60 pages • 2-hour read
Still Me
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Chapters 15-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
The chapter opens with an email from Louisa to her mom describing how Halloween and Thanksgiving are celebrated in grand style in New York and apologizing for not having called home much.
Mr. Gopnik wants a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at his place with his closest family; this sends Agnes “into a persistent funk” (214). Louisa books tickets to travel home for Christmas, and Treena says she will introduce her new partner, Eddie, to the family then. Louisa runs into Meena and Ashok in the lobby on the weekend, and they invite her to join them at the march to save the library. Louisa arrives in Washington Heights thinking that she is “suddenly in a very different New York” (218).
The protest is composed of a crowd more diverse than just “the color of people’s skin, or the styles of their clothes” (219). Louisa observes that this area is as much a part of the city as the “glossy towers of Midtown” (221). Meena takes Louisa in to see the library, which is old but filled with people and families. As Ashok, Meena, and Louisa leave after the protest, Ashok stresses the importance of fighting to save the library as a space for community and a resource for empathy and learning: “You shut a library […] you don’t just shut down a building, you shut down hope” (222).
Louisa reflects on the sense of community she experienced at the protest, which is in sharp contrast to the isolated lives led by the people at the Lavery. Back home, she writes Mrs. De Witt a thank you note for the scarf and gives Ilaria some cookies as thanks for her help with Ashok’s children. She also looks up information about the library and related news about budget cuts. Sam sends her an apology email; Louisa replies to it, but then looks up Katie again on social media. There are new pictures posted of a paramedics’ night out, and “in every picture, Katie Ingram was pressed up next to [Sam], nestled into his armpit […], or gazing up at him, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder” (226).
Chapter 16 Summary
Agnes instructs Louisa to find a child-sized piano to gift to her niece; however, she wants the transaction done in all cash as Mr. Gopnik is not to know about it. Louisa is sent to withdraw small amounts of cash from an ATM every day to pay for the piano and its shipping. Besides Agnes spending a couple of hours every week at Lipkott’s studio, organizing the piano gift for her niece is “the only thing that seemed to give Agnes any joy” (229).
Things otherwise seem to worsen for Agnes, as she grows incredibly sullen and resentful about the many social events she must attend. Louisa has an idea to help Agnes feel less untethered. She suggests to Mr. Gopnik that he could make a donation to save the library at Washington Heights, and Agnes could get involved as well: “[If] Agnes got involved she could be part of a community. She could make it her own project. You and she could do something amazing” (232). However, Mr. Gopnik is dismissive about the whole thing.
Louisa continues to check up on Katie’s social media, and more pictures of Katie and Sam together are posted. On one evening Louisa has a call scheduled with Same, Louisa calls him, but he doesn’t pick up; two hours later he calls back and reveals he had been helping Katie assemble furniture at her place. Louisa feels insecure about this, so Sam suggests Katie and Louisa meet each other when Louisa comes home for Christmas.
Louisa is invited to Ashok and Meena’s for Thanksgiving dinner; just as she is stepping out, however, Agnes spots her and insists she stay at the Gopniks’ instead, as Agnes cannot face Mr. Gopnik’s family without Louisa. Dinner is an awkward affair, with only Mr. Gopnik and his brother involved in conversation while everyone else makes stilted small talk among themselves. Tabitha makes a snide comment about Louisa’s vintage dress, which sets off an argument between Tabitha and Agnes. Tabitha accuses Agnes of only marrying Mr. Gopnik for his money and to eventually father a child. Mr. Gopnik reveals that this will never happen, as he had a vasectomy before Agnes and he got married with Agnes’s knowledge and full consent.
Chapter 17 Summary
Louisa flies home for Christmas earlier than planned, as Agnes will be away visiting family. Louisa buys everyone gifts and looks forward to surprising Sam. She arrives at her flat, in which Treena and Thom are now living; after reuniting with them, Louisa sets out for Sam’s. However, when she arrives, she sees Sam and Katie together through the window. He is cooking a meal for her, pausing while she massages his neck. Louisa leaves before they see her, heads back to the flat, and collapses in tears in Treena’s arms.
Chapter 18 Summary
No one is expecting her back yet, so Louisa manages to hide out in the flat for the next two days. As she prepares to go home for Christmas Eve, Louisa decides to tell Sam she missed her flight, so she only has to see him after Christmas. Louisa receives a warm welcome from her parents at home; she notices that her granddad seems smaller and frailer.
