Next to Lavonda, Tess was talking in her big, goose-honk voice, claiming to be a sparrow, while Roux twisted off all the screw caps.

Then Lisa Fenton introduced herself and said, “I’m in the red brick, between your house and Charlotte’s. Come over if you need sugar or an egg, whatever. As for my animal, that’s hard. I need to think.”

Roux was now making her way around the circle with two open bottles, nodding to Tess, saying, “Red or white?” soft, like a waitress.

Charlotte whispered to me, “This is a total hijack!”

I gave her an apologetic shrug.

“I think you’re a hawk. So there,” Sheridan Blake said.

Roux nodded, pouring cups and glasses to the rims, instantly affirming. “I can totally see that.”

Lisa blushed, so pleased, and said, “With three kids under five, I guess I have to be. I do see everything.”

I put a calming hand on Charlotte’s arm while Chloe Fischer declared that her spirit animal was “mama bear.” But then she paused and added, “Or maybe I’m an egret?” She looked to Roux for confirmation.

“What’s an egret?” Panda asked, which spawned a lot of explanations about seabirds, and everyone kept drinking, drinking, drinking.

Roux decided in the end. “Definitely a mama bear. It’s just you’re built so delicately, it’s hard to see that bear inside you. But it’s there.”

Char leaned in and whispered, “Bear my butt. Chloe Fischer’s just a monkey. We’re all monkeys. That woman has us wearing cunning little hats and dancing on cue. How did she do that?”

I wasn’t sure. Nothing had ever derailed Charlotte’s rigorously scheduled book club. Nothing derailed Char’s rigorously scheduled anything, and as much I loved her, I couldn’t help but think this might be good for her. I couldn’t help but find it interesting.

Shy Allie Whitaker was playing now, peeping up from under her bangs and claiming that she might be a tiger, too. Inside. Very, very deep.

“Yeah, you have some jungle teeth hidden in you. I can see them,” Roux said, and Allie shrugged, almost wriggling in her pleasure.

Char kept checking the clock, watching the minutes leak away, as the women picked animals and emptied the glasses that Roux kept sloshing full. I knew Char’d been looking forward to talking about beautiful Lily Bart, drifting to her doom by inches; the whole discussion hour was nearly gone, and we hadn’t even started the questions.

Roux kept pouring, egging them on, until they were talking over one another, all claiming to be piranhas or panthers or peacocks. The only true peacock in our bunch was Tate Bonasco, who had bee-stung lips and (Char believed) a boob job. And even she would be a zoo peacock.

Truthfully, we were domesticated animals, all of us, except for Roux. She hadn’t said her animal, but I thought it must be wild, or maybe feral.

The wine was nearly gone, and Roux was back at the bar, making up a mixed drink like she lived here, though the last thing any woman in this room needed was more alcohol. The conversation was so loud and rowdy now, women slurring and cackling, that I was glad all the bedrooms were up on the second floor. Oliver slept light, and Davis got so uncomfortable when folks were sloppy drunk.

Roux came back to the circle just as it was my turn. She handed me the mixed drink, and I was surprised at how observant she was. I hated wine. Could not bear even the flat, sour smell of it. I drank gin and tonic, but my first had been a very light pour. After that my drinks had been gin in name only, like always. “One-Drink Whey,” Davis called me.

I took a sip, and it was piney and brisk. Cold in my mouth, but so strong that I felt it as a heat by the time it reached my chest. No way I would drink much of this, though it was delicious. She’d rubbed the rim of the glass with fresh lime, a tart finish on my tongue.

Still, loyal to Char, I only said, “I’m feeling like a porcupine. A porcupine who really wants to talk about The House of Mirth. Maybe we could—”

“We’re almost done,” Roux said, wiping my words away with a lazy wave of her hand. I was surprised at how much I minded the dismissal. She’d made a fuss over all the selections, so opinionated, finding an animal that made every woman there feel good. Until me. I wasn’t anything like a porcupine, but she accepted it as my animal, when I’d meant it as a dig. She’d already turned her gaze on Charlotte. “Of course I know your name, but your animal is tricky.”

