Summary

The short story starts with a young woman named Marcy. Marcy grew up in the Midwest where the people have simple lifestyles and simple needs. Her family moves to Naples, Florida, where the women are dangerously skinny and impossibly beautiful with the help of surgery. In Naples, Marcy and her husband live in Palmetto Landing, an opulent, gated community. Marcy and her husband join the country club, where the “men’s bodies expanded in inverse proportion to their wives.” (46) At the group fitness class, Marcy was the only woman who wore conservative sweatpants and an unflattering T-shirt – all the other women wore designer fitness outfits that were carefully coordinated. The other women in the neighborhood were fascinated by Marcy because she was the first wife of her husband and was about the same age as him.

The story shifts to another couple living in...