Boy, Snow, Bird

When Boy arrives in Flax Hill, it’s snowing enough to make it difficult to see. Not knowing anything about the town, she chooses to follow two women, whom she has overheard speaking about their landlady. She arrives at a women’s home run by a Mrs. Lennox, who seems more than happy to take her in.

Boy describes her early relationship with Flax Hill as “shaky” because of her temporary status, thinking of the town as “collapsing when [she] went to sleep and reassembling in the morning in a slapdash manner” (15). She mainly keeps to herself at the women’s home, as the other women around her try to guess her story. Her reflection, meanwhile, keeps her company. She discovers that there are three things about her that people dislike: that she’s from Manhattan, that her name is Boy, and that, as Flax Hill “is a town of specialists,” she has no skills to contribute (16-17).

Boy begins going on double dates with another woman from the home, Veronica Webster, “one of those women who are corpselike until a man walks into the room, after which point they become irresistibly vivacious” (17). Veronica has steady dates with Ted Murray, through whom Boy meets Arturo Whitman, a former history professor and current business partner of Ted’s.

Arturo is clumsy and a bit wild; his wife passed away shortly after giving birth to their daughter, Snow, six years prior, and Boy generally feels as if Arturo is not particularly interested in the dates. He is kind to Boy until he sees Boy smiling at her own reflection in a picture frame; she smiles because of someone else’s comments, but believes Arturo now perceives her to be vain.

The pair go on double dates together several times per week, which Boy appreciates more for the free meals than the company. While talking about it with Arturo one evening, he tells her she should go back to New York, believing she is there just for a free ride, as he says people in Flax Hill are “interested in the process, not the end product” (23). Boy bristles at his attempt to judge her as a dressmaker from the big city; New York is not “a big city to [her],” as it “was no bigger than a Novak rat cage” (23).

Boy stops going on double dates with Veronica. She takes long walks around Flax Hill, to which she is growing more accustomed. During one of these walks, while passing a house toward the back of town, Snow comes out of the house and says “Hi” to Boy. Although she’s never met Snow, Boy says “Hi, Snow,” and continues on her way. 

Boy spends most of her time in various locations combing the Help Wanted section of the local paper, looking for work. One day, she comes across an ad for blonde women to act as hostesses for a Valentine’s Day cruise party to Drake Island. She and “about a hundred blondes” show up for the party, whose host confuses Boy by describing both the party and their brand as being “accessible, yet exclusive” (28). The women are assigned jobs; she is assigned to the coat check along with a woman named Mia Cabrini, who, like her, is more cynical about the whole endeavor. She notices that Mia is taking notes throughout the night, but Boy doesn’t ask why.

After three hours, Mia and Boy are asked to trade places with two other women and mingle with the guests; Mia mingles, but Boy goes to the top deck to smoke instead. Food and drinks are passed around, but no one offers Boy either. She is fascinated by the transactional nature of the relationships between the wealthy men and their partners, noticing that “[s]ome couples seemed pleased with their negotiations and others were in the despair” (30).

Mia finds Boy and dances with her; being on an empty stomach, at the end of the dance, Boy falls into the lap of Arturo Whitman. It turns out that Mia was a student of Arturo’s, and the two disappear to catch up. Boy watches them and finds herself somewhat jealous.

Back working in the coat check, Mia addresses the elephant in the room, telling Boy that she and Arturo are just friends. However, she also tells him that they “were almost something more once,” then suggests that Arturo once reacted very poorly to a sore subject (33-34). Boy claims confusion, but Mia says that she’s telling her this because Arturo and Boy say they can’t stand each other, which means they probably like one another.

When they arrive at Drake Island, the women are all asked to work coat check, then Boy is asked to be one of the women who stays behind to entertain guests who do not want to go ashore; however, Boy treats the guests coldly until, no one but Arturo will talk to her. Boy confronts Arturo about his presumptions, then asks why he quit teaching. He claims that, first, he got too close to the details of his area of expertise and began to believe that no one individual actually means anything, and second, that he had run into a jeweler who made simple baubles yet seemed to be much happier than Arturo was.

When they return at seven in the morning, Boy discovers that Mia isn’t actually a blonde, but an aspiring journalist trying to write an investigative piece about the world of blondes. They say goodbye to Arturo, and Mia drives Boy back to the home.

Back in her room, Boy writes a note to her old boyfriend, Charlie, in order to give him her new address, asking him to keep it a secret. With the rest of the women gone, she goes to the bathroom, undresses, and kisses herself in the mirror.