53 pages • 1 hour read
Tessa BaileyFangirl Down
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 31-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 31 Summary
Wells is pacing around Josephine’s living room naked while talking on the phone when Josephine wakes up. She’s overcome by love watching him and remembering their intimate night together. Wells is making travel plans with Nate and asks Josephine if they can change their flights to travel together and arrive early to meet with the press. Josephine says she’ll have to come later, as she’s meeting with the Rolling Greens contractor about Golden Tee renovations the next morning. She has to finalize the plans so they can start working while she’s in California. Wells knows how important this is and plans to go ahead without her.
Over the next two days, Wells struggles to deal with the media without Josephine. She receives multiple voicemails from Nate explaining Wells’s outbursts during interviews. He got especially upset whenever anyone asked personal questions about Josephine or their relationship. At the airport, a limo driver meets Josephine with a Wells’s Belle sign. Wells arranged the fancy ride for Josephine’s birthday. She’s even more surprised and excited when she opens the limo door and finds Tallulah inside. Tallulah explains that Wells emailed her and arranged the visit for Josephine’s birthday and to make up for hanging up on Tallulah weeks prior. On the ride to the hotel, Josephine catches Tallulah up on everything that’s been happening between her and Wells. Tallulah is thrilled for her.
Chapter 32 Summary
Josephine arrives at the press tent while Wells is “in the middle of a press conference” (311). She joins him at the front of the tent and they conduct the rest of the interview together. Then Wells tells the reporters that he and Josephine are equal partners and announces that he’s giving her half of his winnings. Afterward, he explains himself to Josephine, saying that giving her the money is the best way “to correct the media’s misconception of her” (315).
After another intense sexual reunion, Josephine and Wells go out for dinner with Tallulah. Then Burgess arrives with Lissa. Wells is thrilled to see how much Josephine likes children. He and Josephine then listen open-mouthed as Burgess and Tallulah flirt. Tallulah is moving to Boston for grad school after her stint in Antarctica and needs a place to stay. Burgess lives in a giant house in Boston full-time and invites Tallulah to live in his spare room in exchange for nannying Lissa while he’s on tour. Tallulah accepts the offer.
Josephine and Tallulah get up to dance when Josephine’s favorite song comes on. Meanwhile, Burgess and Wells tease each other about their respective feelings for the women.
Chapter 33 Summary
Wells and Josephine place eighth at the Torrey Pines event. While packing up to return to Florida, Josephine tells Wells she can’t accept the money he’s promised her. Wells refuses to take it back.
Then Josephine gets a text that distracts her. Wells has noticed a change in her demeanor of late and worries that she isn’t okay. Meanwhile, Josephine worries about the messages she’s received from Jim. He’s sent her photos of the finished Golden Tee renovations, which she knows means she’ll have to leave Wells. They make a good team and she doesn’t want that to end.
After sex that night, Wells’s concerns about Josephine return. He decides to call Jim to check in. Jim reveals the news about the Golden Tee and Wells realizes what’s been bothering Josephine. Jim suggests that they delay opening the shop until after the Masters—the final tournament stop. Wells feels guilty for keeping Josephine from Palm Beach this long and promises Jim he’ll have her home.
In the morning, Wells confronts Josephine about the Golden Tee and the Masters. Since Josephine is determined to be at the Masters to support Wells, Wells fires her as his caddie so she’ll have to return to Palm Beach. Josephine is hurt and confused, but Wells insists that he needs to prove that he can play without her. Josephine knows she still loves him and obediently packs her bags. She tearfully says goodbye and leaves.
Chapter 34 Summary
Wells goes to the bar the night before the Masters begins. He misses Josephine and hears her voice in his head while sitting alone and stewing over his feelings.
Then Calhoun and Buck show up and start asking about Josephine. The bar goes silent when Wells reveals that he fired her because she needed to go follow her dreams. Wells immediately notices how differently everyone is responding to him. He has the impulse to push Buck away but also wonders if their broken relationship is in part his fault. Before leaving the bar for the night, he agrees to have lunch with Buck soon.
