In December 1962, Margaret prepares to celebrate Christmas. Her husband, Walter “Walt” Ryan, believes she is going overboard, but Margaret wants to make their first Christmas in their new house special. She remembers Christmas of 1945, the celebration of which her mother postponed to January of 1946, when her father came home from the war. It was an especially happy, perfect day because of how it felt to be together as a family again.

Margaret remembers arriving at her new house in Concordia a year earlier, and how excited she had been to settle in and make it their own. She couldn’t change certain things about it, such as the plants in the garden or the color of the shutters, because Concordia had a strict plan for the neighborhood. She had been looking forward to painting and decorating inside, but Walt insisted that they couldn’t spend on furniture, as buying the house depleted their savings.

Margaret and Walt met during her freshman year at Ohio State University. Walt was a young veteran fresh out of the war, and he had impressed Margaret with his curiosity and love for reading in their literature class. During their first conversation, Margaret is amused to discover that Walt is a sophomore—he should be a junior but keeps switching majors because he can’t decide on one. Margaret and Walt were married two years later, when she was 20, and he was 25. While Margaret appreciates the “cautious self-discipline” Walt now displays, she sometimes misses the “the odd, hungry, indecisive, far-too-impulsive boy” he once was (22).

Margaret works hard that December in 1962, decorating the house and making a Christmas feast. However, things go wrong when the kids come down with the flu on the first day of their Christmas break, and Margaret spends all her time taking care of them. On Christmas Day, she gives Walt a cigarette lighter and gold cuff links that she bought with what she had been saving up for new lamps; in return, he gives her a subscription to a magazine called A Woman’s Place, which he spotted at a dentist’s waiting room. Margaret is hurt, and Walt is angry that she is not more appreciative.

Three days later, while waiting to pick up a prescription, Margaret picks up a copy of A Woman’s Place. She is intrigued by the announcement of an essay-writing contest with a $100 prize. As she considers this, she overhears Charlotte arguing with the pharmacist, who is wary about filling her doctor-ordered prescription for Miltown, an anxiety drug. Charlotte wins the argument and storms off, and Margaret feels a sense of kinship with her. On her way home that day, Margaret spots a typewriter in a shop window and decides to secretly rent it.

In February 1963, Margaret sends in her essay entry but decides to keep renting out the typewriter.

Margaret was an average student in school; she only decided to go to college because of a friend’s urging and because her mother died a week after high school graduation, and Margaret was eager to leave he grief-filled home behind. In college, Margaret discovered a surprising flair for academics and a competitive streak. These traits reemerged the moment Margaret rented the typewriter and drafted an essay titled “A Holiday to Remember” about the 1962 Christmas debacle. After studying the contents of A Woman’s Place more closely, Margaret edited the draft to read as a comedy-romance with a happy ending. Though she knew the first version was better writing, she knew this version would be more acceptable, and she was desperate to win.

Now, Margaret heads to a gathering of the coffee group she regularly meets. When she first arrived in Concordia, she had joined the group because she was eager to make friends, but lately, she is less inclined to go, as all the women talk about are their husbands and children. Their host Barb asks for everyone’s news, and Bitsy reveals that King has forbidden her from playing tennis, worried that it will interfere with conceiving a child.

As the women begin reassuring her, Bitsy cuts them short, revealing that she has taken a job at the Rock Creek Park stables. She defiantly defends her decision in the face of Barb’s surprise and disapproval. Barb tells them about Charlotte, the new woman in town, but she refuses to invite her to the coffee klatch—she has heard that Charlotte previously spent time in a psychiatric hospital.

Afterward, Margaret goes to Charlotte’s house with cookies, intent on making friends. Charlotte is initially cold and dismissive, but Margaret spontaneously invites her to a book club she invents on the spot. Charlotte agrees to attend, on the condition that the first book be The Feminine Mystique. She hands Margaret a copy.

Now, Margaret prepares an extensive menu for the first book club session, including an elaborate cake. When Walk learns that food is for the book club, he turns petulant, refusing to eat the cheese sandwich Margaret prepared for his dinner. He says he has been “actually working” and vents his frustration about Margaret and her friends getting together to discuss “how terrible men are” (47). Margaret defends the book and how it makes her feel seen, but Walk walks out in the middle of the conversation, leaving the sandwich and heading to “the club.” Before he leaves, he gives Margaret a letter that has arrived for her; it is a rejection from the magazine contest. After Walt leaves, she realizes he hacked out a piece of cake for himself and left the refrigerator door half-open.

