Every year on the night of New Bethany's annual Splendor Belle Gala, reclusive Sera Grayson appears on the porch of her aging antebellum home dressed in a tattered ball gown. Legend holds she is reliving the greatest disappointment of her life: waiting endlessly for the man who stood her up more than fifty years ago. Rosemary, Naomi, Gayle, and Lucy, first introduced in Jones' Prayer Tree, together decide to help out the eccentric old woman-partly to strengthen their own special bond, threatened by time and the demands of everyday life. Will their joint project instead tear them apart forever?