Contents
Sunday, 9 June
Overview
Josie’s casual encounter with Alix becomes an obsession as Josie researches Alix, consumes her podcast, and begins interpreting coincidences as signs of destiny. A podcast episode about a woman freed from a controlling marriage unsettles Josie, while Alix’s own life is shown to be less perfect than Josie imagines.
Alix wakes after her birthday to find Nathan gone, and his all-night drinking binge exposes a recurring marital problem. By the end of the chapter, Josie’s discovery that Alix’s children share a school connection with Josie’s daughters strengthens Josie’s conviction that she and Alix are meant to connect.
Summary
Josie wakes from a dream in which Alix Summer invites Josie to her table and says she needs Josie. The noise of buses outside Josie and Walter’s flat pulls Josie fully awake. Hungover from her birthday night, Josie gets up, speaks briefly with Walter, and discovers that Josie had been searching for Alix online late the previous night.
Josie learns that Alix is a podcaster and journalist with a show called All Woman, where Alix interviews successful women. Josie listens to an episode featuring Mari le Jeune, whose story of escaping a controlling marriage after her husband’s death deeply affects Josie. Mari’s description of death as “a clean break” makes Josie pause and glance at Walter, suggesting the episode has struck a private nerve.
The chapter shifts to Alix, who wakes hungover and alone after her birthday night. Alix pieces together fragments of the evening, including Nathan wanting sex after they came home, then realizes Nathan never slept beside her. Alix searches the house, asks Eliza and Leon if they have seen Nathan, and recognizes the familiar pattern of Nathan disappearing after drinking.
Nathan returns at 4 p.m. in the same clothes, claiming he went to Soho with Giovanni and Rob, drank more, and slept in a hotel because he was not capable of coming home. Alix is repulsed rather than amused by the reckless behavior she might once have found funny, and Nathan’s absence ruins her memory of the birthday celebration.
Over the following week, Josie listens to nearly thirty episodes of Alix’s podcast and becomes increasingly drawn to Alix’s empathy, intelligence, and apparent self-possession. Josie imagines meeting Alix again and being mentored into a new version of herself. When Josie later sees an Instagram photo showing that Alix’s children attend the same school Roxy and Erin once attended, Josie interprets this added coincidence as proof that something is pulling Josie and Alix together.
Who Appears
- JosieResearches Alix obsessively, listens to her podcast, and interprets coincidences as destiny.
- Alix SummerPodcaster admired by Josie; privately deals with Nathan’s disappearance after drinking.
- NathanAlix’s husband; disappears overnight after drinking and returns from a hotel in Soho.
- WalterJosie’s husband; remains absorbed in his computer while Josie explores Alix’s world.
- Mari le JeunePodcast guest whose story of a controlling marriage and reinvention deeply affects Josie.
- ElizaAlix and Nathan’s daughter; is at home when Alix searches for Nathan.
- LeonAlix and Nathan’s son; gives no information when Alix asks where Nathan is.
- FredJosie’s Pomchi dog; lives with Josie and Walter near the noisy bus stop.