The intelligent, captivating, and as she admits, not entirely trustworthy (unnamed) narrator invites three close friends to lunch with her at the Ritz Hotel, in Boston, for her birthday. Two of them, Len and Gay, are a long married couple she has known since college days. The third, Wes, was once her lover.But her party takes an unexpected turn. The present intrudes upon their celebration. Secrets slip out, and what emerges is a window into both the past--their loves and their hurts--and the present--the uncertainties, the fears, and the innate tragedy of growing old.