41 pages • 1 hour read
Raven LeilaniLuster
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A 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 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary
Two days later, Edie releases a mouse she has caught in her apartment. She and her roommate have been living with a mice infestation for the past six months. Edie gets ready for work and packs only a can of black olives for lunch. She plans to starve herself in anticipation of having sex with Eric on their date later. She arrives late to work, where she has recently been moved to a more central location within the office by her manager, who Edie suspects has a “growing concern” for her. She struggles to connect with most of her coworkers at the publishing house where she works in the editorial department. Edie tries “to be approachable” while also actively avoiding one coworker in particular named Aria, who is “the only other black person in our department, which forces a comparison between us that never favors me” (21). Edie describes Aria’s seeming ease at fitting in their predominately White workplace be saying, “she plays the game well…better than I do” (22). Edie confesses that there is friction between her and Aria as “it is not a question of whether she will take my job, it is a question of when” (22). Despite this tension, Edie still desires a friendship with Aria and details her longing to connect as the only two minorities in their White workplace. Edie feels jealousy at what she describes as Aria’s “dogged” nature and contemplates her own lack of ambition.
Edie lists the various sexual trysts she has indulged in with coworkers. Some of these encounters involve Edie crying or laughing with no understanding of why. Though most of these encounters are casual, spontaneous, and purely sexual in nature, Edie’s short-lived relationship with Mark, the head of the art department, is different as “it is like I really need him” (27). Edie relays how “there are men who are an answer to a biological imperative, whom I chew and swallow, and there are men I hold in my mouth until they dissolve” (27). She places Mark in the latter category.
After sharing her work with Mark and asking for his opinion, Edie learned of her father’s death as she worked on a painting inspired by Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes. She buried her father “next to my mother, and for weeks I don’t sleep and the mice eat all my fruit” (28). Mark cut off communication with Edie, leading her to leave him multiple voicemails and stand outside his house at night. She now avoids him at work as much as she can.
Edie meets Eric at a wine bar later that evening. He is cold and tense until they begin drinking and he presents a list of rules to Edie written by his wife. Despite her desire to do so, Edie does not have sex with Eric on this date. Their third date takes place at a clinic where they are both tested for sexually transmitted diseases. They still have not have sex by their seventh date. Edie attempts to engage in sex with Eric, and he resists. Embarrassed, Edie pushes Eric out of anger and is “surprised and pleased when he shoves me back” (34). Although she is self-conscious of the poverty she lives in, Edie invites Eric over for their 10th date with the hopes of seducing him. Edie notes Eric’s discomfort in her environment, which is in stark contrast to his. After spotting her paint supplies, Eric asks Edie to paint him. She performs oral sex on him.
Time passes before they see each other again. Eric invites Edie to meet him at a club downtown. Soon, Eric takes Edie to his home in Jersey, and he asks her to decline a call from his wife on their way there. This is a direct violation of the rules that have restricted their relationship up until this point. Edie and Eric have sex in his bedroom, where he has turned all the photo frames around. He ushers Edie out of his home quickly and calls her a car to take her back to the city. Edie observes how he looks “like he has not so much had an orgasm as experienced an arduous exorcism” (40-41). For the next week, Eric does not answer any calls, texts, or emails from Edie. Ten days after they have sex, Edie heads back to his home in New Jersey and, finding it seemingly empty and unlocked, walks in and explores. The chapter ends with her facing his wife.
Chapter 2 Analysis
Chapter 2 reveals Edie’s interactions in her workplace, where she struggles to connect with her peers, attempting to make small talk. Edie “is proud to be involved in these small interactions, which confirm that I am here and semi-visible and that New York is squatting over other people’s faces too” while also referring likening her efforts to Kabuki (20), a performance that mimics human emotions. Despite only being 23, Edie does not feel connected to her generation, as exhibited in her repeated choice to date older men.
Edie’s workplace serves to highlight not only her difficulties with human interaction but also the obstacles she faces as a Black woman in a predominately White environment. Her only other Black coworker, Aria, is a foil to Edie. From the beginning of her time at the publishing house, Aria enters “the office meek and gorgeous, primed to be a token” (22). In contrast, Edie demonstrates a sexually aggressive demeanor that leads to multiple sexual encounters with her coworkers. Both operating under the immense pressure to overperform as Black women, Aria and Edie begin to connect as friends. However, the budding friendship fizzles after Edie expresses too much anger and resentment about their White coworkers. Ambitious, Aria views Edie’s lack of restraint as a liability.
Edie’s lack of restraint is most astutely symbolized by her sexual indiscretions in the workplace. Edie describes how “there are men who are an answer to a biological imperative, whom I chew and swallow, and there are men I hold in my mouth until they dissolve. These men are often authority figures” (27). Most of the men Edie has sex with fall into the first category of sexual release. Others, like Mark, the head of the art department, falls into the second category. Edie’s relationships with older men connect to the struggles from her childhood with the neglect and abandonment of her father. These relationships with older men in authority positions mirror her attempts to gain acceptance and recognition from her father. Mark rejects Edie after the death of her father. She obsesses over Mark after the rejection and now actively avoids him.
In her relationship with Eric, Edie grows increasingly sexually frustrated. They attempt to navigate the restrictions his wife has placed on their relationship. Edie tries to seduce Eric unsuccessfully; one such encounter results in her pushing Eric out of anger. He pushes her back immediately, and Edie notes “the look on his face, the glimmer of teeth, the glee with which he exercises his strength” (34). This marks the first episode of violence between Eric and Edie but not the last. Their sexual encounters will grow increasingly more violent as they both seek a release from their constrained emotions. Despite her desire to impress Eric, Edie, desperate for sexual release, invites Eric to her filthy apartment. Still, they do not have sex until later when Eric drives her to his home in New Jersey in a careless rejection of his wife’s strict rules of engagement.
Eric avoids Edie after they have sex. She repeats the pattern she exhibited with Mark and obsesses over Eric. This obsession leads her to return to his home and, finding it unlocked, she enters. In the pivotal last scene, she is confronted by Eric’s wife, Rebecca, who will play a significant role in Edie’s life throughout the rest of the novel.
