Love: A Novel

Vida and Sandler realize that Romen must be dating a girl because his behavior has changed—he seems calmer and more confident. Sandler thinks that it is a good thing that Romen is seeing someone and hopes that he doesn’t wind up the kind of man who is hung up on his first girlfriend. This reminds Sandler of Cosey, who told Sandler that there was only one woman he ever cared for: Celestial. His first wife, Julia, hated sex and knew about his appetites for other women. Sandler noticed that, despite Cosey’s avowed love for Celestial, he still slept with every woman he possibly could. Despite the differences in their social status, Sandler liked fishing with Cosey and enjoyed their friendship—as long as it was just the two of them. He avoided joining Cosey on his “fishing trips” with local officials, where women and booze are also present. He believes these trips were hypocritical and that everyone pretended to have equality on board, though as soon as they left the boat, racial and class hierarchies were reinstated. In the present, he and Vida realize that the girl whom Romen is seeing must be Junior, and Vida is horrified.

Romen is thrilled to be seeing Junior and thinks that this relationship has changed him for the better. All of his shame from the encounter with the girl at the party and the boys from school has evaporated. He sees himself as superior to Theo and his friends because he is having sex with an older woman who is a willing participant. His former friends and all the girls at school respond positively to the change in him and the newfound confidence. He is uninterested in their overtures, however, having eyes only for Junior.

Junior waits in a car outside Romen’s school, hoping to pick him up for sex and burgers. She is happy with her current circumstances and thinks about the past that led her here. She was about to graduate from reform school when the administrator tried to force her to give him oral sex during her exit interview. He toppled off the balcony during their encounter and Junior was accused of attempted murder. Junior insisted that she didn’t try to kill him, but the school wanted to hush up the incident and sent her to a correctional facility. During her three years at the correctional facility, Junior learned to take advantage of any luck that she had. She considers her current situation to be proof of this, especially Cosey’s ghostly presence in the house. She calls him her Good Man and believes that “he liked to see her win” (117). She thinks that he is the man for whom she has been waiting her whole life and that he is romantically and sexually attracted to her.

Using her reform school training, Junior washes and styles Heed’s hair. She imagines Cosey’s ghost watching over her, pleased to see her pampering his wife. While Junior tends to her, Heed remembers her past as a wife. When Christine returned home for her high school graduation and birthday party, Heed felt uncomfortable and scorned by both her former friend and by May. She accidentally used the wrong glass and they laughed at her, causing her to have tantrum and fling the glass. Cosey publicly spanked her and she fled in humiliation. Later, she set Christine’s bed on fire and L. put it out.

She remembers the tension before Christine left for school. When Heed went on her honeymoon, Cosey took her shopping and she was proud of all of her purchases, especially the fine clothing. A woman at the department store told her, “[y]ou look like a dream (127). When she returned home, Christine and May laughed at her. She realized that her choices of clothing were incorrect and revealed her lower social class. She attempted to make amends by offering to let Christine try on her engagement ring. May and even L. greeted this offer with horror, further shaming Heed since she was too young to understand why this was offensive. The rift between the two girls widened further. In the present, she solidifies her hatred for Christine and determines to cut her out of the will officially. She tells Junior that she has important documents that she needs to get from the hotel and that she will need a fountain pen.

Later, Junior talks to Christine and attempt to flatter her by telling her how beautiful she was in Heed’s wedding photos. She asks Christine how Heed and Christine are related. Christine tells her that they were friends but that Heed married Christine’s grandfather when she was 11 and Christine was 12. They are only eight months apart in age.

L. thinks about May and her role in the family saga. Billy Boy married her because he believed that she would be an obedient wife, and she fulfilled that role by working constantly and toiling over the hotel’s upkeep. L. says that May feared death and decay but especially feared the family degenerating and falling into poverty. To her, Heed was the enemy and the ultimate symbol of all of the things that she hated. Publicly, Cosey told everyone that he married Heed because he wanted more children and that he knew she would be a good mother. L. does not believe this and thinks he did so because Heed is the kind of woman his father, Dark, would have hated. He identified Heed with a little girl from a story of his childhood. A crowd gathered to watch a man be arrested and the girl slipped in the horse manure, so everyone laughed at her. L. believes that his marriage to her was a kind of penance for that past behavior. L. can see the good in Heed. She knows that Heed cared for May during her final illness and old age. She was the only one who was left to do so until Christine returned, and she did it despite years of hatred between them. L. recognizes these positive qualities in Heed and defended her from Cosey’s violence, telling him that if he ever hit Heed again, she would leave the hotel.