- Connie answers the door wondering if she actually saw Luciente, who is a time-traveler from the future you haven't met yet. You need to have read the rest of the book to know what she's talking about in this first line. Tricky, huh?
- Connie's niece Dolly comes in all beaten up.
- Dolly drops in a chair, which is warm, maybe because Luciente's been there (if Luciente isn't imaginary).
- Dolly admits that her pimp and boyfriend, Geraldo, beat her.
- Dolly heard Connie talking to Luciente, though Dolly still isn't sure Luciente is real.
- Dolly's pregnant; she's worried that the beating will make her lose the baby.
- Geraldo shows up banging at the door. Nothing good will come of this.
- He's brought a "doctor," not to help Dolly out but to force her to get an abortion.
- So Geraldo's clearly the bad guy, and if this were an action thriller, you'd spend the rest of the novel figuring out how to defeat him and rescue Dolly from his clutches. It's not that kind of book, though.
- Dolly got pregnant because she hoped that Geraldo wouldn't want her to get him money through prostitution anymore if she had his kid. That turns out to be a miscalculation.
- Connie tries to stop Geraldo and he hits her so hard she falls into the stove and burns herself.
- Geraldo and the doctor move to operate on Dolly; Connie hits Geraldo with a bottle, breaking his nose. Yay! Heroic triumph!
- Again, not that kind of book. Geraldo knocks her out.
- She wakes up strapped to a bed and doped with something or other.
- Geraldo beat her on the way there. Then he told the people at the hospital that she was crazy and had attacked them.
- She'd been put in mental institutions before, so they believe him and not her. They won't even look at her busted ribs because they don't believe her when she says he hit her.
- So, yes, the doctors suck. Basically in this book most people suck. A bit too realistic for comfort.
- Oh, and Dolly told the hospital that Connie was crazy and had attacked them, too. So much for solidarity.
- Lots of Connie lying there. She thinks about her former husband, Claude, and her daughter Angelina. More about them later.
- More lying there.
- And more. Tedious, isn't it? Imagine how Connie feels.
- They leave her so long that she urinates on herself. Then the medical attendants come and sneer at her for having urinated on herself.
- This book does not have a cheery view of the medical profession, in case you're wondering.
- The attendants give her a shower, and then she's on the ward, still drugged.
- Eventually, nothing happens.
- Eventually, eventually, Dolly shows up.
- Connie begs her to get her out. Dolly says nope.
- Unfortunately for Connie, Dolly, whom she loves, is kind of an awful person.
- Connie remembers that she almost drank herself to death when her husband Claude died, so she understands sticking by your man.
- Now she's off to talk to a caseworker, Miss Ferguson, who reminds Connie about hitting her daughter, and suggests that this incident, hitting Geraldo, is more of the same. She also mentions Connie's husband, Claude.
- Connie remembers that her husband, a blind saxophone player and pickpocket, had been killed in jail when he was injected with an experimental hepatitis vaccine.
- Miss Ferguson keeps blathering on. Connie convinces her that her ribs are actually hurt.
- So the nurses finally look at her and tape her ribs. Connie has some hope that maybe Dolly will get her out.
- Not going to happen. Look at how much of the book is left. Lots more misery to go.
- And sure enough, she finds out her brother Luis has signed her in for the duration; she gets transferred to an asylum.
- She wonders if maybe she belongs in an asylum since she's been hallucinating visits from a strange man. That's foreshadowing, incidentally.
- But now she's just in the asylum and is miserable. More misery to come, Shmoopers. That's the kind of story you've picked up.