Sherri checks her phone. “I should get going,” she says. Truthfully, she wants to leave; she needs some time to reorganize her memories around this new truth. “I’m happy it worked out to come see you.”

“Are you going to see the other Bunnies?”

“Not this trip,” Sherri says. “But we’re still in touch. Well, just a few of us. Ginger visits me in Palm Springs each winter. She and Lizzy. Her wife.”

“Oh boy, I sure saw that one coming. You know Ola and Biata are gone.” Val points at the sky with her index finger. “They owned a tailor shop in Lake Geneva up until a few years ago. And Boo isn’t with us anymore,” Val says. “We’ve lost more than a few rabbits.”

Is that what they are now that they’re older? Rabbits?

“It’s a shame the cancer came back,” Val says. “She gave it a good fight, I’ll tell you that. We stayed in touch until the end.”

“And Gwen?”

“Oh, she’s a bigwig at Northwestern Mutual. She serves on all kinds of boards. I see her name in the paper all the time and I think, there’s our Gwen.” Val mentions some Bunnies Sherri has forgotten or remembers only vaguely, which she finds disconcerting. Karen, Jessica, Kris, Peggy, Ann, Jin, Susy, Denise. It amazes her that people can pass through her life and fade out of her memory, like last season’s reality television contestants.

“What about Carmen?” Sherri asks. She’s tried to find her, but with no luck. It’s hard to find old friends when so many of them have married and changed their names. Not Sherri. She went right back to Taylor as soon as her divorce was finalized.

Val winces with displeasure at the sound of Carmen’s name. “I ran into her at the State Fair a few years back. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. She had to break away from her family to talk to me. She’s in Mequon now, married to an anesthesiologist. A real North Shore Nancy in her white jean jacket. She doesn’t want anyone to know about her past.”

“Carmen? How’d she keep her mouth shut about that?”

“I guess it’s one thing to talk about other people’s business, and another to talk about your own. Even her kids don’t know. It was all I could do not to chase after them and say something about Sugar Shack.”