“Marriage equality is important. It’s a big part of her platform.”

“She can marry a duck as far as I am concerned. But we’re talking about intimates here. It’s like inviting a rooster into the henhouse. Allowing the volleyball team’s towel boy into the girls’ locker room … letting a little boy make cupcakes.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense.” Eliza frowns.

“Of course there will be trouble.”

“Lesbians wear teddies, too, Melissa. Lighten up.”

Instead, Melissa slams off the water and pivots to the bar. “Eric, I’ll have another—”

But Eric has left his post—Maggie made him and Chad vacate once the lingerie came out—so Melissa pours herself the best approximation of a Desert Sun she can manage: whiskey over rocks, a splash of lemon juice, sugar cube plunking to the bottom of her tumbler.

Gripping two wines, Eliza returns to the circle of women. Melissa has a sudden, pressing need for fresh air, and steps with her cocktail out onto the back patio. The yard is quiet, save for the gurgle of the hot tub. Steam spills off of it in thin, gauzy sheets. It’s chilly, and she wishes she had her beautiful coat.

Through the windows, Melissa can see the women admiring a slinky bra. Eliza is cajoling Candy to take off her jacket; below she is wearing a cream-colored camisole. Chantelle holds the bra up to the woman’s chest, and the baseball wives smile.

In another window, Cecilia sits in an armchair, her child on her lap, the chair’s reading light casting her in a warm glow. She looks like a Madonna, like a child herself, a doll. Was Melissa ever that young? That certain of herself, that unafraid of what the world might think? She wants to be Cecilia, to start again with a young husband, a new baby. How much she’d do differently.

Across the patio, the blue light of a giant television spills into the yard, the two-headed silhouette of Eric and Chad against the den’s six-foot TV. They are watching basketball, the Suns versus the Bulls. The Suns are ahead; she can read the score from here.

Melissa drinks the rest of her glass in a gulp. Now she does not need her jacket; the whiskey warms her from the inside.

“Hal wants to get a divorce,” she says to the potted aloe. There, she’s finally said it. But nothing happens, not a rustle in the pointy leaves, not a lightning strike, not anything. Just the steady gurgle of the hot tub, the hum and tick of the desert night. “He’s going to leave me.”

She’s not a crier, but she feels her eyes getting hot and heavy with liquid.