Chapter 35 Summary
Josephine is lost in thought while finishing the final touches at the Golden Tee. Reopening the shop is everything she’s ever wanted, but she still feels distraught after her argument with Wells. She knows she still loves him but hates that they parted on bad terms and still doesn’t understand why he had to fire her.
Her parents arrive and ask her about the countless gift baskets and flowers Wells sent. She reveals that they’re not talking, she hasn’t responded to his gifts, and doesn’t want to turn on the Masters. Evelyn insists that she’s done enough at the shop and should go see Wells play. She and Jim turn on the television and Josephine immediately notices how haggard Wells looks. However, he’s wearing his pink shirt and is carrying her matching pink caddie outfit in his back pocket. Her parents assure her they can handle the shop until she returns from the tournament.
Wells is groggy throughout the first rounds of the Masters. Throughout the game, he imagines Josephine coaching him. He makes the final hole and wins. When he turns around, he’s shocked to see Josephine with her Wells’s Belle sign on the sidelines and drops to his knees in front of her. They make amends, both apologizing to and forgiving one another. Then Wells proposes and Josephine accepts.
Epilogue Summary
Josephine and Wells make a life and start a family together over the next 8 years. Wells is still playing professional golf and is often away on tour. Meanwhile, Josephine runs the pro shop and cares for their two children. When Wells returns from his most recent tournament, he tells Josephine he’s retiring so he can be with their family, coach Little League, and help her run the shop. They hug, kiss, and dance.
Chapter 31-Epilogue Analysis
Over the course of the novel’s final chapters, Josephine and Wells’s continued devotion to one another and sustained investment in their relationship furthers the novel’s overarching exploration of The Redeeming Power of Love. In these final chapters, Josephine and Wells encounter another series of obstacles that threatens to draw them apart. Complicated travel plans and arrangements with the pro shop contractors, Wells’s televised media outbursts and Josephine’s return to Palm Beach before the Masters, are all events that complicate Josephine and Wells’s chances of building a future together.
In particular, Josephine’s competing desires to be with Wells and to open the pro shop compel her and Wells to make difficult decisions about who they are to each other. Josephine fears being apart from Wells because he makes her feel “stronger and more capable than [she’s] ever felt” (309) and because Wells has become dependent on her support and encouragement to succeed. At the same time, committing to being together means that Josephine might have to give up on her personal dreams. The characters’ fraught parting in Chapter 33 marks a climactic turning point in their relationship which challenges the characters to ask themselves who they are to one another and what they want for their futures.
Josephine’s and Wells’s time apart before the Masters gives each character the space to reflect on who they are, what they want, and what they need on their Journey Toward Fulfillment and Personal Growth. Although the protagonists have parted on bad terms, Wells’s decision to fire Josephine evidences his newfound ability “to be selfless and wise and considerate” (341). He makes this difficult decision because he “want[s] [Josephine] to have [her] dream more than [he] want[s]” his own (341).
Being apart from Wells after this pivotal argument does make Josephine understand Wells’s point of view and the importance of protecting her dreams, her independence, and her individuality while building a future with Wells. Wells has similar revelations while competing in the Masters before Josephine arrives. He carries Josephine’s encouraging spirit and loving presence in his heart throughout the tournament. The narrator evidences Josephine’s profound effect on Wells’s psyche by presenting Josephine’s imagined voice as a part of Wells’s internal monologue.
In these ways, the characters are learning to be themselves and pursue their wants, needs, and goals without sacrificing their love for each other. The novel therefore suggests that healthy, balanced relationships are only possible if both partners are free to be themselves. Josephine and Wells learn how important they are to each other and how much they have taught one another once they are apart. Therefore, when they reunite they’re able to engage in a more reciprocal dynamic. The characters’ ability to commit to one another at the end of the novel reinforces the ways in which they have grown and changed over the course of the preceding weeks because of their profound love for one another.
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