Still Me

The chapter opens with an email from Louisa to her mother responding to her mother’s description of a day out she recently had and expressing sympathy about her granddad being unwell; Louisa does not reveal her change in employment status.

Mrs. De Witt returns home from the hospital after 10 days; she seems frailer and weaker than before and needs to consume a huge number of pills. Louisa stays on to care for Mrs. De Witt and take her to doctor’s appointments while she continues to job-search through the week and attend protests at the library with Meena on the weekends. Louisa eventually runs into Agnes in the corridor, who is being tailed by a new assistant; Agnes opens her mouth to say something to Louisa, then walks past without doing so.

Louisa eventually finds a minimum wage job at the vintage clothes store, which involves going through new shipments of clothes and repairing and cleaning them as needed. When Louisa tells Mrs. De Witt about the role, she gives Louisa two boxes filled with different kinds of buttons, zips, thread, needles, and sewing accessories, to use—Mrs. De Witt had been gifted the boxes when she was a teenager and has no use for them anymore.

Thrilled at now having two jobs she loves, Louisa begins to bring home clothes from the store to repair, chatting with Mrs. De Witt as she does so. Mrs. De Witt tells Louisa she used to be the fashion editor of a now-defunct women’s magazine. She married a man she loved, who died three years after the wedding; after his death, she had an affair with her boss, which led to the birth of a son out of wedlock. Mrs. De Witt’s parents brought him up in Westchester, and though Mrs. De Witt saw him often through his childhood, they had a falling out in his teens when she refused to choose her son over her work. Mrs. De Witt was not invited to her son’s wedding, and when her mother died a couple of years later she lost all contact with him. Mrs. De Witt tells Louisa that “[women] always have to make the difficult choices. But there is a great consolation in simply doing something you love” (351).

Louisa visits Josh at his apartment. They flirt, and he tells her how much he likes her because of how different she is from the girls he has dated before: honest, and completely herself. This leads to conversation about the Gopniks, and Josh keeps insisting that Louisa sue them, but she vehemently refuses, and Josh drops the subject. Louisa sleeps with Josh that night: “I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t vulnerable and I wasn’t breathless with need for him. I think I just wanted my life to feel normal again” (356). She falls asleep thinking that perhaps Josh is Will coming back to her.

The chapter opens with an email from Louisa to Treena describing her new relationship and the cute things Josh does.

Louisa continues to stay on with Mrs. De Witt, who, although she doesn’t pay her, keeps giving Louisa beautiful pieces from her wardrobe. Having inherited the apartment from her grandfather, Mrs. De Witt doesn’t actually have a lot of money herself and is even unable to pay the increasing pile of maintenance bills. Louisa takes Mrs. De Witt to the vintage clothes store and suggests that she could sell some of her things, which would bring in thousands of dollars. However, Mrs. De Witt is extremely offended and demands to be taken home. She tells Louisa that her things may be “old clothes, potential financial assets, to you, but they are precious to me. They are my history, beautiful, prized remnants of my life” (365).

Lily and her grandmother, Mrs. Traynor, come to visit in the spring and invite Louisa and Mrs. De Witt out for lunch. Louisa discovers that Lily has been dating Jake, Sam’s dead sister’s son, so Lily occasionally runs into Sam, which discomfits Louisa. Lily asks Louisa about Josh, but Louisa refuses to show her any pictures because she doesn’t want Lily to see Josh’s resemblance to Will.

Louisa is unsettled by the new link to Sam she has via Lily. Mrs. De Witt picks up on Louisa’s general discomfort and asks her about it and divines from the story that Louisa still loves Sam. Louisa vehemently denies this and offers a long-winded justification of why and how she is happy with Josh.

Louisa looks up Mrs. De Witt’s son and discovers he has a son of his own named Vincent; she messages Vincent without telling Mrs. De Witt. Josh invites Louisa to a corporate “family day” at his office and brushes aside her protests that she has to attend the library march. Louisa dresses for the event in one of Mrs. De Witt’s outfits from the eighties—a “white jumpsuit with gold lamé epaulettes” (373), and Mrs. De Witt thinks she looks very nice; however, Josh asks her to change as she looks a bit “drag queeny,” and the dress code is “smart casual.”

