Prep

Sin-Jun’s dad owns several running shoe factories, so he’s rich, but her parents aren’t coming for parents’ weekend. Lee’s parents, however, are attending. At dinner, Maria Oldega says she likes parents’ weekend due to the food. Rufina thinks Ault serves better food with the parents around to make them think Ault takes extra good care of their kids.

Lee wonders if Nick Chafee—his grandparents founded the Chafee Museums—likes Rufina, and Lee remembers Rufina crying on the bus on the way home from a soccer game freshman year. Nick invites the girls to the activities center to listen to Pink Floyd, but Lee declines—she doesn’t want to ruin the positive interaction.

The dinner makes Lee feel like she belongs at Ault, and she worries her parents won’t embrace her identity and will clash with the Ault world. She hasn’t told them about how Ault has made her feel unhappy. As she thinks about them possibly missing the gated entrance to Ault, she compares them to Hansel and Gretel lost in the woods.

Lee’s parents arrive, and the Burger King bag in their beat-up Datsun makes her think about how Martha’s parents bring vegetable soup in thermoses and real silverware.