On Christmas Day, Louisa’s mother tells her Sam had called to ask about picking Louisa up from the airport; when he heard she was already home, he said he would come over later that day. Louisa feels anxious the whole day; when Sam finally arrives, the conversation is initially formal and stilted. She finally confronts him about what she saw, and Sam admits that Louisa was right about Katie liking him, but he doesn’t love Katie. He confesses that although he doesn’t want to stop her from living her new life in New York, he has been feeling exceptionally lonely since Louisa left.
Sam assures Louisa that although that night with Katie was “badly judged,” he didn’t sleep with her; however, Louisa tells him that she “can’t be worrying about Katie Ingram and her attempts to seduce [Sam]” (270) while she is away, so she breaks up with him. Before he leaves, Sam leaves behind a wrapped Christmas present for Louisa. Right after Sam leaves, Teena’s partner Eddie, “a slim black woman in a short flowery dress” (273), arrives.
Chapter 19 Summary
Everyone is initially shocked at the revelation that Treena is a lesbian; however, they eventually recover and welcome Eddie in, and Dad tells her “if you make [Treena] happy, Eddie, like Sam makes our Lou happy, then good on you” (278). Louisa eventually tells her parents about her break-up with Sam; while sympathetic, they are not overly concerned, seeing the break-up as an understandable result of a long-distance relationship. Lily runs into Louisa on Boxing Day while she is out on a walk and crying about her break-up. Lily comes back to Louisa’s for tea and cheers her up a little and updates Louisa about all the news in her life.
Chapter 20 Summary
The chapter opens with an email from Louisa to Treena, responding to pictures of Eddie and Treena the latter has sent Louisa.
Louisa arrives back in New York still heartbroken and throws herself back into work to deal with the pain. Josh messages her asking to meet, but she puts him off saying she is busy. Agnes continues meeting Lipkott under the pretext of taking art lessons while Louisa waits in the car. On one such occasion, Mr. Gopnik calls Louisa unable to reach Agnes; lying that Agnes is in a changing room, Louisa rushes up to Lipkott’s studio to get her. She finds Agnes and Lipkott looking at a painting of a blonde-haired child and realizes the child is Agnes’s.
Agnes takes Louisa to a bar and confesses—her daughter Zofia lives with her sister in Poland, and Mr. Gopnik does not know about her; Agnes didn’t tell him when they first began a relationship, and as things quickly progressed between them it never seemed like the right time. Agnes is trying to bring her sister to come live in New York so she can see Zofia often. When Louisa asks her about the pain of leaving her daughter behind, Agnes explains that her life with Leonard allows her to provide a better future for her daughter in terms of finances and resources: “[Nobody] gets everything. And we immigrants know this more than anyone” (294). Asserting that she and Louisa are friends, she asks Louisa to keep her secret. Reeling with all this new information, Louisa decides to meet Josh for a drink.
Chapter 21 Summary
Louisa meets Josh at a bar; she explains she has a secret she can’t talk about and just wants to spend time with someone who can “remind [her] that life can be normal and good” (297). They drink, and Louisa tells Josh about Treena and Eddie, revealing the news about her and Sam’s break-up in the process. Hours later, Josh takes an incredibly drunk Louisa to his place, upon her request.
Louisa wakes up with a hangover in Josh’s apartment; he is heading out for work and tells her the previous night was fun. On her way back to the Lavery, Louisa remembers small bits of the previous night.
Just as Louisa arrives in the apartment, she is summoned by Mr. Gopnik into his study, where Agnes is also present. Mr. Gopnik asks Louisa about the cash withdrawals she had made before Christmas, which he has been notified of by the bank. Agnes has told Mr. Gopnik that she had nothing to do with the withdrawals, and CCTV footage from the building shows only Louisa leaving and returning on the days and times the withdrawals were made. Agnes remains silent while Louisa insists that she hasn’t stolen anything but is unable to explain the withdrawals; Mr. Gopnik fires her and asks her to clear out her things within the hour.
Distraught and in shock, Louisa ponders her options in a diner; she eventually receives a message from Nathan, asking her to call him back. He believes Louisa is innocent and is livid on her behalf; Ilaria, who also believes Louisa, helps Nathan hide her in his quarters within the apartment while Louisa figures out her next steps.
Josh texts Louisa multiple times, and Louisa finally meets him a couple of days later and tells him what happened. Josh offers Louisa his own place, but she turns him down; they chat for a while, and he casually kisses her on the lips before he leaves. Louisa goes by the vintage clothes store to ask if they have or know of any job openings, but they have none.
