The Drowning Woman

Lee goes to a local pool to take a shower because “the staff will look the other way if it’s not too busy, if [she is] quick and quiet” (8). She thinks about the bridges she burned in New York and meeting Damon. Lee’s dream had been to start a restaurant, the Aviary. While she knew that Damon was a gangster, she accepted his offer to invest in her restaurant. She recalls how the pandemic affected her business, eventually driving her to bankruptcy. Damon then crushed her finger, threatening to break another one weekly until she paid him, so she fled to Seattle. Lee finishes her shower, thinking about what to do about her broken car window.

Lee goes to her shift as a waitress at Uncle Jack’s, a diner in a bad area. She asks her boss, Randy, for an advance on her paycheck so that she can fix the window. He says no. Vincent, one of the diner’s fry cooks, overhears Lee telling Randy that she’s been robbed and says that his friend will sell her a phone for $30. Lee goes out back to meet the friend, who sells her the phone and then asks if she wants to make some more money via sex work. She declines.

Lee decides to drive to an affluent seaside neighborhood to sleep in her car in relative safety. She thinks about calling her sister, Teresa, but knows that she can’t expect forgiveness. The novel later reveals that Lee caught Teresa’s fiancé cheating and then attempted to extort him instead of telling her sister immediately.

A few mornings later, she wakes up beside the beach and hears a woman crying. Lee sees the woman walk into the water and go under. Lee jumps in and pulls her to the surface.

The drowning woman, whom the novel later introduces as Hazel Laval, regains consciousness and immediately starts fighting. She’s furious with Lee for saving her life. Lee retrieves whiskey and a sleeping bag from her car, and the two women huddle together, sharing the bottle. Hazel tells Lee that she hates her life because she’s in a toxic marriage with a sadist.

Lee pays to shower in a YMCA and then goes to work. She can’t stop thinking about the drowning woman. The next morning, she parks her car in the same neighborhood and wakes up to find Hazel tapping on her window.

Hazel thanks Lee for saving her life: “I’m grateful that you found me when you did” (31). She gives Lee an antique kimono clasp called a netsuke that belongs to her husband, Benjamin, and says that it’s quite valuable if Lee wants to sell it. In addition, Hazel brought breakfast, and the women eat together on the beach.

After payday, Lee goes to an auto body shop to have her window repaired. As she waits, she realizes that she’s getting sick. She panics since her life is hard enough when she’s healthy. She makes eye contact with another customer, a young man, who gives her an orange. When her car is ready, Lee drives back to the affluent neighborhood to sleep.

Lee thinks about how her restaurant was her identity and how its loss “feels like a severed limb sometimes, an invisible ache for a lost lover or a cherished pet” (40). Hazel knocks on Lee’s window and sees how sick she is. She promises to return later with food and supplies.

Hazel returns with medicine, food, and cosmetics, suggesting that Lee will feel better if she looks better. Hazel washes Lee’s face and applies makeup. At work, one of the customers is the man from the car shop who gave Lee the orange. He introduces himself as Jesse Thomas. Lee feels distracted by his presence, and “something dormant” stirs in her (44). He asks her what time she finishes and says that he’ll come back at midnight and they can go out for a drink.

Lee wakes up in Jesse’s empty apartment. She remembers falling asleep after drinking whiskey the night before. Jesse helped Lee into his bed and then slept on the couch. He returns to the apartment with tea and breakfast. She feels smitten.

As Lee drives back to the affluent neighborhood, she thinks about what happened with her sister, Teresa. Teresa’s fiancé, Clark, had brought a young lover into Lee’s restaurant, the Aviary. Already in debt, Lee took photos and attempted to extort Clark rather than telling her sister immediately. When Teresa found out, she forgave Clark but not Lee.

Lee sees Hazel on the beach. Hazel explains her situation with her husband, Benjamin, in more detail, saying that it started off as a consensual “master/slave contract” but devolved into nonconsensual physical and emotional abuse.

Jesse comes to the diner a few nights later and invites Lee out for ramen after her shift. They talk about their birthplaces and about Hazel. Jesse expresses sympathy, and Lee recalls their conversations over the past few days about how Hazel can escape her life. Jesse walks Lee to her car, and they kiss.