One Last Stop

Much of the novel takes place along the Q line of the New York metro. August rides it every day to get to Billy’s and to school, and it’s on the Q that she meets Jane, who is literally tethered to the route. However, “in her first month in the apartment on corner of Flatbush and Parkside above the Popeyes, August learns that the Q is a time, a place, and a person” (38). At first, it’s just the train she takes every day at 8:05am, making it a specific time in her day and her life. It’s also where she gets a break while hustling from school to work and can relax. Finally, it's where she always sees Jane, with whom she quickly falls in love long before she has any sense that Jane is a temporal anomaly.

In addition, the Q is a major place where August learns to be confident in herself and her abilities. Riding the Q with Jane forces August to use her investigative skills, which she’d long wished to push down in hopes of leaving her Uncle Augie’s case behind. She has no intention of solving it or being involved further; the fact that Jane knew Augie is serendipitous. However, in the process, she comes to value her investigative skills. She begins to become more confident. When Jane convinces her to jump between cars one day, she thinks:

She trusted Jane and her time on this train and that cocky grin to get her there safely. Why can’t she do the same for herself. She’s learned this train backward and forward. The Q is home, and August is the girl with the knife picking its stops apart one by one (163).

She comes to know the route more intimately than she ever expected, and she takes a leap of faith. Finally, Jane’s ability to emerge from the Q signifies the end of both her and August’s heroic journeys. They emerge from underground to live their lives together, recognizing that a new chapter is beginning. Jane becomes disconnected from the Q, and when she first doesn’t appear to stay in August’s time, August has to be okay with what happened, thinking that Jane is in the 1970s. Being okay with this fact and still trudging on is major for August, who once thought that she wouldn’t know what to do without Jane. Instead, she remains the confident New Yorker that she has become. When Jane does appear at Billy’s, she too must wrestle with what life will be like after finally getting off the Q.