Chapters 15-21 Analysis
This set of chapters is particularly action-packed, with Louisa undergoing significant turmoil and change in both her personal and professional lives. The former involves a breakup with Sam, owing to Louisa’s insecurity about Katie and Sam’s growing closeness. As usual, miscommunication plays a part in their split. Louisa has been suspecting Katie’s true intentions for a while, as she continued to monitor Katie’s social media. Sam, however, seems to either remain oblivious to Katie’s attraction to him or chooses to willfully ignore it and even suggests that Louisa and Katie meet. When Louisa eventually turns up at Sam’s place without notice, she sees Katie and Sam sharing an intimate moment. Thus, Sam’s misreading of Katie’s behavior coupled with Louisa’s failure to let Sam know about her arrival adds to the general lack of communication Sam and Louisa have been experiencing, which brings their relationship to an end.
It is not only with Sam that Louisa’s communication has been lacking; in one of her emails to her mother, she apologizes for not having called home much. This is the email in which Louisa also describes the importance Thanksgiving holds in American culture, and the event becomes an important one in the Gopniks’ household later on. Louisa attends a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at her employers’ house on the behest of Agnes. This dinner reveals a number of important details for the reader.
In terms of plot details, it confirms Agnes’s infidelity. Mr. Gopnik reveals that he has had a vasectomy with Agnes’s consent, thus negating the need for her earlier pregnancy test unless she was sleeping with someone else. It also reveals more about both Mr. Gopnik and Agnes’s characters. Despite having married Agnes, Mr. Gopnik remains a traditionalist at heart. He values family and tradition, and he insists on a Thanksgiving dinner where everyone else is uncomfortable. He seems satisfied by the fact that everyone is present, and he isn’t bothered by the cold and awkward atmosphere. Appearances are important to Mr. Gopnik, which is further confirmed by his response to Louisa’s suggestion of him donating to the Washington Heights library. He is cold and dismissive, and Louisa observes that to people like the Gopniks, their charity cannot be anonymous; it must be visible.
Agnes, in turn, is revealed to be as selfish and self-serving as Ilaria warned Louisa she would be. Even though Louisa already has plans with friends for Thanksgiving, Agnes insists on her staying with the Gopniks with no prior notice. While Agnes insists that Louisa is her friend, she behaves in ways that belie this assertion. She rushes to Louisa’s defense against Tabitha's snide remarks less out of loyalty to Louisa and more because she views an attack on Louisa as an attack on herself. Ultimately, Louisa exists only to serve Agnes’s needs, which is evidenced by how she involves Louisa in affairs she conducts without her husband’s knowledge (such as the purchase of the piano without thought for the consequences). When things come to a head and the cash transactions are discovered, she does not hesitate to throw Louisa under the bus.
Thus, Louisa experiences an upheaval in her professional life, as she is unceremoniously fired from her job. Louisa’s termination echoes the experience of her predecessor as Nathan had previously described to her: there is no proof needed, no room for an explanation, or for benefit of the doubt. Louisa, in turn, remembers and practices Garry’s advice of discretion by refusing to give Agnes away. While this does not help her case in this particular situation, it nevertheless speaks to the kind of person Louisa is. Despite being treated poorly, Louisa remains loyal to Agnes. In fact, she is seen trying to better Agnes’s situation in different ways even before the incident at Thanksgiving when she takes the idea of the library to Mr. Gopnik as a way for Agnes to be involved in something she may relate to.
The library itself is an important symbol, and Louisa’s experience of the march gives her a glimpse into a very different New York than the one she has been exposed to so far. Washington Heights is a far cry from the Upper East Side where the Lavery is located, and Louisa sees how the working-class New Yorker lives. She is struck by the sense of community there, which is so different from the cold and isolated world the Gopniks inhabit. The library with its warmth and sense of community that envelops such a large and diverse crowd stands in direct contrast to the Lavery whose few inhabitants never interact with each other. This is further exemplified by the kind of Thanksgiving Louisa was meant to have at Ashok and Meena’s, which would have been filled with warmth and laughter as opposed to the one she eventually attended at the Gopniks, which was cold and stilted despite its grandeur.
Louisa’s own family also stands in direct contrast to the Gopniks. Louisa receives a warm welcome when she returns home, but even more telling is Louisa’s parents’ reactions to the revelation that Treena is a lesbian. While her parents fumble over their words and are unsure how to talk about this new information, they nevertheless make it clear that most important to them is their daughters’ happiness. The Clarks care not about convention and tradition as the Gopniks are; they are about the specific, individual happiness of their children.
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