Mrs. Fletcher

Brendan is having a difficult time adjusting to the academic requirements of college, having failed a test and scored a low grade in a writing assignment. He also does not have a social life outside of Zack, and feels lonely most of the time. When Eve calls Brendan and tells him about her class and how enthusiastic she is about reentering education, he is annoyed because he is the one who “was really in college” and is finding it a “mixed bag” (99). When Eve mentions that Julian Spitzer, one of her Gender and Society classmates and Brendan’s former classmate, remembers him, Brendan is overcome with feelings of discomfort.

At a party in Brendan’s junior year, Julian intervened when one of Brendan’s macho friends, Wade, grabbed onto his ex-girlfriend’s arm and would not let it go. That summer, when Brendan, Wade, and their friends were cruising around town, Wade forced Julian into a car with them. Brendan stood and watched as Wade parked the car and shoved Julian into a disgusting Port-A-John, locking the door behind him. Wracked with guilt, Brendan returned to the site at five in the morning; however, Julian had left. Although Brendan forgot about the incident because Julian went to another school in his senior year, the mention of Julian’s name is triggering.

When Brendan is in the library, reading a book on climate change, he bumps into Amber, again, who is part of a Michael Brown protest against gun violence on campus. Brendan joins the protest and enjoys being part of something, and meeting Amber again. When he gets back to his dorm-room, Zack wants his advice on whether he would hook up with a fat girl. While Zack pretends that the situation is hypothetical, he seriousness betrays the truth that he has been going out with a girl who is not conventionally attractive. Brendan makes a joke of the situation and the two boys bring out the worst in each other, making fun of the “fat girl who’d been fun for a while, until she turned all weepy and started getting on my nerves” (109).

When Eve and Amanda go out for a drink, Eve, who has been spending her evenings watching lesbian MILF videos, considers it a date. The two women get drunk over dinner, and talk about their love-lives and Eve’s Gender and Society class. Eve confesses that she has a crush on Julian, but that she would never hook up with someone as young as her son. When Eve is saying goodbye to Amanda, she feels this “was a date” and experiences a “fluttery feeling” in her chest (122). Confusing real life and pornography, Eve decides to be the “confident one” in the partnership and kisses Amanda on the lips. Amanda rebuffs her, and while she is understanding, Eve is embarrassed and disappointed, and she wonders how she could have put her reputation and job on the line. 

Brendan turns up to one of the Autism Awareness Network meeting and is eager to see Amber. Their exchange is flirtatious. The meeting attendees take it in turns to tell stories of their autistic siblings. Brendan recalls that he saw his father, Ted, little enough before his autistic half-brother, Jon-Jon was born, but after the event, it was even less. Jon-Jon reacted badly to Brendan’s presence in the house, having major tantrums and hurting himself, and so Brendan only saw him for occasional dinners.

At the meeting, Brendan tells Amber of his experience at Parents Weekend. Ted was initially going to come alone, and Brendan was excited about spending time with him. However, Ted changed the original plan and decided to bring his whole family. Initially, Jon-Jon was well behaved. However, when he spots one of his triggers, a small plane in the sky, Jon-Jon begins to uncontrollably slap himself and makes a scene. Ted does everything he can to restrain and comfort Jon-Jon, saying that he loves him. Amber asks Brendan how he felt about the incident. Brendan tells her that he felt “sorry for” his parents and Jon-Jon; however, he keeps to himself that he thinks “how unfair it was that my father loved him so much and held him so tight—way tighter than he’d ever held me—and wouldn’t let go no matter what” (136;137).

This chapter alternates between Eve and Julian’s perspectives. Barry invites the Gender and Society class for free drinks at his sports bar. Eve initially does not want to go because she worries that Barry will hit on her, again. However, when Margo wants to go, she feels that she should force herself out. Margo confides to Eve how she longs for female friends, to chat about boys and clothes with. In the bathroom at Barry’s bar, Margo confesses that she has a crush on Dumell, an African-American man in their class. 

Underage Julian is thrilled that he gets unlimited access to alcohol, even if the price is having to spend the evening with people his parents’ age. Julian is at Eastern Community College, following the post-traumatic stress of the incident of being locked in the Port-A-John, and a senior year where he was so depressed that he could not get out of bed. As Julian drinks more, he notices how attractive Eve is. When she insists on driving him home in his intoxicated state, he suggests that they should hook up. However, at one stage, he has to ask her to pull over while he vomits.

This chapter alternates Amber’s third-person viewpoint, with Brendan’s first-person narrative. Amber, who identifies as an intersectional feminist finds a “mismatch between her politics and her desires” (167), which have her succumbing to jocks who mistreat her. She sees Brendan as a “bouquet of red flags” (168); however, she changes her mind about him when he participates in the Michael Brown protest and attends the Autism Awareness Network meeting.

Meanwhile, Brendan is expecting Becca to visit for the weekend; however, at the last minute, her parents prevent her from coming. Amber calls Brendan up and announces that they are going on a date. She takes him to a movie on women in the developing world who are mistreated, and later to a party set up by the Feminist Alliance, where guests strip to their underwear and write their bodily insecurities on a piece of paper that they sling around their necks. Brendan is aroused from dancing in his underwear with Amber and makes an excuse to go to the bathroom.

However, later, when Brendan and Amber go up to her room, the energy is low, so she performs spontaneous oral sex. Brendan finds his mind “elsewhere,” stuck on the memory of encountering Zack outside the bathroom. There, Zack was playing quartets with Lexa, a girl who uses a wheelchair. Brendan is stuck on the thought that “Zack didn’t want me there” (178), as though he was embarrassed of Brendan. Amber is troubled by Brendan’s distracted state during oral sex, and then horrified when he starts getting into it, calling her a “slut” and a “bitch” and making her gag (179). From Brendan’s perspective, he feels guilty about not being into sex with Amber and forces himself to think back to being with Becca and goes from “zero to sixty in a couple of seconds” (180). The next thing he knows, Amber is punching him in the scrotum and ordering him out of her room. 

This chapter alternates between the third-person perspectives of Amanda, Margo, Eve, Julian, Amber and Sanjay, and Brendan’s first-person perspective.

Margo gives a talk on her experience as a transgender woman at the Senior Center where Eve and Amanda work. Julian attends the lecture because he has nothing better to do, and Dumell, who has been dating Margo, goes to support her. The talk is badly received by the seniors, who consider Margo’s choice an illness. Amanda and the Gender and Society group reconvene at Eve’s house, where after some wine and pizza, a heavy note of sexual flirtation is struck. Margo and Dumell are making out on the couch, while Amanda and Eve are flirting on the dance-floor, while Julian watches lustfully.

When Margo and Dumell leave, Eve suggests that both Amanda and Julian stay at her house because they are drunk. Julian is triggered by being in Brendan’s house and bedroom; however, he consoles himself by masturbating over Eve. While he is masturbating, Amanda comes into this room. The sexual activity between Amanda and Julian, wakes up Eve, who joins them in a threesome.

Meanwhile, Brendan has been ostracized by Amber, who does not return his texts, and even Zack, who does not want to be “that guy” he becomes in his conversations with Brendan. Sanjay appears in Brendan’s doorway and leads him to an art show, where there is a Call-Out-Wall series of portraits by Amber’s friend, Cat. One the portraits is of Brendan, labeled as a “huge disappointment.” Brendan reaches out to Sanjay, who takes pity on him and agrees to drive him home to his mother’s house in Haddington.