All Fours

The narrator and Harris settle on a new arrangement: He’ll spend Monday nights at his office, and she’ll spend Wednesday nights at the Excelsior, working. She tells Jordi she thinks he’s having an affair with Caro, but Jordi is skeptical.

One Wednesday, the narrator stays in the Excelsior and tries to remember what Audra taught her. The next day, Sam tells her they brought their giant spoon to school and told everyone about her New York trip. Feeling guilty, she makes cupcakes with Sam. She hopes Harris will eat one and reset their dynamic when he returns from work, but he doesn’t.

Two weeks pass. The narrator’s relationship with Harris remains strained. One day, she invites her “married friends in their forties and fifties” (227) to visit her one by one in Room 321. During each visit, she asks about their marriages and real desires. They tell her their secret fantasies and relationship dreams. She feels hopeful that many want what she wants but still isn’t sure her new arrangement with Harris will last. One friend tells her she thinks that contemporary culture has made marriage difficult.