Part Three Summary and Analysis
Part Three
The narrator has been working for Aimee for several years. Aimee wants to open a school for girls in an unnamed African country, believing that it is individuals, rather than governments and agenda-driven charities and churches, that can do good in the world. For Aimee, people like her, who have both the resources and the inclination to bring about social change, are the real drivers of the future. The narrator skeptically notes to herself that the underlying premise of Aimee’s statement is that the wealthier the individual, the greater their potential to do good, which in reality is hardly the case. Wealth-creation itself occurs because of social and economic exploitation and inequality.
Aimee and the narrator view the promo of the school project Aimee has recorded for donors, at the beginning of which Aimee “breaks soil” in the “West African village” and lays the foundation stone for the school in the presence of “a group of beautiful schoolgirls.” The narrator is struck by how differently the video portrays the event compared to her own observation of the event many months ago. The video splices images of Aimee in New York and Europe with sped-up footage of the construction of the school building, as if demonstrating “what was possible when good people of means decided to get things done.”
Though the narrator’s mother considers Aimee’s approach to social change “naïve,” the narrator notes that Aimee herself insists she has tried and failed when trying to attempt change via “the political route” and has opted to do things herself at the grassroots level. The narrator admires Aimee’s commitment but finds herself aligning with her mother’s perspective when Aimee’s wealthy friends come up to her “Hudson Valley house” and “chatter over cocktails about their plans to end Malaria in Senegal,” blissfully unaware of the irony of the situation.
Despite the mixed feelings, the narrator admires many things about Aimee, one of which is her attitude towards time. By sheer force of will, Aimee seems to be able to live many lives in one and slow down the passage of age. Not only does Aimee look decades younger than her chronological age, she also has an “unbelievable youthfulness” pulsing through her. Even after the birth of her two children, Jay and Kara, Aimee went straight back to the studio and the gym. Though some, like her cynical Italian chef, Marco, grumble that her energy comes from her enormous wealth, the narrator notes that this is only partly true. Much of Aimee’s drive comes from her innate sense of restlessness and purpose.
On the eve of the narrator’s thirtieth birthday, Aimee takes her out to party. They end up in a club where the narrator is enraged by the shrill singing of a group of white bachelorettes. The narrator takes up the Black piano player’s offer to sing a song from Gypsy. As she loses herself in the singing, the narrator feels a surge of confidence and belonging, thinking of the Black singer Nina Simone, who preferred the term “Classical Black Music” to “jazz.” The narrator feels that though she may not be a natural dancer, music is her medium; she even wonders whether she may be a better singer than Aimee. As the song ends, the narrator finds that Aimee is not in her seat. Instead, Aimee is waiting for the narrator in the car. Though Aimee applauds the narrator’s singing, the narrator feels sobered by Aimee’s self-absorption.
Driving around New York, Aimee questions the narrative about the “bad energy” the narrator has been exuding since their last visit to London...
(This entire section contains 1457 words.)
Unlock this Study Guide Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
a few months ago. Aimee suspects that something may have occurred there that has unsettled the narrator. Although the narrator tries to evade Aimee’s questions, she is worn down by Aimee’s probing. The narrator reveals that on a date in London she saw a dance performance featuring her old friend Tracey. Seeing Tracey upset the narrator, because Tracey did “something terrible” to her when they were twenty-two. Although the narrator recounts the ugly episode to Aimee, the details are withheld from readers at this point. Through Aimee’s amused reaction, it can be inferred that Tracey revealed to the narrator an aspect of the narrator’s father’s sexual conduct. Aimee feels the father’s sexual transgression was harmless and minor and that the narrator is overreacting. However, the narrator tells Aimee that it was not her father’s alleged actions which shocked her but rather Tracey’s deliberate intention to mar her beautiful memories of her father. Still trivializing the episode, Aimee falls into a quick power nap. The narrator is once more reminded that Aimee can travel in and out of situations seamlessly, unlike others.
During the earlier fateful visit to London, the narrator also meets her mother, who is now poised to become a Member of Parliament for the liberal Labor Party and is in a relationship with an Afro-Cuban intellectual named Miriam. The narrator feels small next to her high-achieving mother, a feeling which is aggravated by her mother’s insistence that Aimee is exploiting her. However, despite her defense of Aimee, the narrator is aware that none of Aimee’s four female assistants have had a personal life; moreover, only one out of the four has had a child, “and only then in her mid-forties, long after quitting.” The narrator’s mother is also suspicious of Aimee’s recent announcement about “global poverty reduction” and finds Aimee’s apolitical, whimsical approach ineffectual.
The narrator’s mother also suggests the narrator meet with her father, from whom she is now estranged, and Tracey. The narrator is surprised at the second suggestion, since she feels her mother always disapproved of her friendship with Tracey. However, her mother tells the narrator she must stay rooted to her past, of which Tracey was a major part. Her mother expresses the opinion that the narrator is being uprooted from her past and future by Aimee. The narrator informs her mother that Aimee is not the exploitative ogre she assumes—she has arranged a date for the narrator with an attorney called Daniel Kramer.
Analysis
The narrator’s ambivalent feelings about Aimee, and her persistence in working for Aimee despite the ambivalence, highlight that her own self is still being formed. Her biracial identity, working-class background, idealistic mother, and her early failure with dance all play a role in the unsettled nature of this self. The narrator’s torn self is most revealed when she juxtaposes Aimee’s way of living against her mother’s teachings. Though she admires Aimee’s energetic, race- and class-agnostic approach, she finds herself agreeing with her mother’s opinion that only a rich white person can enjoy the luxury of that approach.
Despite having resisted her mother’s tendency to turn the personal into the political, the narrator can also see that the political and the personal are never free of each other. Torn between opposing influences, the narrator finds comfort in being subsumed by Aimee’s life. The narrator’s mother’s assertion that Aimee is “sucking your youth” is partly true, but what the mother cannot see is that the narrator is willingly abdicating her personal life in order to avoid reality.
Strikingly, the narrator often describes Aimee as “colorless” and “translucent,” as if one part of her believes she can escape the pressures of her own race by losing herself in Aimee’s life. Yet another part of her is critical of Aimee’s ease of escaping time and reality, as if Aimee were “moving at the speed of light, away from the rest of us.” The narrator notes the people that make this timelessness possible, such as Aimee’s exhausted chauffeur, Errol, who drives her around town in the middle of the night, and her Jamaican nanny, Estelle, who disappears into a nursery with Aimee’s children every morning.
However, there are signs that the narrator’s divided self is integrating, such as when she sings at a nightclub on her thirtieth birthday. The narrator notes that the badly singing bachelorettes are white, while the tired piano player is Black. She responds when the musician refers to her as “sister” and while singing, she thinks of Nina Simone. In contrast to her usual self-effacing mode, the narrator feels elated and whole while she sings, noting that she may be a better singer than Aimee herself. The brief interlude suggests that the narrator may yet grow into her skin, accepting that her real talent is music rather than dance, asserting her mixed-race identity, and accepting her mother and father with all their flaws.
