Absolutely Normal Chaos

Mary Lou goes to Beth Ann’s house. Things seem to be going well when they laugh about Mary Lou wanting to know “the sordid details” of Beth Ann’s dates with Derek (78). However, on a whim, Mary Lou confesses that she was a little jealous, adding that Maggie thought Derek looked like a jerk. Beth Ann is furious and throws Mary Lou out of her house. Mary Lou is also angry because Beth Ann did not give her a chance to defend herself.

Meanwhile, an anonymous donor has given Carl Ray five thousand dollars and a college trust fund. While the Finney children cannot contain their excitement at the amount of money and the anonymity of the donor, Carl Ray seems more worried than excited. Mary Lou feels that “the gods are sure intervening in Carl Ray’s life” (75).

Mary Lou continues reading the Odyssey and marvels at the motif of Odysseus receiving such great hospitality from the goddess Athene and the strangers he meets.

Mary Lou’s mother gets mad at all her children because they keep presenting Carl Ray with their wish lists. Even Mary Lou cannot resist taping a picture of a desk and the caption “Mary Lou’s favorite wish” on Carl Ray’s door (83). When her mother brands her insensitive, Mary Lou does not believe she deserves this insult.

Mary Lou goes to the pool to meet Alex. As it is cloudy, they go on to the park and Alex confesses that a girl left a message saying, “tell Alex I love him” (85). Mary Lou is angry—both because Alex suspects that the messenger is her and because some other girl is interested in Alex. As if on cue, Christy joins them and pointedly flirts with Alex. She invites him and Mary Lou to come swimming with her and her cousin. Alex refuses, and Mary Lou says that she thinks she knows who left the message.

Moments later, Alex places his hand on top of Mary Lou’s and tells her that he likes her. She feels that “he looked like Odysseus probably did when he cleaned himself up and anointed himself after being in the ocean for three weeks” (87). Alex takes her hand as he walks her home, and Mary Lou is elated. She worries that this entry is too mushy to be seen by her teacher.

Mary Lou spends the day mooning over Alex and wondering if he will call. She does not feel like writing, and therefore she will put off relating what happened to Carl Ray until the next day.

Alex called Mary Lou, and she is too under his spell to write.

Alex called again, and Mary Lou is too happy and “worthless” to write (89).

Although she is still swooning over Alex, Mary Lou feels that she has to catch up on Carl Ray’s story. Carl Ray bought himself a car with the money he inherited, and the Finney children continue to badger him with requests. Mary Lou keeps changing her mind about what she might want. Carl Ray has not told his parents about the inheritance.

Alex comes over, and they escape her curious siblings’ inquiries by going to the tree fort in the field. They talk and hold hands, and Mary Lou feels that she is in love with Alex.

This allegedly unlucky day turns out to be lucky for everyone except Beth Ann. Carl Ray is very happy with his new car. Meanwhile, Mary Lou is holding hands with Alex when she runs into a tearful Beth Ann. Having seemingly forgotten that she said she never wanted to see Mary Lou again, Beth Ann insists that they need to talk. She reports that she and Derek broke up after she caught him with another girl. While Mary Lou sympathizes with Beth Ann, she wishes she had a chance to brag to her about Alex.

Alex comes over to take Mary Lou to the movies. Mary Lou can tell that her parents like him because “he just looks so clean and all” (96). Carl Ray offers them a ride to the movies and, to Mary Lou’s horror, decides to join them there. After the movie, when Mary Lou and Alex decide to walk in order to be alone together, Carl Ray looks sad and Mary Lou wonders if he is lonely. She is nervous about Alex kissing her, but he does not try.

Mary Lou worries about being too happy because it cannot last. She thinks back to when her former English teacher Mrs. Zollar explained that the classical wheel of fortune “went round and round, and when you (or your luck) were at the top, everything would go right. But [...] sooner or later you’d be at the bottom of the wheel, when everything would go badly” (99). While Mary Lou is at the top of her wheel, Beth Ann is at the bottom and crying over Derek. Mary Lou feels mostly unsympathetic towards Beth Ann, as she is not giving her a chance to brag about Alex.

