Chapter Five

With the Kats gone, Suzie celebrates their departure and offers to find new roommates, while Margo, exhausted and grieving Jinx’s silence, learns from Suzie that Mark looks miserable and has been made department chair. The contrast deepens Margo’s sense of isolation as she nurses Bodhi and contemplates her stalled education.

Pressed by looming rent, Margo emails Mark to borrow $3,000. Memories of Mark’s classroom bravado about fiction’s “lie” sharpen her awareness of how unreal their affair feels compared to the very real baby and bills.

Instead of Mark responding, his mother Elizabeth summons Margo to a law office with attorney Larry. Elizabeth offers $15,000 immediately and a $50,000 trust invested for Bodhi to access at eighteen—on conditions: no contact with Mark or his family, a nondisclosure agreement, and that Margo not attend Fullerton College. Feeling judged yet desperate, Margo signs without reading closely, deposits the check, and, despite shame, feels a rush of relief at having saved them.

That evening, at an Applebee’s dinner arranged by Shyanne, Kenny plays genial host while delivering moralistic talk about choices and consequences. Amid awkwardness and Shyanne’s curated persona, Kenny proposes with a pink diamond. The restaurant applauds; Shyanne accepts tearfully. Margo grants her blessing but privately recoils from marriage and from future holidays dominated by Kenny.