Chapter 4 "One" — Summary, Themes, and Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The chapter opens in the Highgate flat Adelaide shares with Madison, where both women are recovering from an intense foot mask Adelaide ordered from a Korean cosmetics site. The treatment has left their feet peeling dramatically, and the scene establishes the easy, joking intimacy of their friendship.
The narrative then provides backstory: Adelaide and Madison were loose acquaintances at Boston University, members of the same sorority but never close. After graduation, Adelaide learned via Facebook that Madison was heading to the U.K. for graduate school, and Adelaide—wanting a friend in London—convinced her to share a flat. They signed a virtual lease on a Victorian flat in Highgate before either had landed. During Madison's first week of classes, she met Celeste at a yoga session, and the three women quickly became a tight-knit group.
Adelaide's dating history is then explored. After nearly five years of celibacy, she threw herself into dating apps and one-night stands at twenty-two, first in New York and now in London. The chapter frames this not as low self-esteem but as a matter of control—Adelaide enjoys the power of deciding when to leave. The text hints that this agency was something she lacked in her teens, and that it was stolen from her then.
As Adelaide prepares for her date, Madison gently suggests she doesn't have to sleep with every man she goes out with. Adelaide brushes this off. The narrator then delivers a significant framing statement: Adelaide's adult life could be cleaved into Before Rory Hughes and After, with a different version of her on either side.
On the Tube, Adelaide listens to Ginuwine's 'Pony' and drinks leftover wine. She meets Rory outside the Old Vic theater and immediately recognizes him: he's the man she approached during a study-abroad boat race years earlier, when she told him he looked like a Disney prince. She decides not to tell him they've met before.
They go to a rickety Italian bar on Lower Marsh Street. Rory orders Aperol spritzes. He shares his background: a gap year on a farm in the South of France, Cambridge, law work, pro bono legal work in Alabama, film school in L.A., and now a budding production company. He asks Adelaide about her life, her moves, au-pairing in Paris, and teases her about missing American snacks. They drink for hours, and Adelaide texts Madison that she's going to have sex with this guy.
Around 11:30, the bar closes. Outside, Rory wraps his arms around Adelaide to warm her. He talks about gentrification on the street—independent bookstores replaced by chains—and Adelaide connects it to her Brooklyn neighborhood. They reach the end of the street, and Rory kisses her. Adelaide hints she doesn't have to leave. Rory hesitates, declines for that night, and asks to see her Friday. Adelaide walks to the station and immediately calls her best friend Eloise, declaring she's just met her soul mate.
Key Events
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Adelaide and Madison recover from the foot mask, establishing their friendship dynamic
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Backstory: Adelaide convinced Madison to move to London; Celeste joins their group
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Adelaide's dating history and her framing of casual sex as agency and control
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The narrator's Before Rory/After Rory framing
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Adelaide recognizes Rory as the Disney prince from the boat race
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The long date at the Italian bar, including Rory's career history and the gentrification conversation
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The kiss and Rory's decision to wait until Friday
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Adelaide's phone call to Eloise declaring she's met her soul mate
Character Development
Adelaide: The chapter reveals Adelaide's past—her celibacy until twenty-two, her subsequent embrace of casual dating as a form of control, and the hint that her agency was stolen in her teens. Meeting Rory shifts her from the pattern of disposable flings to something she immediately frames as fated. Her recognition of him as the Disney prince suggests a romantic idealism beneath her casual exterior.
Rory Hughes: Introduced as charming, warm, and attentive. His hesitation at the end of the night—declining Adelaide's implicit invitation—sets him apart from the men in her recent history. His nervous habit of puffing out his chest and saying 'Shall we?' humanizes him.
Madison: Supportive and grounded, she serves as a counterpoint to Adelaide's impulsiveness, gently questioning her patterns.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Fate and serendipity: The boat race encounter and the Clarence Darrow coincidence (both were at the same performance years earlier) reinforce Adelaide's belief that her meeting with Rory is destined.
Agency and control: Adelaide's casual dating is explicitly framed as reclaiming control, with the text hinting at past trauma.
Before-and-after identity: The narrator's framing of Adelaide's life as cleaved into Before Rory and After establishes a transformative arc.
Disney prince ideal: Adelaide's boat race comment reveals her romantic fantasy framework.
Gentrification and capitalism: The conversation about Lower Marsh Street connects to themes of change and loss.
London as transformative setting: The city is presented as a place where Adelaide found contentment and reinvention.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter introduces Rory Hughes, the central romantic figure, and establishes the fate-driven framework for their relationship. It also deepens Adelaide's characterization, revealing her dating history, her need for control, and the trauma hinted at in her past. The Before Rory/After Rory framing signals that this meeting will fundamentally change her.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Adelaide frame her casual dating as a matter of control rather than low self-esteem?
Adelaide's celibacy lasted until she was twenty-two, after which she embraced one-night stands. The chapter explicitly states this has little to do with low self-esteem and everything to do with control—she enjoys the power of deciding when to leave. The text also hints that this agency was stolen from her in her teens, suggesting her casual encounters are a way of reclaiming autonomy.
2. What does Adelaide's recognition of Rory as the 'Disney prince' reveal about her romantic expectations?
Adelaide's boat race anecdote—approaching a stranger and telling him he looks like a Disney prince—reveals a romantic idealism she carries beneath her casual exterior. Her decision to keep the prior meeting secret suggests she's guarding this sense of fate, wanting the connection to feel organic while privately believing it's destined.
3. How does Rory's decision to decline Adelaide's implicit invitation complicate the chapter's romantic framing?
Rory's hesitation—asking to see her Friday instead—sets him apart from the men in Adelaide's recent history, who typically end in sloppy, mediocre sex before sunrise. His restraint creates tension and suggests he may be different, reinforcing Adelaide's belief that this is something more than a casual fling.
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