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days.”
    â€œIt’ll kill you in other ways,” said Uncle Felix.
    Wilson’s martinis came and he handed one to me. He drank his quickly and ordered two more. “Country drunk,” he whispered, nudging me. Poor Wilson. Despite his small gestures of defiance—not changing his shirt, not drinking the wine—he craved nothing more than for Uncle Felix to nod in approval, to give Wilson the Griffith wink.
    The girl came over to take our orders, and I ordered the wedge salad all chopped up and tossed together, which is what I’d been eating at the club since I was eight. The San Joaquin Country Club made its wedge salad with romaine.
    â€œWhere’s the roast turkey?” Mother said. “When did they stop serving the roast turkey?”
    Dad pointed to the bottom of the menu, where the roast turkey had always been.
    â€œWilson,” said Uncle Felix, “you drink like a slob.”
    â€œOh, Felix, you’re mad I don’t want to drink your wine.” Wilson sloshed his drink from one side of the glass to the other. “Some of us are sick of wine. Are you sick of wine, Debby?”
    Mother started speaking before Debby could answer. “There’s Hilda Sorensen,” she said, nodding toward the other side of the dining room. “She’s seeing Greg Kappas again, isn’t she, Felix? She’s after him to get married.”
    â€œIs she?” Dad said. “Seeing him, I mean.” We didn’t even bother to lower our voices. There are no acoustics in the dining room. The club has the same d é cor it had when it was built in 1961: wood paneling, shag carpet, one wall made entirely of local Oakhurst stone. In a more humid climate, this is the sort of building that would reek of mold.
    â€œI’m not supposed to know that. Bootsie Calhoun told me. They go in there all the time.” Mother gestured when she spoke, so that no one in the room would miss the oversized diamonds on her tennis bracelet.
    â€œWhen did you speak to Bootsie?” I said.
    â€œBootsie misses you,” Mother said. “You weren’t so kind to her either, Ingrid. Also she makes this mojito with liquid nitrogen I think you’ll like. It freezes into a sorbet.”
    â€œThey can’t get married,” Uncle Felix said. “He can’t get a divorce.”
    â€œGreg and Arlene?” Dad said.
    â€œHe’s Greek Orthodox,” Mother said. “He can get a divorce. They get divorced all the time.”
    â€œNo, it’s impossible,” said Uncle Felix. “The riparian rights are in Arlene’s name. They belong to her family.”
    â€œArlene has the riparian rights!” my mother said, absolutely delighted, clapping her hands together. Mother didn’t like the young, perky Hilda Sorensen, a rich cotton farmer’s widow who’d turned much of her late husband’s land into pink stucco malls and who Mother thought had a habitual liking for married men. Kurt Sorensen had been married when Hilda met him. It was true that, years ago, she had made an obvious and embarrassing play for Dad, for a period phoning him whenever Mother had left town and one time showing up with an arsenal of elaborately wrapped electrical tools for his birthday, with me and Anne and Mom all present. Now Hilda was seeing Greg Kappas, the late Kurt’s married best friend. When my mother makes a judgment about someone, that person often lives up to her expectations. “Who told you that, Felix?”
    â€œWilson.”
    We all looked at Wilson, now on his third dinner martini. “Gossip is my business,” he said. “The Mastersons are getting remarried. Your friend Bootsie is fucking her bartender. What else do you people want to know?”
    Uncle Felix said, “Steady, Wilson.”
    â€œA lot of money in gossip,” said Wilson.
    â€œThe Mastersons are getting remarried?” Mom said.
    â€œEvelyn, voice down,”