Summary

In Part Seven, "Shadows," the girls marry white boys. They love their white husbands and are "good wives" (157). Yet when they close their eyes, they picture brown boys' faces. They tell themselves to open their eyes (157).

The girls start running into brown boys from their pasts. They "try not to stare" when they see them with other women (158). At their friends' weddings in New Orleans, they meet a brown boy who plays drums "at a jazz bar" and go home with him (159). They dream about him for years afterwards.

In "Jenny," the girls remember girls they once loved. They realize that they "were destined to love women" (160). When their parents find out, they are ashamed. Some of the girls marry women, but "never feel quite right" (161). They leave their wives for other women or other men. Some of them realize they...