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1. What does Margot decide to do in Chapter 1 and who is against her doing so?

Margot Harrington decides to fly from Chicago, where she lives, to Italy. She plans to help repair old books that were damaged when the Arno River flooded. Against her father's wishes, she embarks on the journey, even though it also means that she might lose her job.

2. How is Margot spending time during the long plane and train rides?

While Margot is traveling, she flashes back in time mentally, remembering when she was almost in college, felt free, and had her life planned out. Life did not go as she had planned. Slipping back and forth from past memories to current travels, Margot looks deeply into the world around her. She merges past experiences with the present.

3. How does Margot first offend two American travelers on the train and then bond with them?

On a train going through France, she is mistaken for a French woman and inadvertently learns intimate details about two American women traveling in the same car. Margot learns that the conductor revealed the fact of her American identity to the two American women who were offended that she was essentially eavesdropping. As Margot explains herself to the offended women, she establishes an emotional attachment to the ladies, especially after she almost misses her train at a stop where she is trying to purchase food for them and they illegally rescue her by pulling the emergency cord.

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