She stood in the doorway of her summer home, imperious. Perfectly frosted hair. Manicure + pedicure – an exquisite shade of Thai coral – chip-less. Her Lilly shift pressed to perfection, hung crisply over her taut lithe body tanned to perfection – which held the promise of grace and athleticism.

Our hostess’ face was a mask of serene ennui. Her mouth a dichotomy — lips smiled lax with jaws clenched so tight that it would take a screwdriver to release them. Freon moved though her veins at a pace that would not rush, would not race, but merely maintained enough momentum to sustain life.

She was flawless.

Her invitation to the dinner had taken me aback. Yes, our sons played together when our hosts were ‘on-island’ but it seemed out of the necessity of proximity rather than her desire to make friends with a local. She was slightly older, more than fifty, though she looked better than all the rest of us… and her house + yard echoed the same impossibly groomed standards that she applied to herself.

And so we went to have supper on her lawn. The meal was timed to coincide with the sunset over the Vineyard Sound. I hoped against hope, to not gaffe, gawk or spill.

The food was brought out from the kitchen on pastel earthenware – served on imported ceramic plates. Each grown-up had a portion lobster amid a thick, mustard-y Newburg sauce with rice, and creamed spinach + artichokes — fluffed and elegantly collapsed like a decadent soufflé. A green salad sat in the middle of the table – family style – for those inclined…

The children – seated at their own table — gobbled down elbow macaroni smothered with golden-smooth cheddar cheese, topped with breadcrumbs – crisp and amber. Dessert was warm caramelized apples with vanilla ice cream.

It was all so perfect, easy and intimidating compared to what I put myself through… The sweating + cursing my way through the kitchen – hair in my face as I struggle to keep my sauces from separating or developing the tumors of flour that would ruin an entire dish with their stubborn lumpiness. It seemed my hostess didn’t understand those struggles — a domestic realist — she listened to my travails with a blank expression…She just nodded in a sphinx-like silence — and to our collective praise at the table, merely muttered, ‘It was nothing…’

Afterwards, she rose weightlessly to the clear the dishes, so the candles could glow unblemished by plates littered with stray bits of whatever hadn’t been eaten. My offer to help was accepted with polite indifference.

There in her kitchen, on the granite countertops lay stacks of empty Stouffers boxes, blatant, bright orange + unabashed… My hostess was neither embarrassed nor concealing. ‘Stouffers?’ I asked…’well, for the money’, she acquiesced ‘taste and convenience – you must know that Stouffers can’t be beat…’ No’ I admitted, ‘I didn’t know…but now that I do….could you show me which boxes make that spinach–artichoke soufflé…? I’ve always wondered but have been too afraid to ask…’