Book Club's Dramatic Chapter

It was morning when the email arrived, its subject line blaring like a Helvetica horn: "Emergency Book Club Meeting Tonight." I hadn't drained my first cup of coffee, and now I didn't need to; there are few five-word phrases that set my adrenaline surging like this one.

It's a laughable notion, I realize. What sort of event spurs a frantic gathering of book group members? An abominable mis-casting for the movie version of The Glass Castle? A global embargo of pinot grigio?

But the Emergency Book Club Meeting is not something to be taken lightly. In six years, our literature-loving girl gang has called just three of these urgent rallies, each time for a life-altering predicament affecting one of our members and thoroughly outraging the rest of our close-knit sisterhood.

"Ladies," the most recent email began, "one of our own is facing a crisis situation and could use all the support and love we can offer." The crisis: a cheating husband. More specifically, a self-involved man-child who navigated through his midlife crisis by using his wilson as a compass.

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