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Part V: Pacific Cove (1985/1988)
Chapters Fourteen & Fifteen
Summary: Chapter Fourteen
A month after her twenty-seventh birthday in 1988, Kennedy lands a three-season arc as Charity Harris on the soap opera Pacific Cove, the arc being notable for Charity being trapped in a basement for nine months. In a flashback, a young Kennedy nagged Stella while she baked a cake. Kennedy bombarded Stella with questions about Stella’s past. When Stella told Kennedy that she was from Opelousas, Kennedy said she remembered Stella saying she was from a town that started with an M. Years later in college, Kennedy would search for Mallard in an encyclopedia at her boyfriend’s house, but it wasn’t until the cast party when Jude mentions that Stella is from Mallard that Kennedy remembers the name of the place.
In 1985 Kennedy moves to New York to pursue acting and to distance herself from Stella. While working at a dive bar called 8 Ball, Kennedy meets a Haitian-born, Bed-Stuy-raised, physics professor named Frantz. They eventually start dating and live together in a basement apartment in Queens. When Stella comes to visit Kennedy for Thanksgiving, Stella vocally disapproves of Frantz, suggesting that he is too full of himself and thinks he is the smartest person in the room. Kennedy highlights the fact that Frantz graduated from Dartmouth with a doctorate, yet Stella continues to question why Kennedy is with him since he is so different than anyone Kennedy has dated in the past.
Kennedy struggles that winter as she is unaccustomed to the cold weather. After landing a role in an off-off-Broadway musical, Silent River, she becomes obsessive about staying healthy, constantly drinking lemon tea, eating zinc tablets, and conserving her voice until she has to perform. Since bartending requires too much talking, Kennedy gets a job as a barista at Gulp. One day while working at Gulp, Kennedy freezes at the sight of Jude entering the shop. Kennedy says nothing, but Jude hands her a paper with her contact information if Kennedy decides she wants to talk. The next morning, Kennedy, against her better judgement, calls Jude. Kennedy learns that Jude is living in Minneapolis but is in New York for Reese’s surgery. Jude invites herself to Kennedy’s show that evening, telling Kennedy that she has something to show her.
Summary: Chapter Fifteen
After Kennedy’s show, Jude, Reese, and Frantz go to the 8 Ball for drinks. While Reese and Frantz get drinks for the table, Jude shows Kennedy a picture of Stella and Desiree from when they were children. Kennedy takes the picture and goes to the restroom to look at the picture more closely. Kennedy’s suspicions about her mother are confirmed. At home, Kennedy corrects Frantz when he calls Jude and Reese her friends. Frantz agrees and says that Kennedy doesn’t have Black friends or like any Black people other than himself.
The next morning, Kennedy calls the Hotel Castor to talk to Jude, but does not receive an answer. During her lunch break, Kennedy calls Jude’s room again. Not receiving a response, Kennedy calls the front desk and learns that Reese and Jude will be in the hospital all day. After work, Kennedy rides the bus to the hospital nearest to the Hotel Castor. Kennedy requests a nurse to page Jude Winston. Jude explains to Kennedy that the hospital will not let her see Reese because she is not family. Kennedy acknowledges at that moment that if something were to happen, Jude, her cousin, would be the closest relative to contact.
Jude tells Kennedy that the photo of Stella and Desiree was taken the day of their father’s funeral, thus explaining the reason why they are dressed in black. Jude elaborates that Stella and Desiree’s father was killed by a group of white men who dragged him out of their home when they were children. Kennedy recalls stumbling through her house one evening eight years ago and finding Stella in the hallway holding a baseball bat in fear. Jude and Kennedy concur that neither of their mothers talk about their father. As they wait for Reese to be released, Kennedy learns more about Stella and how Adele, their grandmother, has Alzheimer’s.
After Reese is released from the hospital, Kennedy helps Jude take Reese back to the hotel room. Kennedy asks Jude about Mallard. Unlike her, Jude explains, Kennedy would “fit right in” because the people of Mallard were so fond of light-skinned Black people. Kennedy rallies against this insinuation, arguing that her father is white. When Kennedy returns to Frantz that evening, she realizes that their relationship has come to an end.
One day, back in California, Kennedy and Stella lounge in the backyard by the pool. Hoping that Stella will finally be honest with Kennedy about her past, Kennedy hands Stella the photo of Stella and Desiree. Stella rejects the photo and explains that she does not know what Kennedy wants out of this and that she does not look like either girl in the photo. After this, Kennedy travels across Europe, reinventing her life and identity everywhere she goes.
Kennedy’s acting career dries up in the early 1990s. For two years afterward, Kennedy teaches a spin class before deciding to go to realty school in 1996. In her first year as a realtor, Kennedy sells a lot of houses. Kennedy thinks realty is as easy as acting.
Analysis: Chapters Fourteen & Fifteen
In this section, the novel examines the how Stella’s performance of whiteness has consequences for her daughter. Kennedy’s discovery of the truth about her mother serves to solidify the distance between them. Kennedy feels that her only recourse is to spend her life pretending to be whomever the world wants her to be. Kennedy remembers her mother saying she enjoys shopping because it’s like trying on different identities, and Kennedy’s acting career allows her to do the same. She becomes so immersed in her role as Charity Harris that the character and the actress become one and the same. Kennedy’s eventual success as a real estate agent is due to her ability to transform herself and the homes she sells into exactly what her clients want. Stella gave Kennedy a lifelong performance of the idealized life she wanted for her daughter, and that life did not pan out for either of them. Now, Kennedy is trapped in a performance selling an idealized version of herself.
This chapter also explores the symbol of the photograph. The photograph captures a moment at their father’s funeral, at a point in time when Desiree and Stella still exist more as two halves of a whole than as two separate people. In the image, they are holding onto each other the same way that they held onto each other as they watched their father being dragged toward death. After Kennedy sees the picture and learns about the twins’ father’s death, she responds exactly as her mother did: she wants to know why he was killed, as if there could be any explanation for the atrocity other than racism. Kennedy’s response is rooted in white privilege, and perhaps the fact that Stella once asked same question represents the first inkling that she yearned to pass as white. In this context, to be white is to be able to deny the reality that the people you love can be killed for absolutely no reason other than the color of their skin. When Kennedy presents the photograph to her mother, Stella’s denial is ambiguous. It suggests both that she doesn’t want to admit that she’s lied to her daughter, and that Stella is no longer the little girl in the photograph. The photograph becomes a totem of deceit for Kennedy as she carries it with her around the world and lies to others about who she is.