“I’m a porcupine, too,” Char said, tight, and popped her lips shut.

Roux sized up Charlotte, eyes lingering on the roundness of her belly, just now starting to look like more than a big lunch.

“I think this is Kanga,” Roux said, and shot a sly smile at me. As if we had a private joke. The warmth of being included, after that dismissal—I felt it. I won’t deny I felt it. My mouth smiled without my permission. Charlotte’s eyebrows went up so high they disappeared into her bangs, and I hid my face in my strong drink. I took a long, deep swallow. Roux went back to Char’s usurped chair.

Finally Jenny Tugby, who was as warm and bland and comforting as oatmeal, claimed to be a Komodo dragon and said she had to get home. Her baby hadn’t started cereal yet, and she was flexing her shoulders and pulling at her bra. Her breasts had her on a timer, and she needed to go pump and dump her wine-soaked milk. Oliver and I were down to nursing first thing in the morning and at bedtime, but I remembered that tight, skin-stretch feeling from early days, back when my body made everything that fed him. I couldn’t blame her, but at the same time humans were herd animals. As soon as she broke the circle, others would feel it as a pull to take their leave.

Sure enough, as Char finally got to begin her questions, women started leaking away in pairs and singles, quietly, with apologetic waves. First the ones with the newest babies, then the ones with full-time jobs. Most of these light-drinking ladies were rambley and yawning, listing as they disappeared up the stairs. By ten o’clock there were only six of us left.

Tate and Panda had joined Lavonda the Lion Fish on the sofa now that the room had cleared. Tate was very full of pinot noir, with a sweaty forehead and her mouth stained purple at the corners. Roux was back at the bar, slicing up more of my limes on the cutting board.

Charlotte said, “Maybe we should call it.” She looked tired, with pink circles under her eyes.

Roux said, “Definitely. That book was a nonstarter. We should do something else.” She blinked, and her neck elongated, as if a clever thought had only now occurred to her. “I know. Let’s play a game.”

Char bristled. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

“It is getting late,” I said, trying for loyal, but I was tempted by the idea of a game.

I’d chosen a husband who liked meat loaf on Monday, tacos on Tuesday, dinner out on Friday with sex after. Charlotte was a lot like Davis; I was naturally attracted to anything orderly. But now I had a baby. I loved Oliver in a whole-body way I’d never known existed, but every day with a baby was the same day.

The closer he came to weaning, the more I missed teaching at Divers Down, both the joy of introducing new divers to the secret world under the waves and the color and noise of the kids in my swim and Seal Team classes. Most of all I missed diving itself. No one dives pregnant, and these first eight months of motherhood had been a sleep-deprived blur. I’d gotten under only half a dozen times since Oliver came, and I was starting to get truly itchy for it.

Now, if Roux had suggested a bank job or even a bungee jump, I would have shown her to the door, and this last gaggle of tipsy mummies alongside her. But staying up past ten on a weeknight to play a game? It was a rebellion that sounded about my speed. I wanted to play.

“Too late to start a game, I think,” Charlotte agreed, trying to sound regretful but not quite making it.

“Poor Kanga,” Roux said to her. “You should definitely head on home. You’re resting for two.”

“Yesh, s’fine. You go on home, Kangroo,” Tate slurred, cutting her eyes at Roux. She’d been very quiet so far tonight, drinking her resentment.

But Char had meant for everyone to go. It was her club, and she was closing it. She paused, and I knew she didn’t want to leave me with some of my least favorite neighbors, all three already drunk, and this usurping stranger. I was torn, wanting to see what happened, but at the same time I didn’t want to end up cleaning Tate Bonasco’s vomit out of my sofa.

“I do not like this,” Charlotte said to me. “Not one little bit.”

Roux was carrying limes and rocks glasses and my room-temp gin back to the coffee table. She overheard Char, and a sly smile spread across her face.

“You aren’t a porcupine,” Roux said, setting out the glasses and expertly pouring shots, not measuring. “You aren’t Kanga either. I know you, lady. You’re that fish. That orange fish in a bowl from The Cat in the Hat. That’s your spirit animal.”