Content Warning: This section discusses suicide, murder, sexual violence, and kidnapping.

The Prologue opens with Josie Nixon, a recently married teacher, attending an art educator conference on the recommendation of her supervisor, Brian. Feeling intimidated at her first professional conference, Josie heads to her assigned room on the sixth floor of the dormitory, where the attendees are staying. She attends a variety of workshops, including printmaking, crafting puppets, and teacher-methods training, and she meets up with other teachers. During their conversation, she explains her polyamorous relationship with her husband, Travis. The two of them have an open relationship but have never had any consummated flings due to a lack of opportunity in their small town of Woodstock, New York.

Later that night, Josie has sex with an older man at the conference. Even though she’s excited by her adventure, she finds the sex itself disappointing. Afterward, they step out onto the dormitory’s balcony, where she tells the man about her fear of heights. Suddenly, Josie is thrown from the balcony.

Librarian Martha Ratliff meets her new husband, Alan Peralta, in “the way couples meet nowadays, online, paired up because they are both self-proclaimed book nerds” (9).