Josh and Louisa arrive at the elegant venue, and Louisa feels like she has “fallen into [her] other New York world again” (376). Josh introduces Louisa to his boss and colleagues and tells everyone that Louisa works in fashion and is about to begin work at the “Women’s Wear Daily” magazine. When Louisa asks him about this, Josh says it is easier to explain Louisa’s “particular…unique sensibility if they think [she’s] in fashion” (379). Furthermore, upon his request, one of Josh’s sisters-in-law, who has a contact at the magazine, is helping find entry-level vacancies for Louisa.

Louisa does not enjoy the event at all and eventually tells Josh she wants to leave and feigns a headache. Shortly after arriving back at Mrs. De Witt’s, Louisa receives a phone call from her dad with bad news about her granddad.

The chapter opens with an obituary for Louisa’s granddad, who had a stroke but passed away peacefully.

Louisa makes it home in time for her granddad’s funeral. Louisa wonders whether her mother would feel freed from the responsibility of caring for granddad with his passing; however, her mother seems “bereft, permanently on the edge of tears” (387). That evening, Louisa herself goes to her granddad’s room and weeps at the thought that she never said goodbye.

Louisa’s mother wants to look for jobs immediately after the funeral; when Louisa suggests that she take some time to enjoy herself instead, she vehemently protests. Eventually she confesses that she feels useless: “I’m fifty-eight years old and I’m good for nothing. I've spent my whole life looking after someone else and now there’s nobody left who even needs me” (390). However, Louisa and her father manage to convince her mother that she is still needed. Louisa’s father suggests that they travel together instead, and her mother acquiesces.

Louisa meets Sam at the funeral, who has come to pay his respects. He reveals his house is almost ready, and he will move in next month. He responds to Louisa’s query about Katie by saying that she’s “fine.” Lily, who Sam sees often because of Jake, has already told him about Louisa getting fired but finding another job as well as a new boyfriend. Louisa tells Sam she has a gift for Jake—a baseball cap—which he thanks her for. As Sam looks away, Louisa’s face “crumples.” Sam catches sight of this, but Louisa leaves before he can say anything.

After the funeral Louisa’s mother hands her the unopened gift Sam had brought her for Christmas; inside is an ambulance-shaped pin with a note that reads “To remind you of me while we’re apart. All my love, Your Ambulance Sam. Xxx” (397).

The chapter opens with an email from Vincent to Louisa in response to her message saying he would like to meet his grandmother.

Upon Louisa’s invitation and without Mrs. De Witt’s knowledge, Vincent comes to the apartment to meet Mrs. De Witt; she is surprised and delighted to meet her grandson.

Josh has been invited to dinner with his boss, and it is all he can talk about. He wants Louisa to accompany him, and although she is not overly enthused, she agrees. Distracted by thoughts of the dinner, Louisa forgets to give Mrs. De Witt her handbag when she drops her off for a routine doctor’s appointment. When she rushes into the hospital to find Mrs. De Witt, she discovers the appointment is in the oncology department.

Louisa confronts Mrs. De Witt and asks her why she didn’t tell Louisa about the cancer; however, Mrs. De Witt brushes this off, and refuses to discuss her prognosis or any other details. Back home, Louisa looks up the different medications Mrs. De Witt is on and feels shaken; she realizes she “[loves] the old woman, with her sharp tongue and her sharper mind, like [she loves her] family” (405).

Louisa pulls herself together for dinner with Josh; however, when he arrives to pick her up, he is once again disapproving of her outfit, which features “bumblebee tights.” When Louisa rushes to change, Mrs. De Witt asks her why Louisa must pretend to be someone she’s not: “I think at some point, dear, you’re going to have to work out who Louisa Clark really is” (407-08). Louisa contemplates this and remembers Will, who had originally gifted her the tights, and realizes Josh is nothing like Will. She breaks up with Josh.