Summary—Chapter Five: Harmonious Space
After meeting Sandi at Burger Derby, Taylor gets a job
there. While they work, Taylor and Sandi leave their children at
the free baby-sitting service the mall provides for mall patrons,
and they take turns checking on the kids to make it look as if they
are shopping. After only six days of working at the Burger Derby,
Taylor quarrels with her boss and gets fired. Worried about her
dwindling funds, Taylor looks through the papers for people advertising
a room for rent and finds two promising ads. The first place she
visits belongs to three new-age hippies named Fei, La-Isha, and
Timothy. La-Isha lectures Taylor on the dangers of hot dogs after
hearing that Turtle eats them, and Fei explains that the house is
a soy-milk collective and each household member must spend seven
hours a week straining curd. Taylor goes to the second listing,
which turns out to be Lou Ann’s house. Within minutes of meeting,
the two women are laughing hysterically about the soy-milk collective
crowd. They talk easily about their Kentucky origins and their children.
Taylor tells Lou Ann the story of Turtle, and Lou Ann introduces
Dwayne Ray. When Taylor asks if she can move in, Lou Ann is overjoyed.
Lou Ann tells Taylor she worried that Taylor and Turtle were too
smart and cute for her and Dwayne Ray, who just scrape by. Taylor
tells Lou Ann to stop thinking that everyone is better than she
is, saying, “I’m just a plain hillbilly from East Jesus Nowhere
with this adopted child that everybody keeps on telling me is dumb
as a box of rocks.” At this speech, Lou Ann smiles and says happily
that Taylor talks just like she does.
Chapter Six: Valentine’s Day
The first frost comes to Tucson on Valentine’s Day, and
Mattie’s beans freeze. Mattie wants Taylor to work at Jesus Is Lord
Used Tires, and although Taylor loves Mattie, witnessing the accident that
killed Newt Hardbine’s father left her with a fear of tires. Finally,
she agrees to work for Mattie. As part of the deal, Mattie gives
Taylor two free back tires for her car. One day, Taylor confesses
her fear, and Mattie calms Taylor a little by explaining that tire
explosions are relative to their size and that tractor tires explode more
dramatically than the car tires her store services. Lou Ann watches
Turtle and Dwayne Ray while Taylor works. Taylor learns that many
Spanish-speaking people live with Mattie. Mattie likens her house
to a sanctuary, and when Taylor says she has heard of bird sanctuaries,
Mattie says her house is similar, but it is for people.
Taylor, in a bad mood, realizes she dislikes the idea
that she and Lou Ann are acting like an old married couple—Taylor
goes to work, and Lou Ann cooks and takes care of the kids. Over
a beer, Taylor asks Lou Ann to stop doing her favors. The two women
keep drinking and talking, and after a while Lou Ann realizes she
is drunk. She tells Taylor that she never drinks for fear of doing
something awful in front of her friends. Once, she and Angel and
another couple went out to the desert to look at shooting stars.
Lou Ann got drunk. The next day, Angel asked if she remembered the
meteor shower they had seen, and she didn’t remember it. She worries
that Angel left her because she got drunk that night. Taylor says
that perhaps Angel was trying to trick Lou Ann and the meteor shower never
existed, a possibility Lou Ann never considered. Taylor tells Lou
Ann her philosophy about men, which she picked up from instructions
on installing a toilet part. The instructions on the package said,
“Parts are included for all installations, but no installation requires
all of the parts.” Taylor does not believe a man exists who could
use all the parts of her personality. Lou Ann howls with laughter.
The two women stay up, laughing and talking, and Lou Ann tells Taylor
that if something was bothering Angel, he would never stay up late
with her just to eat and talk together.
Analysis—Chapters Five–Six
Fei, La-Isha, and Timothy strike Taylor as both ludicrous
and enjoyable. Their solemnity makes her feel like a naughty child.
When she hears that living in the house involves straining curd
for seven hours a week, she thinks to herself, “Flaming nurd. Raining
turds.” Taylor seems to come from a different world than the one
these three people inhabit, a contrast that makes Taylor’s similarity
to Lou Ann all the more striking and comforting. Taylor and Lou
Ann inhabit precisely the same world, one of Kentucky roots and
single motherhood. Taylor and Lou Ann’s meeting seems inevitable
and perfect, much like an updated version of the meeting of two
star-crossed lovers in traditional romantic fiction. The fact that
Taylor finds Lou Ann through an ad in the newspaper implies that
fate brought them together, and by alternating chapters, focusing
first on Taylor and then on Lou Ann, Kingsolver has built up our
expectations that eventually the two women will meet.
In Chapter Six, Mattie acts as a positive presence in
Taylor’s life. The description of Mattie’s garden suggests that
beauty can come from ugliness. Although frost has killed the garden,
something good comes of it: Mattie picks the green tomatoes so that
the frost would not get them, and she makes delicious green-tomato
pies. Mattie continues to be a mother figure to Taylor. Just as
Taylor’s mother, Alice Greer, pushed Taylor to work at the hospital
and insisted that Taylor understand cars before leaving home, Mattie
pushes Taylor to work at the tire shop and insists that Taylor understand
her own fear of tires so that she can overcome it.
Whereas in Chapter Five Kingsolver emphasizes the similarities between
Taylor and Lou Ann, in Chapter Six she begins to draw attention
to their differences. Taylor does not worry much, but Lou Ann collects
newspaper stories about freak disasters and then worries that one
of them will befall her loved ones. Taylor can leave Turtle all
day without fear, but Lou Ann must watch over her baby at all times.
Still, their differences in some ways make them a good match, which
makes Taylor’s sudden disapproval of their agreement surprising.
Because Taylor has no real reason to reject the mutually beneficial
relationship she has with Lou Ann, Kingsolver may be suggesting
that Taylor’s real problem is a fear of attachment. She is growing
close to Lou Ann, and it scares her.
