Fear of Flying

Isadora is determined to find Bennett and see if he’ll take her back. She tries to call their apartment, and the girl who sublet it says he’s not there. Isadora calls Bennett’s friend, but the connection is bad. She suggests that she and Adrian drive to London together, but he says she needs to face this on her own. They drive around Paris, and Isadora feels exuberant by the time they stop to eat. Adrian confesses that he cannot stay with her because he is meeting his wife and children in Cherbourg tomorrow morning. Isadora blanches at his betrayal, accusing him of hypocrisy. He only laughs. She threatens to accompany him, and he forbids it. She reproaches him for keeping his “safe little household intact” (371), the very thing he censured her for wanting to do. She considers telling him that she’ll “fall apart” if he leaves her, but then she realizes that she is actually free, which is both terrifying and exhilarating.

After Adrian leaves, she wrestles her heavy suitcase, which she packed thinking she wouldn’t have to carry it alone. It is full of things meant to prove that she isn’t ordinary. She recalls pulling out one of her books to sign for Adrian, as he’d lost the first copy, and its contents spilled out.