, Dilly,” Ivan said, shaking back his thick hair. “It’s a decent choice.” If Dilly were to listen to anyone she’d listen to Ivan, who was doing a PhD too, in Political Science.

“If women do not exist in a given world,” Dilly said, “that world as we know it is antifeminist. Worse, antiwoman.”

“Fine, then,” said Hera. “What about Grim Follies?”

“Sorry, no.” Dilly stretched her soft bluish neck. She presented as any sassy nerd until you learned she was Atlanta’s lesbian Casanova. That’s why Hera—ambiguously straight—was the only other girl in book club. Every lesbian in three adjacent zip codes had been through the wringer of a ten-day-average affair with Dilly and in its wake could not be prevailed upon to join.

“It follows a lesbian giantess,” Ivan put in. “What’s more feminist than that?”

“I didn’t say it was antifeminist,” Dilly said. “Grim Follies is nothing if not feminist. It was engineered by committee for the new feminist audience that was predicted pre-election.”

“Don’t talk about the election,” Ivan said, reaching out a sinewy arm to neaten his gravel pile. “This is the one place we don’t talk about the election.”

“Then don’t bring up Grim Follies.” Dilly rubbed a dry patch by her mouth, chafing from her latest affair. “Grim Follies is inextricable from the election results we thought we’d have.”