The air in the Oakwood Country Club smelled like old money, expensive perfume, and desperation. It was a scent I associated with my childhood, a cloying mixture of potpourri and judgment. I was wearing my usual navy dress—conservative, plain, high-necked. It was the kind of garment designed to make you blend into the wallpaper and disappear, to become a piece of furniture rather than a person. That was the point. I was trying to survive another one of these events without an incident, to drift through the evening like a ghost.