For years, Ellie, Alice, and Joan enjoyed a casual friendship while volunteering at their children's Connecticut high school. Now, with those children grown and gone to college, a local tragedy brings the three into contact again. But what begins as a catch-up lunch soon moves beyond small talk to the struggles of this next stage of life.
Joan Howard has spent thirty years of marriage doing what's expected of Howard women: shopping, dressing well, and keeping a beautiful home. Unfulfilled, her boredom and emptiness eventually find a secret outlet at the local casino. Meanwhile, Ellie's efforts to expand her accounting business lead to a new friendship that clashes with her family's traditional worldview. And Alice, feeling increasingly distant from her husband, and alienated from her once fit body, takes up running again. But a terrifying ordeal shatters her confidence and spurs a decision that will affect all three women in different ways.
Over the course of an eventful year, Ellie, Alice, and Joan will meet every other Wednesday to talk, plan-and find the freedom, and the courage, to redefine themselves.
