February 7, 2026

The private room at the back of the house. The velvet banquette. The second bottle, because we're not leaving yet.

You know these conversations. Late enough that the posture softens, honest enough that someone finally says the thing everyone's been thinking. The dinner party's over and only the interesting people are left. Someone pours another glass. Someone says something true.

That's what this is. Smart women, good wine, sharp talk. Still elevated, still us, but looser. A little unfiltered. A little bit mischievous. Every Saturday evening in your inbox.

Tonight's pour: A 2010 Barolo, because we're in the mood for something with weight and a little bit of trouble.

The clock is ticking.

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A new Province is opening soon

Next month, we unlock the Love.

What actually happens to desire in a long partnership, or a short one, or the charged silence between them. The wants she stopped voicing years ago and the ones she's just now discovering at the worst possible time. What she's considered in the dark and whether she's brave enough to act on it in the light.

We're going to talk about sex, relationships, intimacy, desire, longing, and the whole complicated, gorgeous mess of it, the way it actually gets discussed at 11 pm with the two women she'd trust with anything.

Smart, honest, a little bit dangerous.

She Googled the Divorce Lawyer and Closed the Tab

It’s Valentine's week, so let's talk about the thing no one puts in the card.

The marriage works. He's a good man, a good father, a good partner in the way that word gets used when what you really mean is dependable and present and not actively making anything worse. Not lonely in the way that would justify the phone call. Not having an affair, though she understands now, in a way she didn't ten years ago, exactly how affairs begin, which is not with desire but with someone simply asking her a question and then listening to the entire answer.

She googled the lawyer the way you google a flight you're not going to book. Just to see. Two paragraphs about asset division, a tightening in the chest, and then the tab closed. History cleared. Dinner made.

This isn't a crisis, it’s a Tuesday.

What nobody tells you about a good marriage in your forties is that "good" starts to feel like a very specific kind of ceiling. The partnership functions, the household runs, the calendar syncs, and somewhere inside all that efficiency is a woman who can't remember the last time someone looked at her like she was interesting rather than needed.

The tab closed because the life works, the children are happy, and the architecture would need to come down, and she's not a woman who tears down architecture on a feeling. But the feeling is there. Quiet, patient, completely uninterested in being managed. It rides home with her every night and says nothing, and she says nothing back, and no one would ever know.

Happy (early) Valentine's Day. Now pour the wine.

The Reading Room is the foyer. The real rooms are behind it.

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TASTE

CURRENTLY: Women past forty should pursue "timeless elegance," which translates to: fade into greige, stop making anyone uncomfortable, and kindly disappear.

BETWEEN US: The most magnetic women we know are doing the precise opposite and having an excellent time. Lipstick before breakfast. Color that refuses to apologize. Pieces that make people look twice and wonder what she knows that they don't.

She walked into the room like she owned it, and she's not correcting anyone's assumptions.

CULTURE

CURRENTLY: The approved script now says we want "balance" and "a softer relationship with success." The language evolved. The message hasn't moved an inch: her appetite is still the problem.

BETWEEN US: The women on our radar haven't softened a thing. They got quieter about the goals and louder about the results, and they've developed a profound disinterest in explaining themselves to anyone who hasn't earned it.

She used to narrate her ambitions at dinner parties. Now she just lets people find out when it's too late to pretend they saw it coming.

LIFE

CURRENTLY: The wellness-industrial complex has discovered women over forty and cannot contain its excitement about pathologizing every development in her body. Supplements, protocols, interventions — managing her "transition," as if she's a problem to be solved.

BETWEEN US: The most alive women we know aren't managing decline. They're finally free to want what they want, drop what stopped working, and say no without an explanation designed to protect everyone else's feelings.

She's not slowing down. She's moving with less patience for detours and significantly more enjoyment than she had at thirty-two.

→ The most expensive breakdown she never had cost $400 a month in rent nobody knows about — Every woman who's lasted has a secret, and it's never the one you'd expect.

→ The morning routine industrial complex made a fortune, and her evenings are still falling apart — We'd like a word with whoever told her the mornings were the problem.

→ The September issue needs her uncertainty more than it needs her loyalty — No fashion magazine will print this sentence, which is exactly why it can appear here.

→ She can get into any gallery, but she's afraid to buy anything because she doesn't know what she's looking at — I bought a terrible painting in 2019 and the shame is instructive.

→ The same magazine that told her to remove the cabinet doors just told her to put them back — Closed storage is having a moment," announced the same magazines that started the problem.

→ Your bedroom looks like a hotel, and that's not the compliment you think it is — We are trying to turn our master suites into an Aman resort, and it’s not ok.

What we're reading: The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer — a slim, devastating little book about generosity instead of extraction. The opposite of everything in your portfolio and precisely why it lives on the nightstand now.

The question we're sitting with: When was the last time someone asked you a question and actually listened to the entire answer?

The intrusive thought: She didn't close the tab because she decided to stay. She closed it because she decided not to decide yet, and those are not the same thing.

What's on your mind this week? Hit reply. This is the conversation, and we actually want to know.

If this landed, forward it to the one woman who needs to read it. You already know exactly who she is.

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Until next Saturday.

Adrienne