The meeting gets off to a lukewarm start. Viv declares that she didn’t like the book because she couldn’t relate to it; she wanted to be a wife and mother. An affronted Charlotte insists that they reflect deeper, reminding Viv of the satisfaction she once derived from being a nurse. She points out how American womanhood has become more suffocating since the end of the war. Margaret partly agrees with Charlotte but refuses to condemn marriage entirely as just a trap for women. Bitsy is more withdrawn than usual.

Frustrated that no one is talking openly, Charlotte decides to make martinis for everyone, dubbing them “truth serum.” Viv declines, revealing that she is pregnant, and bursts into tears. She admits that she was looking forward to returning to nursing, and she rants about the doctor who refused to give her birth control without Tony present. The women commiserate and promise to keep her secret, with Charlotte pointing out the relevance of Friedan’s book to all women’s lives: “[A]t some point, every woman has been a Betty, roadblocked by biology, or society, or the whim of some […] man” (57). Viv promises to give the book another try, and the women toast the Betty Friedan book club, dubbing themselves the “Bettys.”

As the women drink, secrets begin to flow. Bitsy confides that King has referred her to a fertility specialist; he is sure she is the problem because long ago, he fathered a child with a married woman, though she lost the baby. To reassure Bitsy, Margaret tells the women about her failed attempt at winning the writing contest, and Charlotte reveals that, in a decade of painting, she has only sold two pieces. The women decide to meet once a month and to ask Babcock’s, their local bookstore, for recommendations. In the middle of the evening, Margaret gets a phone call from Leonard Clement, an editor at A Woman’s Place, offering her a job.

Mr. Clement tells Margaret that her essay was only rejected because of the Christmas theme, as they were running the winning essay in an Easter issue. However, a senior editor loved her writing and wanted her to come on as a columnist, despite Mr. Clement’s obvious disdain for this idea. Charlotte, Viv, and Betsy convince an ecstatic Margaret to make a trip to New York and meet Mr. Clement in person, promising to cover her childcare.

When Margaret breaks the news to Walt, he is displeased and disparaging. He tells her that she can keep her “pin money” as long as it doesn’t interfere with her “actual job” of taking care of the house and the children. Sensing her hurt, Walt instantly apologizes, but he continues to be sullen and withdrawn from her.

Charlotte accompanies Margaret to New York, and Margaret nervously walks into the magazine office for her appointment with Mr. Clement. Although he still is not won over, Clement appreciates her courage in coming down to the city and introduces her to David Miles, the magazine’s executive editor. Mr. Miles gets their photograph taken, claiming he wants to introduce her as the face of the column in the next issue, and gives her a tour of the place.

Dazed and satisfied at her visit’s success, Margaret eventually leaves the office and waits for Charlotte at the train station, as they agreed. She is surprised to see Charlotte arrive with an older man, whom she introduces as a painter named Lawrence Ahlgern. Margaret is shocked by the familiar way Charlotte behaves with him, and when they bid him goodbye, Margaret notes the “frank and hungry expression” with which Ahlgern watches Charlotte (71).

Aboard the train, Margaret’s giddy feeling of success wars with her dread after witnessing Charlotte with Ahlgern. At Charlotte’s eager questioning, Margaret tells her about her day, and her friend is excited and congratulatory. In turn, Charlotte breezily exclaims that she bumped into Ahlgern, an old friend, and caught up with him for lunch. When Margaret cautiously wonders whether that is a good idea, given his obvious feelings for her, Charlotte falls silent.

Back at home, Margaret finds the children in bed and Walt absorbed in the television, a beer bottle by his side. She heads to bed alone and has a recurring nightmare where she is inside a pristinely polished house; she feels a familiar sense of anguish as she opens the refrigerator door. Walt wakes her up and insists that the nightmare has been brought about by the stress of her new job. Margaret counters that it is the only thing going well in her life, furiously pointing out that he didn’t even ask her about her day. Walt does not respond and goes back downstairs.

Margaret worries that her conversation with Charlotte on the train may have soured their friendship. However, Charlotte pretends that it never took place, inviting her to go shopping or have drinks. A relieved Margaret offers to help Charlotte unpack and tidy up her new home, as Charlotte is due to host the next book club meeting. Charlotte brushes this off, claiming that her daughter Denise will help.

Four days before the next book club meeting, Charlotte invites all the Bettys on a road trip. She drives them to the Washington Gallery of Modern Art and gives them a tour of the exhibits, acting as their private docent. She insists that modern art is about what it makes one feel, rather than how it looks. The women wander around, each of them finding a piece that speaks to them. Before they leave, Margaret sees Charlotte staring at a painting by Ahlgren with a “covetous, hungry, and lustful gaze” (90).