It was cold outside and the snow was pretty, but so heavy that she could practically hear the snowflakes fall, and so thick that she couldn’t make out the farm fields on the ten-minute drive out to Delavan. The rare streetlights appeared as refracted blobs in the ice crystals on the passenger window. Finally, Val pulled into the long driveway of the only house with lights on for miles around. The home was giant and squat, with stone walls and big wooden pillars in front of the door; it was part cottage, part estate. “Nice, huh?” Val said, her pace picking up as she approached the entrance and rang the doorbell.

Danny opened the door. He was broad-shouldered and so blond his hair was almost white. He wore a Milwaukee Brewers T-shirt and shorts, impervious to the cold. “Your house is so nice!” Sherri exclaimed.

“It’s my nana’s,” he said. “She’s a snowbird.”

“What’s that?”

“She winters at her house in Sarasota.”

Sherri loved hearing the word “winter” as a verb. She couldn’t imagine owning two houses, especially when one of them was this nice.

“I thought Sherri could use a good time,” Val said.

“You came to the right place. Come in, come in.” Danny’s smile was broad and easy; he liked Sherri, but then again, he liked everyone, and everyone liked him, because he was so happy and seemingly uncomplicated. Val lit a cigarette and passed one to Sherri. She wanted to look cool with a cigarette, although she’d catch herself pinching it between her fingers in a death grip and staring intently at the smoke when she exhaled. Cool smokers, she noticed, acted like they’d almost forgotten they had a cigarette in their hand.

Danny handed Sherri a plastic Solo cup. “Go get yourself some wap,” he said.

“Some what?”

Danny laughed and pointed at a metal garbage can in the kitchen. Bunny Ginger was pouring a bottle of peppermint schnapps into it. She wore her long, ashy-blond hair pulled into a ponytail on top of her head, like a palm frond, and it made her seem even taller than she was. “Sherri’s here! Have some wapatui!” She grabbed the end of a hockey stick and stirred the mixture. “Pour a bottle, mix it up, all night long you throw it back up.”