Gladys took a cloth napkin from the table and dabbed the corners of her lips.

“All right. Here you go. I proposed to Oliver.” She held out both hands to her friends and they took them, forming a circle.

With a squeeze, Dottie pulled away and leaned back in her chair, taking in that revelation. “Well, I don’t know if I’m surprised or not. I mean, if I’d ever thought that you would be tying the knot, I supposed I would have pictured you being the one to ask.”

“When does our Gladys ever do anything conventionally?” asked Margaret. This would be a good story to tell William. Or not. She’d already gushed about Dottie and George’s wedding.

“I want all the details,” Dottie insisted.

Crack. Another lightning bolt. But the windows seemed safe from fallen branches for the moment.

A uniformed woman came through the swinging door between the rooms and cleared their empty plates.

“You have a cook?” Gladys’s jaw dropped.

“Let’s get it all out in the open, Gladys. And then no more distractions until you have told your story. We have a nanny, a cook, and a housekeeper. Yes, I know that seems extravagant. No, I do not think it’s necessary. But my husband loves to dote on me and as soon as I feel fully settled in, I’m going to follow your lead and learn how to use it all for good. Now—your turn. Go.”

Margaret held a napkin to her mouth to avoid disclosing the huge grin that had spread across her face.

The cook brought out a plate of hot roasted beets with fresh parsley sprigs and Gladys made no comment as she waited for her to leave before continuing.

“Look. I misled you both at the beach.”

Dottie and Margaret glanced at each other and then back at Gladys.

“I told you that Oliver leaves his shavings in the sink in the morning. And I’m sure you extrapolated—there’s a word to share with your boyfriend, Margaret—something that wasn’t entirely true. He has stayed over a few times when a story in Brooklyn kept him out late and he was too tired to go back to the city. But I slept in the bed. And he slept on the couch. Every time.”

Dottie cocked her head. “Are you saying that you haven’t—”

“I’m saying that, believe it or not, Saint Dorothy is the only sullied one among us.”

“And he didn’t try—”

“No! And that’s the part that drives me batty. I told him he didn’t have to stay on the couch. And he told me that he’s old-fashioned about those things. His words exactly.”