Mary Lou loses herself in The Odyssey. While she admires Odysseus’ ability to outmaneuver the Cyclops, she finds his boastfulness about his conquests of cities and people tiresome.

It is a boring, cloudy day. Alex cannot come over because he has the flu, and Mary Lou is tasked with the chore of washing the windows. Beth Ann calls and shares various plans to make Derek jealous; she also manages to make Mary Lou jealous by sharing that she is under consideration for membership in Christy’s mysterious GGP club. Although Mary Lou does not want to join the club, she feels left out at the prospect that Beth Ann would become part of another group.

Carl Ray has still not told his parents about the money and college education grant, but he says that he may drive up and see them. Mary Lou decides to stop reading The Odyssey after the Cyclops episode gives her awful dreams of being chased with a stick and having her eye nearly poked out. She reads some Robert Frost poems instead, recalling a class debate in which her peers argued over the potential meanings of the poems.

Mary Lou has the flu and cannot write.

Mary Lou is still convalescing, but Alex has recovered.

In the midst of looking after her younger brothers who now have the flu, Mary Lou sees Alex for ten minutes and they almost kiss. She is torn about how soon she wants the kiss to happen; sometimes she wants it to happen quickly and sometimes she wants to put it off.

Beth Ann’s plan to make Derek jealous is to have Carl Ray ask her out and take her to the places she went to with Derek, so that they bump into each other. Mary Lou is horrified.

On both days Mary Lou feels that she cannot write because her brain is “too mushy” from being with Alex (108).

After a contrived trip to the hardware store, Beth Ann manages to get Carl Ray to ask her out to the movies. Beth Ann is using her date with a man four years older than her as leverage for gaining popularity with Christy. Carl Ray, meanwhile, has begun to wash and use aftershave as a result of Beth Ann’s interest.

When Mary Lou is reading the part of The Odyssey In which Circe turns Odysseus’ men into pigs, Carl Ray comes into the room. He is familiar with that scene, adding “women turn men into pigs all the time” (114). Mary Lou is also surprised by Alex’s detailed knowledge of The Odyssey, which he considers a metaphor for life: “all the time you’re trying to find home […] and all the time you have these adventures” (114).

Mary Lou goes out with Alex, having practiced kissing on her sister Maggie’s posters, just in case. At the movies, Mary Lou studies the kissing scenes in detail, hoping to pick up some tips. Later in the park, when Alex puts his arm around her, Mary Lou is sure that he will kiss her, but they are both nervous and he loses his nerve.

When Carl Ray communicates his intention to go home the following weekend, Mary Lou’s parents insist that he has a driving buddy. Mary Lou is the only one who does not have a valid excuse for staying behind, so she has to go. She regrets the time away from Alex, but the blow is softened when he announces that he will be away in Michigan with his family. In Mary Lou’s absence, Beth Ann will also be going to the GGP slumber party.

Mary Lou likes some aspects of Aunt Radene’s farm, such as the swimming hole and the enormous barn, but she is less keen on the lack of electricity and indoor plumbing. She is also nervous about spending eight hours in a car with Carl Ray.

Mary Lou’s mother insists that she broaden her vocabulary and eliminate the words God, stupid and stuff. As a result, Mary Lou looks up synonyms in the thesaurus and begins to pepper her speech with bizarre turns of phrase such as “Alpha and Omega” for God, “cabbage-headed” for stupid and “quintessence” for stuff (121).

Mrs. Furtz comes over to the house crying over a letter she received. While Carl Ray is out with Beth Ann, Mary Lou snoops around his room and discovers a ring with a black stone, accompanied by a card that reads, “Carl Ray, I want you to have this. I’ll explain later. C.F.” (123). Mary Lou assumes that the ring is from Carl Ray’s father, Carl Joe Finney.

