“What’s your name?” one of them turned to ask her.
The dominatrix taught Regan one essential rule of power: always answer a question with a question.
“Why do you need to know?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
"The Heirloom" is one of the stories comprising this collection and it is fascinating on its own, but also in the way it fits among the other stories of female empowerment. Regan is a woman who has transformed an inheritance into an especially interesting business. Her clientele appeals mostly to Basic Rich Men, men who all share an interest in golf, Brooks Brothers suits, and flashy Rolex watches. Oh, and also sharing a high enough income to afford their newest passion: climbing into heavy equipment vehicles for the sole purpose of smashing cars to smithereens. Any woman with a business sense who had inherited enough investment capital and had hung around Basic Rich Men long enough might eventually have come up with his business idea. What really separates Regan from the rest is that her most useful business advisor is not a venture capitalist, an angel, or an entrepreneurial mentor. It is a dominatrix and from her, Regan learns much about the power of manipulating this breed of masculinity that unwisely assumes its mantle of superiority. The above quote in which Regan emasculates with a simple business tactic he should probably recognize is just one example of her application of lessons to a world in which men fetishize everything.
"She means what she is saying. She also knows that it is one of the laws of seduction, to take away privileges, to make a man work for access when he begins taking it for granted."
The title of this story is the thing that Farrah means when she is saying it. She has just extended an offer to her husband, Blake, of guaranteeing four good "Wife Days" a week, every week, in exchange for three days in which he leaves her alone so that she can do whatever. Perhaps unexpectedly, the first question that pops into Blake's head is to ask what she means by a "Wife Day." Another husband might have been provoked to first inquire about what, precisely, is meant by that "whatever." The interesting thing about this quote is not so much the idea of her offer as how it seems to connect so perfectly, thematically speaking, to Regan's situation in "The Heirloom." The developing theme is deeper than merely female empowerment. It is reaching out to extend to exert power over men. The idea that a business client for one woman and a husband for another are both equally deserving and at risk of subjugation as the submissive half of these unequal partnerships makes these stories, and others, all the more fascinating.
“You know he left because you were so awful to him. He knew what you thought of him! That he was some deranged killer capable of strangling women and leaving them in a pile of trash behind the Winn-Dixie.”
Dee is talking to Darcy, another of the more unique names of the women populating these stories. And, like most of the others, Darcy also seems an outsider because of her vocation, which is running the orchards and growing the titular fruit. The story is really about the problems the family orchard is facing as a result of drought dragging out for weeks and the pressure Darcy is under to not let the farm fail under her guidance. Nestled within the larger story is a secondary one—not even fleshed out enough to be a subplot—concerning a serial killer on the loose who may or may not be the "he" in this quote. This person of interest—to Darcy at least—is Daniel, her brother, which certainly complicates things. But, as mentioned, the serial killer aspect of this rather lengthy short story is secondary to the main storyline. Which makes it and the quote above tangentially applicable to the collection as a whole. Most of the men in these stories are secondary and worthy of suspicion about something by the female protagonists. One gets the feeling in many of these tales that women at the center of the narratives could realistically wonder what the men in the stories are capable of, including serial killings.
