The Girls in the Garden: A Novel

Before the incident in the park, Grace puts Dylan’s gift—the bottle of champagne—in her backpack. They hold hands as they walk to Tyler’s apartment, and Dylan touches Grace’s legs while they wait for Tyler to answer the door. Inside, Tyler’s mom isn’t home, and Tyler puts the champagne in the fridge. When Dylan goes to the bathroom, Tyler says he bought her roses for her birthday and Grace doesn’t deserve him. Grace says Tyler doesn’t deserve him, and Tyler insults her. Grace calls Tyler hollow and nothing next to Dylan. Tyler says she hates Grace and tells Dylan to take her out of the apartment when he gets out of the bathroom.

Dylan and Grace take the elevator, and Grace pushes the stop button between floors. She performs oral sex, and Dylan tells her he loves her. Afterward, Grace sees that Tyler was watching from above.

In the present, when they get into bed, Adele asks Leo about Cecelia kissing him when Tyler was four in the Rose Garden. Leo asserts that Cecelia blamed him for her problems, then started crying, and when he hugged her, Cecelia kissed him. When Cecelia knew Tyler was watching, Cecelia kissed him again. Leo assures Adele that he is not Tyler’s father, and that what he had with Cecelia was “[j]ust a Virginia Park thing” (375).