Luster

Chapter 4 begins with Edie’s explanation of how her mother met her father. Edie describes her grandmother:

[she was] the sort of high-yellow woman who believed her fair complexion was the result of an errant Native American gene, but who was, like so many of us, walking proof of American industry, the bolls and shops and casual sexual terrorism that put a little cream in the coffee and made her family loyal to the almighty paper bag (65).

Although “cautious about fraternizing with dark-skinned men,” Edie’s grandmother married her grandfather, “a West Indian cad who was fresh off the boat” (65). She bore 11 children, the sixth of whom was Edie’s mother. A pianist, Edie’s grandfather abandoned the family and left her grandmother struggling to raise children who were “prone to disastrous dalliances with the arts and the things that make the fiscal wasteland of the arts worth the risk—the sex and drugs” (66-67). Some of Edie’s uncles and aunts find success around the world as artists, while others meet tragic deaths. Edie’s mother is promiscuous and begins to deal and indulge in drugs until she meets Edie’s father, “a gruff ex-navy man” (67). After they meet in a bar, Edie’s father pays for her mother to attend rehab (68). Soon into their marriage, Edie’s mother recognizes her husband’s “exact and vain” nature and becomes “a husk of herself” as he commits adultery (68). Edie reflects on her father’s lack of involvement in her life and on how much she resembles her mother, who died seven years prior.

In the present, Edie wakes up, observes the bruises on her face, and fills “with relief.” She listens repeatedly to Rebecca’s voicemail on the way to work. At work, Edie notices Aria and Mark talking. She unsuccessfully attempts to look up information about Rebecca online and receives an email from human resources asking to meet later that afternoon. Edie arrives at the meeting with human resources and her boss. They share “that some men and women in the company feel I’ve been sexually inappropriate” (73). Edie is fired. She gathers her things from her desk and tries to cry in the bathroom. After texting Eric and receiving no reply, she decides to confront Mark.

Edie enters Mark’s office; he is calm. She takes a katana sword off Mark’s wall and unsheathes it as Mark denies reporting Edie. As Mark defends himself, he remarks on how Edie’s need for instant gratification keeps her from being “as good as you could be” in her art (77). Realizing that Mark is not responsible for her termination, Edie begins to “take the katana, maneuver the blade between my fingers, and press it down into the flesh” (78). Despite drawing blood, she feels nothing.

Edie exits the building, sees Aria smoking outside, and accepts a cigarette from her. Aria informs Edie that she is being given Edie’s former job. Aria admits her hope that they could have been friends, a hope that Edie admits “had in fact taken me months of half-written emails to get over” (80). As Edie rides the train home to Brooklyn, still bleeding, she receives a text from Eric.

After arriving home, Edie attempts to bandage up her wound and throws away her paintings. She immediately begins working on her resume and applying to new jobs before falling asleep. Over the next week, Eric continues to text Edie sporadically, even though she does not reply to him. Edie begins working for an in-app delivery system and starts earning a meager living. She soon receives notice that her rent is going up and that her roommate is moving out.

Unable to afford her rent, Edie is kicked out of her apartment. After arriving at a hospital to deliver a peculiar order of a saw, Edie sees that the customer is Rebecca, who is “jogging out of the hospital in scrubs and rubber boots” (93). Rebecca invites her into the hospital and asks Edie why she never returned her phone call. Edie confesses that she lost her job.

Rebecca takes Edie with her into the basement of the hospital where she works as a medical examiner. She provides Edie with a protective suit and undresses before putting hers on. Rebecca performs an autopsy on a deceased Black man who was hit by a car while Edie plays a radio Rebecca has given her. As they smoke cigarettes in the parking lot afterwards, Rebecca asks Edie about Akila. Edie reluctantly admits to herself “that I have thoughts about it, the apparent isolation of their child, a thing immediately recognizable to me for being myself that thing which is most hypervisible and invisible: black and alone” (99). Edie admits that she has nowhere to go, and Rebecca tells her to get in her car. Back at Eric and Rebecca’s home, Rebecca makes up the guest room for Edie. Rebecca tells Edie that the arrangement is temporary and asks Edie to stop her relationship with Eric.