Chapter 4 Summary

Grant returns Miss Emma and Tante Lou to their home. He angers Tante Lou by telling her that he will eat in Bayonne. He goes to the Rainbow Club, owned by Joe and Thelma Clairborne. After ordering shrimp for dinner, he uses the telephone in the club to call Vivian Baptiste, a fellow teacher who is his love.

Vivian is beautiful and intelligent, but a mother and married to another man. She arranges for a babysitter so that she can see Grant at the Rainbow Club. Grant discusses the possibility of running away with her, as he is sick of his responsibilities; but this angers Vivian. She threatens to leave the club if he continues talking like this.

Grant explains that he does not want to spend his life teaching children on a plantation, and longs to have more control over his life...