How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The glass in her hand looked like it held only ice water at first but when he had moved closer I smelled the whiskey.
Now you listen to me.
She stepped toward me and raised her finger. I was hoping she wouldn't lose her balance again. (2.47-49)
Mrs. Worthington is a very pretty woman, but she's also a woman with her own demons. One way that she deals with this is through alcohol—and her drinking problem is apparent to Victor even when he meets her for the first time.
Quote #2
I knew it was Mrs. Worthington because I also heard the ice in her glass clinking. She wasn't very far from me on the porch swing but it didn't sound like she was swinging. She was crying like when a girl falls off a playground ride and isn't really hurt but just keeps on sobbing under hear breath. (4.82)
Yikes… Victor can recognize Mrs. Worthington from the sound of the ice in her glass before he even sees her. It's obvious that she's totally drunk right now, and that it's not making her very happy.
Quote #3
Mrs. Worthington was lying on the swing with her head resting on one arm stretched straight out. She was wearing her green housecoat. Same as the first time I had seen her. I could smell the whiskey from the broken glass. She didn't have on shoes and she wouldn't be bale to stand up without cutting her feet so I squatted down an started picking up the bigger pieces of glass one at a time. (4.86)
When Victor finally gets up the nerve to approach Mrs. Worthington, he finds her passed out on the porch swing. She's so drunk that she's unconscious, and he has to pick up the pieces of glass on the ground so that she doesn't cut herself later. He's finally starting to see the dark side of alcohol.
Quote #4
Get your drunk ass up to the bathtub.
I'm not drunk… I'm shick of looking at you.
The voice was Mrs. Worthington's with her whiskey talking.
Every day I come home you're sot drunk. I'm tired of— (6.15-18)
Yikes, things aren't looking (or sounding) so good in the Worthington household. Mrs. Worthington and her husband aren't getting along, and her drinking problem seems to only make it worse.
Quote #5
I can't tell you what they feel but I know it puts the devil inside 'em and I know it never did nobody no good. Who do you know that gets drunk? (6.47)
When Victor asks Mam about what happens to people when they drink, she immediately gets suspicious. She also tells him that nothing good will come of drinking—and that it only makes people do things they regret.
Quote #6
She went inside her house and closed the door that Mr. Worthington had almost busted the glass out of the week before. Mrs. Worthington didn't have to say much for me to tell what kind of day she was having. I had already seen her angry eyes. Her happy eyes. Her whiskey eyes. I had just seen her empty eyes. (7.10)
Victor usually sees Mrs. Worthington drunk as a skunk, but one day he sees her when she's more sober and he can tell just how empty she is inside. Maybe that's why she's always drinking—she's trying to keep that emptiness at bay.
Quote #7
She had on her red lipstick. Her hair was up on top of her head in a new way. It looked like she had spent a lot of time putting it in its new place. Her eyelashes curled up again but she had on her usual green housecoat instead of a dress. As soon as she opened the door I could smell she had been drinking her whiskey.
How nice to see my sweet paperboy. (9.38-39)
Mrs. Worthington is a super glamorous and beautiful woman, but even her attractiveness can't hide the fact that she's drunk. Victor knows she's been at the whiskey again as soon as she opens the door.
Quote #8
I watched her gulp down the last big swallow of her whiskey drink but when she went to put the glass back on the table she only got it halfway before it fell to the rug. The glass didn't break like the one on the porch. It just rolled around spilling the nearly melted ice cubes. (9.72)
Mrs. Worthington doesn't even stop drinking when she invites Victor inside the house. As he watches her drink and spill her whiskey, he doesn't know what to do. He wants to help her somehow, but she's too far gone.
Quote #9
I don't know how long I had been in Mrs. Worthington's house but it was getting dark enough for Mam to start worrying. I sure didn't want her to come looking for me. I got up from the couch. (9.81-82)
Wow—Mrs. Worthington's drinking is so excessive that she actually passes out in front of Victor after inviting him into her house. Even to a kid like Victor, who doesn't have a lot of experience being around people with substance abuse problems, it's obvious that Mrs. Worthington is a real life alcoholic.
Quote #10
I told her I knew that the only reason she talked to me so much was because she had been lonesome and needed somebody to talk to. (20.37)
By the end of the book, Victor's done some thinking and he realizes that all of Mrs. Worthington's strange behavior and her drinking is all a way to deal with her loneliness and sadness.