Lola Brandy Hicks made her wobbly way down the baking, summer sidewalk hell-bent on the bar she could see two copies of 100 feet ahead. People were staring but Lola told herself she didn’t give a shit. She was used to this kind of attention and figured she knew what it was about. She was funny looking, as more than one slurring, anonymous suitor had pointed out.

Rarely do life’s turning points announce themselves ahead of time. They are typically best seen in the rearview mirror, long after one has made a choice later understood as pivotal. But even as Michon was leaning towards her with one eyebrow raised and THE question on her lips, Lucinda Kerr knew herself to be at

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