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Summary
Part 2: Chapters 20-22
Chapter 20: STEPHEN, September 2011
On the first Saturday night of their senior year, Stephen studies for the LSAT while waiting for Diana to arrive at their dinner date. When Diana arrives, he gives her a necklace he found in a box of his mother’s abandoned belongings, telling her he has picked it out for her at a boutique in D.C. They talk about their relationship and their plans for the year ahead. Although there is a party at Slug, Diana goes home, asking Stephen to get in bed with her after the party. Stephen is relieved to party without her, since she disapproves of his getting drunk and high. At the party, Stephen does cocaine with Wrigley and gets drunk on scotch. While talking to Nicole, he sees Lucy. He remembers the many ways they have had sex, and when they lock eyes, he believes he can get her to have sex with him. Drunk and high, he falls asleep in his room instead of going to Diana’s. She is furious with him for ignoring her calls when she finds him there in the morning.
Chapter 21: LUCY, October 2011
After an intense yoga workout, Lucy is frustrated that she still weighs 116 pounds despite extreme calorie restriction and heavy exercise. On the quad with Bree and Pippa, Jackie offers Lucy a Dorito, which she accepts, knowing that Jackie disapproves of her calorie restriction. The friends discuss dating prospects, with Bree wishing Evan were single. Wrigley waves to the women from across the quad when he and Stephen walk by, but Stephen ignores them. Lucy is miserable over seeing Stephen and Diana together all over campus. Stephen has never explained abandoning her at the Luau the previous spring. Her friends suggest she give Topher a chance, even though he is too short for her. That night, after drinking and doing cocaine at a party, Lucy ends up making out with Topher in his dorm room. He lacks Stephen’s confidence and skills, and Lucy feels no attraction to him. She goes home dissatisfied and missing Stephen.
Chapter 22: STEPHEN, November 2011
Stephen’s law school applications require him to disclose any previous felonies or misdemeanors, including his DUI arrest during the summer before college. Stephen recalls that after drinking with Carl as a teen, he was pulled over for a broken headlight on his way to see Macy, who he was sleeping with despite also dating Jenna. After Officer Gonzalez arrested him, he was fined, given a suspended license, and sentenced to community service. Stephen recalls he was driving well that night and still blames his father for not fixing the headlight just as he blames Officer Gonzalez for arresting him. Despite his resentment, Stephen recognizes his luck that if he had to get a DUI, that it happened when it did and not the night of the fatal accident on August 16, which would have been far worse for his prospects. While he’s filling out his application, Diana arrives to go with Stephen to the Gatsby party, where he sees Lucy and, after complimenting her and making small talk, apologizes for leaving her at the Luau. Diana sees them and is furious at him for talking to Lucy, declaring she will kill him if he touches Lucy again.
Analysis
The necklace Stephen gives Diana in Chapter 20 is a symbol of his inability to make meaningful connections to others. When Stephen gives Diana the necklace, he tells her he picked it out just for her, giving her the false sense that he has been thinking of her during their summer apart and wants to please her upon his return. In fact, he found the necklace not at a D.C. boutique but in a box of his mother’s abandoned belongings, an image that suggests the essential wound at Stephen’s core brought on by his mother’s abandonment of him in childhood. Like the necklace, Stephen is just something Nora left behind with the divorce. Rather than examine and mourn the loss of his connection to his mother, Stephen prefers to move toward his goals through deceit and secrecy. His preference is exemplified by his lying to Diana about the necklace, knowing that she will be happy to imagine him being more considerate than he actually is. The gift of the necklace is yet another example of Stephen’s outward appearance not reflecting his inner reality.
Throughout this section of the book, Lucy is tormented by the thought of Stephen and Diana together and the memory of seeing them kiss at the Hawaiian Luau, an image that is combined in her mind with that of CJ having sex with Gabe. The intertwining of these ideas underscores the theme of betrayal, an idea that runs throughout the book. CJ’s affair with Gabe leaves such a lasting scar on Lucy because it is a double betrayal. There is CJ’s infidelity to Ben and, by extension, to the family. Also, young Lucy’s sense that Gabe sleeping with her mother represents a kind of infidelity to their flustered moment together in the car and his evident return of her attraction to him. Telling Stephen the secret of the Unforgivable Thing made her feel lighter, as if he were helping carry the weight of the secret. However, this disclosure makes his leaving her for Diana a kind of double betrayal. Not only has he abandoned their relationship, he has also abdicated responsibility for the shared understanding Lucy believes they developed when she shared her secret with him. Being with Diana represents both leaving Lucy and endorsing CJ and Gabe’s betrayal of her.
Stephen’s perspective on his DUI arrest the summer before college illustrates his refusal to take responsibility for his mistakes. Stephen strongly believes that people should take control of their destinies, but he ironically fails to do so in his own life, blaming others for the poor outcomes he experiences. In the case of the DUI itself, he blames Jenna, Officer Gonzalez, and his father. He is driving that night to have secret sex with Macy, which he blames on Jenna’s being “too easy” to cheat on that summer. He believes Officer Gonzalez has no reason to ticket him and arrests him out of personal animosity, rather than because drunk drivers represent a real hazard on the road. He blames his father for the broken headlight that led her to pull him over in the first place, angry at him for being too depressed to take care of the car. Rather than take any responsibility for his own drinking and driving, Stephen attributes the DUI that endangers his law school applications to bad luck and others’ behavior.