She reads “The Book of The Dead” in The Odyssey and finds it boring. Nevertheless, she would welcome the opportunity to visit those who have already died and imagines that she would check on Mr. Furtz.

Mary Lou learns that Beth Ann and Carl Ray have nicknamed each other after the famous historic lovers, Anthony and Cleopatra, and that Carl Ray has sent Beth Ann a dozen roses. Although Mary Lou is in the throes of her own romance with Alex, she finds the details of other people’s attachments soppy and nauseating.

Alex invites Mary Lou to his large, quirkily-decorated house on the other side of town. His mother is eccentric but friendly, and his father is more formal and serious. When she and Alex are left alone in the house, they are nervous and feel more comfortable going out and getting ice cream. Alex puts his arm around her, and Mary Lou relaxes.

Mary Lou reads about Odysseus’ confrontation with Scylla and Charybdis and thinks that they represent “two difficult choices, and that you have to take the choice which offers least harm” (130).

Mary Lou plays tennis with Alex, and afterwards they say they will both miss each other a lot when Mary Lou is away. She feels almost guilty about being so happy when Mrs. Furtz comes over. Carl Ray makes the odd gesture of giving her the tissue-paper-wrapped ring. However, he keeps the card. Mary Lou wonders “why would he give Mrs. Furtz his own father’s ring? He’s just full of surprises” (132).

Mary Lou is at Aunt Radene’s where there is no electricity. She struggles to write by moonlight.

On the nine-hour drive to Aunt Radene’s, Carl Ray drove recklessly and Mary Lou pretended to be engrossed in The Odyssey so she did not have to talk to him. When they got to the house, Carl Ray’s mother and his six siblings were delighted to see him, and Mary Lou felt left out and homesick. She noticed that Uncle Carl Joe was a notable absence. At dinner, the family kept referring to the suburb where Mary Lou lives as “the City,” asking Carl Ray about the numbers of murders he had seen (135).

In her homesickness, Mary Lou empathizes with Carl Ray and the feeling of being “the strange one” who is left out of the family traditions and rituals (136). She also struggles to get used to the primitiveness of the outhouse and puts off going there until she desperately has to.

In the day, the rest of the family do chores, while Mary Lou is told to rest. She gets bored and writes letters.

At the next dinner, Aunt Radene nearly drops the pudding after Carl Ray mentions seeing Mr. Furtz’s dead body. Mary Lou also contributes to the disturbance when she hints that Carl Ray has been the recipient of gifts, including a ring. Uncle Carl Joe gets mad at the thought that Carl Ray has been given a ring, and Mary Lou is confused, as she thinks it was his ring. When Mary Lou shares that Carl Ray gave the ring away, Aunt Radene faints.

Mary Lou is curious about the enmity between Carl Ray and his father. She also wonders why Carl Ray does not want his family to know about the anonymous benefactor.

As Mary Lou continues to be homesick, her cousins alert her to the presence of snapping turtles in the swimming hole. Her country cousins seem far more advanced than Mary Lou in terms of boys. For example, three of her 14-year-old cousin Sue Ann’s friends are engaged to be married and her 16-year-old best friend is pregnant, “and no one seems to mind” (141). Mary Lou does not tell her cousins much about Alex, for fear of having her relationship judged “babyish” (141).

Later, Aunt Radene asks Mary Lou not to tell anyone about the money Carl Ray received from a stranger, not even Uncle Carl Joe. She feigns anxiety that all of her children will escape to the city if they learn you can get money there. Mary Lou agrees, although she finds the request a strange one.

Later, Arvie Joe, Carl Ray and Uncle Carl Joe scare everyone by making haunting noises like the ones Carl Ray made on Windy Rock. Although Mary Lou is satisfied at seeing Carl Ray finally converse with his father, she is still homesick and wishes to return. This makes her appreciate the passage of Odysseus’s return to his homeland Ithaca, even more.