The protagonist, a single woman, moves from the north of the United States to Bremen, Georgia. She has heard that "Southern women are brave and capable and Southern men are often boors." This stereotype is somewhat confirmed, and she attributes the boring and self-absorbed qualities of the men she meets in Bremen to the fact that Bremen women greatly outnumber Bremen men, such that single Bremen men are highly sought after despite being unremarkable.

Meanwhile, the women of the town are obsessed with finding and retaining a husband—a difficult task. The protagonist talks to a group of married woman who tell her about the town's outcast—a woman named Alida who is currently in her fourth marriage. These women hate Alida because they can't believe she divorced perfectly good husbands and did the impossible of finding four Bremen men who wanted to marry her. They evidently also worry that Alida might steal their husbands from them. The protagonist wants to meet Alida, even though the other women shun her.

The protagonist meets Alida one day while walking home from a dull cocktail party. Alida is watching the sunset, unable to restart her car. The protagonist helps her and is transfixed by Alida's childlike beauty and charming spirit. Alida invites her over and introduces her to her husband Billy, an unremarkable yet pleasant drunk. While the protagonist wonders why Alida is with Billy, the two seem to love each other dearly. The protagonist really enjoys them both and invites Alida to lunch on Tuesday. The other women of the town all bail on coming to the protagonist's Tuesday lunch once they hear Alida will be there. The protagonist and Alida eat alone, and Alida talks about her ex-husbands, who seem pretty wonderful. The protagonist wonders why Alida divorced them.

Alida, Billy, and the protagonist attend a club dance together, at which Billy gets drunk. Alida and Billy joke about Billy's drunkenness in a way that would offend any of the other prideful, Southern men, the protagonist observes. Billy disappears and Alida tells the protagonist he took the car to go drink with men in the mountains. The protagonist drives Alida home but she's locked out, so she ends up sleeping over at the protagonist's house. The protagonist feels anger toward Billy and all Southern men for the ways in which they don't consider their wives' needs. Alida says she just likes to love people and for them to love her back—Billy loves her back, while her other husbands came to resent her for her undignified quirkiness. The protagonist says she imagines that's why Alida divorced them and Alida corrects her, revealing that all her former husbands were the ones who requested the divorces. The protagonist is astonished why they wouldn't want to be with her. Alida is shocked to learn that the townspeople think she was the one who initiated her divorces with all these men.