Blended

At the center of these chapters is Izzy’s declaration to her father while they share a quiet moment in his backyard pretending to be camping that “The thing is, nobody seems to ever think about how stuff feels to me. Nobody ever asks me” (224). These chapters mark the emergence of Izzy as an object of concern for both her parents and, in turn, a chance for them to set aside their selfish, territorial games and support and love their daughter. As such, these chapters function like the quiet before the storm, a chance for Izzy to take a kind of deep breath before she moves into the shattering experience that shapes the narrative’s closing chapters.

The tension between her parents, for instance, caused by their scheduling their remarriage ceremonies on the same day escalates the friction between them but then quickly eases as both parents see the impact of their new relationships on Izzy. Initially, Izzy’s reaction to her father’s remarriage is oddly cool, even indifferent. Her concerns over who and what she will become with her mother’s remarriage are doubled now. She feels more and more shuttled to the margins of her parents’ affections. They are forming new families, and for Izzy, that means her place is now undefined.

The decision both parents make to remarry on the same day, although entirely coincidental, exacerbates the tensions between the parents and ultimately implodes in the incident at the mall. Izzy has never seen her mother so enraged. Her comparison of her mother to a mother bear is telling. Izzy intends the comparison to suggest emotional power she has never suspected her laidback mother capable of expressing, but the animal imagery also suggests that her mother has lost something of her humanity, the gentle compassion that Izzy has long admired in her mother as she tends to the customers at the Waffle House. Confrontation is not the answer. We are more than animals.

The mall showdown stuns Izzy as well. Her calm, steady father, in summoning the police, has done something that seems entirely out of character. It is more than Izzy can bear. Her flight to the mall parking lot, and her hysterical declaration that she hates both of them, serve in the end to ease the tensions between her parents. Izzy’s tearful, angry reaction to the presence of the cops and the threat to have her mother arrested is sufficient to alert her parents to what their pettiness and hostilities are doing to their young daughter. In fact, Izzy and her soon-to-be stepmother visit a shop and purchase an expensive black velvet dress for the recital, a transaction that appears to exorcize the haunting memories of Izzy’s encounter with dress shop security just days before. Izzy suddenly counts; she is finally noticed.

Chapter 59 is, in essence, the happy ending that the novel will render ironic. Izzy’s father has apologized for calling the police and has pledged to his daughter not to let things get ugly. He and Anastasia have talked and have moved their marriage date so that Izzy will not be pulled between the two events. Both parents promise to attend Izzy’s recital and not to make any scene. Free of that conflict and stress, Izzy focuses on mastering the last few details of her recital piece, “going over the tricky left-hand fingering of that one tough passage a zillion times” (232-33). She is confident that conflict has been avoided, her family healed. It is a happy moment but not the novel’s ending. Izzy’s celebratory “Woop, woop!” that ends this section proves premature.