My Brilliant Friend

This chapter jumps ahead a bit in time to December 31, 1958 where, at a New Year’s Eve party, Lila has her first episode of “dissolving margins”; though it is very cold and she is wearing a low-cut dress, she begins to sweat and sees all bodies as demonic and chaotic in their movements (89). Lila has had illusions that disrupt the world’s solidity before, but this is the first occasion that “unknown entities […] broke down the outline of the world and demonstrated its terrifying nature” (91). 

Back in the narrative timeline, Lila is sent to a special trade school to learn stenography and book-keeping, but she keeps truanting and eventually fails the year. Elena also does badly in her first year of middle school because she is intimidated by the better pupils. When a teacher from the school summons Elena’s mother, reporting that Elena has passed by the skin of her teeth, her mother suggests that she quit school. Elena’s father thinks she should get another chance.

Meanwhile, Elena gets her period and does not understand what is happening to her body. She wishes to speak to Lila, but Carmela is there too and it is the latter who explains.