- Day two begins like day one, with Neil Holding Brenda's glasses at the country club pool.
- Brenda had invited him this time, and Neil thinks she's the most beautiful and elegant woman at the place.
- She's swimming and Neil is sitting on the edge of the pool.
- Playfully grabbing his ankles she coaxes him to join her.
- He says he has to stay out and hold her glasses.
- When she says she doesn't care about them, he asks if she's going to have her eyes "fixed" (2.6) (like her nose).
- Brenda complains about his attitude and he apologizes and gives his cousin Doris the glasses to hold.
- Doris is irritated and she tells Neil to put them down, saying "I'm not her slave" (2.12).
- He tells her she's "a pain in the ass" (2.13), and they have a little argument about whether Neil owes Doris something for occasionally inviting him to the country club.
- Then Neil and Brenda swim. They kiss underwater.
- Neil doesn't care what Aunt Gladys does, or what his parents are doing in Arizona—all he cares about is Brenda.
- Now they're sitting under umbrellas out of the pool. Brenda tells Neil she feels like things are moving too fast.
- He says nothing has even happened yet.
- She says she feels "pursued" (2.29).
- Neil says she's the one who asked him to come with her today.
- She accuses him of being "nasty" again, and he apologizes.
- Brenda says his apologies are too "automatic" (2.35) and accuses him of not really being sorry.
- He accuses her of being nasty.
- Brenda says she doesn't want to fight because she likes him.
- Then she compliments his physique.
- He says he doesn't like hers and she says he can't have it then.
- They banter and then head for the pool, spending much of the afternoon in the water.
- When in their chairs they "[sing] hesitant, clever, nervous, gentle dithyrambs" (2.53) about the feelings they are starting to have.
- (A "dithyramb" is "a wildly enthusiastic speech or piece of writing.")
- Neil tells us: "We whipped our strangeness and newness into a froth that resembled love, and we dared not play too long with it, talk too much of it, or it would flatten and fizzle away" (2.53).
- He thinks that if you take into account how intense and nervous he is around her, and how high his ego is, the day at the club is a success.
- They are kissing again at the bottom of the pool when Brenda abruptly goes up to the top.
- Neil asks her what the problem is and she says, pointing, "My brother."
- Ron Patimkin is coming out of the water. He'd been down there too, and Brenda had seen him.
- Neil says Ron is "like a crew-cut Proteus" (2.56).
- Ron and Brenda talk about the New York Yankees and Mickey Mantle.
- Ron wants to race her in the pool but she declines.
- Neil is irritated by their conversation and that he hasn't yet been introduced.
- Finally, Brenda introduces the two guys.
- They shake hands, which Neil finds weird.
- Now Ron wants to race Neil, and Brenda tells Ron that Neil is coming to dinner.
- Neil begins to panic. He needs to call Aunt Gladys. He doesn't have any clothes.
- He runs off and calls home. Aunt Gladys doesn't seem happy at the news.
- The three of them are now at the Patimkins's house.
- They eat in the dining room with Mr. and Mrs. Patimkin and their younger daughter, Julie.
- The Patimkins have a maid with dark skin, and she serves them dinner.
- Mrs. Patimkin is like Neil's dad, but without the asthma. He's a huge man with a huge appetite.
- Neil does not like Brenda's mother. She's too polite to him. She's also the most beautiful person at the table.
- He's sensing major tension between mother and daughter.
- Neil can see a big oak tree in the yard through the window—filled with sporting goods for a variety of sports.
- (We talk about these mythic trees in "Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory.")
- There isn't much talk, but plenty of eating.
- Neil relates the dinner dialogue:
- Julie: Why is it that it's earlier in Milwaukee? Suppose you took a plane back and forth all day. You'd never get any older. (2.81)
- Brenda: That's right, sweetheart. (2.82)
- Mrs. P: What do you give the child misinformation for? Is that why she goes to school? (2.83)
- Now, here's the gist of the rest of the conversation.
- Some close friend or relative lives in Milwaukee.
- Mostly they talk about eating and about sports. Carlotta is often yelled for.
- Mrs. Patimkin calls Neil "Bill," and she and Brenda trade veiled insults until Mr. Patimkin tells everybody to "Shut up and eat" (2.136).
- The dinner dialogue ends when the phone rings.
- Julie answers; it's someone named Harriet.
- Neil hears Mrs. Patimkin telling Carlotta about not mixing the silverware they use for dairy with the silverware they use for meat.
- (Mrs. Patimkin is strictly following a Jewish tradition forbidding the mixing of meat and milk in any fashion. This is one aspect of being Kosher, or conforming to Jewish dietary laws.)
- Brenda is touching Neil's leg under the table.
- After dinner Neil and Brenda watch Mr. Patimkin and Julie play basketball in the yard.
- Ron is going to be late for a game.
- Neil moves his car to let him out, then he and Brenda go back to watching the game.
- They talk about Mrs. Patimkin.
- Brenda can't believe she called Neil Bill, but Neil says it didn't bother him.
- Apparently Mrs. Patimkin doesn't help Brenda pack when she goes back to school in the fall.
- She'd rather be helping Julie.
- Brenda tells Neil that her mom is jealous of her. She doesn't exactly say why.
- She talks about her mother having been a tennis pro in her youth, and how beautiful her mother looks in those old pictures.
- She complains that her mother is tight with money, and that she has to beg to get the nice clothes she wants.
- Brenda says, "Money is a waste for her. She doesn't even know how to enjoy it. She still thinks we live in Newark" (2.153).
- She says she gets what she wants because her father gives it to her.
- Her dad, she says, isn't intelligent, but he's kind.
- Neil looks at Mr. Patimkin and admires the bump in his nose, thinking of it as an "eight-sided diamond […] squeezed in under the skin" (171). Mr. Patimkin, Neil thinks, wouldn't get a nose job, but he must have been proud when he paid to have Brenda's diamond removed.
- Brenda wants to stop talking about her parents; she wishes all her conversations didn't steer back to them.
- Neil thinks Brenda is being overly dramatic.
- He doesn't want to be thinking bad thoughts about Brenda and side with Mrs. Patimkin, but being from Newark, Brenda's remark about his town was hard to get past.
- So, he says nothing. This is to keep from revealing the terrible emotion he feels for Brenda—"the underside of love" (2.158). He tells us that this emotion will come to the forefront, but that this happens later in the story.
- Neil is coerced into playing basketball with Julie.
- He quickly learns that everybody lets Julie win; they also always give her another chance when she asks for one.
- She blows steam if Neil even seems to be beating her.
- When Neil asks if he can have another chance, Julie tells him "No!" (2.177).