Chapter 28 Summary, Analysis, and Key Takeaways

⚠️ 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

Chapter 28 opens with a characteristic list: the things Julia Marini, at twenty-nine, does not believe in—raisins, Libertarians, scented candles, astrology, and a handful of other pet peeves. The punchline is that she does believe in Mark Ames, a researcher at the University of Chicago. The two meet for cocktails at a patio bar on Van Buren near the library, where Mark marvels at the coincidence that Julia grew up just blocks from his campus. She deflects, insisting Chicago is a big city, but she softens as she takes him in. The narration describes meeting Mark as like finding a beloved old sweatshirt she hadn't realized she'd lost—he smells right, their bodies fit together peaceably, and he seems to have been there all along.

Their relationship accelerates quickly. Mark takes her to see Wilco at the Auditorium, opens doors for her (which she knows she isn't supposed to care about but does), and is punctual to a fault. He always seems genuinely happy to see her, lighting up when she arrives at his apartment. They go on three dates, then four, then ten, and stop counting. The chapter describes a manic quality to this period, awash in the blind, dumb admiration of another person, untarnished by the inevitabilities of commitment. Julia, who has never been sentimental, finds his hand in hers moving; the world seems more livable with him around.

During a dinner, Mark asks about her mother. Julia is evasive, saying only that her mother is a force. She reflects that she and her mother, Anita, have spoken on the phone only a handful of times since Julia left for college—short, stilted conversations that amount to wellness checks, the last one over a year ago. Mark, by contrast, has shared his full biography: he's from La Crosse, Wisconsin; his parents are Bonnie and Skip; his father is a mechanic, his mother an elementary school secretary; he has an older brother named Drew; he went to Stanford. Julia has told him little—only that her father is dead and her mother lives in Colorado, so he won't be meeting her parents anytime soon. It's all technically true, but she's been meting out details slowly, releasing air from the balloon rather than blasting him in the face.

Mark, getting uncharacteristically silly, asks what kind of tree her mother would be. Julia deflects with an edge in her voice, and he notices she's in a mood. He squeezes her hand and asks what's going on in there, telling her she's shrouded in mystery. She relents and lets him ask questions. He asks her earliest memory and best vacation. She hasn't thought about it in years, but a memory surfaces: a day trip to the Indiana Dunes as a very young child, a rare outing with both parents. She recalls the warm air blowing into the open windows of the car, her dad driving fast on empty stretches of highway, leaning theatrically left and right like they were on a roller coaster, making Julia lift her hands and squeal with delight.

Mark tells her she can tell him anything, and she wonders if the twinge she feels—sharp, abdominal, halfway between excruciating and enlivening—has anything to do with love. She tells him, cryptically, that her mother is a phone tree, and lifts his palm to her lips, and the moment passes.

Later, Mark walks her to her Friday night shift at a bar in the Loop. She's telling him an animated story about a colleague she calls Squeaky Fromme, who told a coworker named Maya she couldn't work because she was getting an abortion—her third that month, Julia adds, trying to scandalize him. Mark is measured, slower to judge than she is, and she finds his easy shock sweet and refreshing, though it makes her even less inclined to share the nitty-gritty of her own colorful formative years.

They stop a few storefronts from the bar, in front of a discount luggage shop. Mark offers to pick her up after her shift; she declines, promising to take a cab. As they part, he delivers the line offhandedly, like a handshake: