The omniscient narrator dives into the lives of Indian Jenny, Simone, theater and laundromat owner Willard Eggleston, Evenwrite, and Hank’s cousin Joe Ben.

Viv spends a great deal of time in her room reading distractedly; she notes, “I don’t think I even remember words” (231). Lee finally formally meets Viv in the kitchen. Hank flirts with his wife, joking about how he will show off Viv to Lee in the nude. Viv and Lee banter back and forth, but when she sees the cuts he has incurred from the logging work, she insists on treating the wounds.

A month later, Lee sits on his bed contemplating some “cigarettes” (marijuana joints). Lee writes to Peters that he has become smitten with Viv and consumed with getting revenge on Hank. Later, Hank and Lee drink and talk about the past while Viv snoozes on the couch. The subject of Myra’s funeral comes up, and Hank admits “I really wisht there’d been something I could of done” (242). The two almost have an intimate moment of bonding, but Lee later decides that they failed: “I think we approached each other that night and muffed it” (242).

On another workday, everything is going well for the Stamper brothers.