Looking for JJ

Alice works at a local coffee shop, where she notices a large middle-aged man in a leather jacket. Alice is preoccupied because she and Frankie have argued the night before. Frankie was upset because she had cut her hair and seemed controlling about her behavior and body. Frankie wants to have sex with her, and although she puts him off, she senses his “growing impatience” (15).

At the coffee shop, the man in the leather jacket accidentally leaves behind a scrap of paper, which includes a list of names with Jennifer Jones at the top. Alice immediately folds up the paper and tucks it in her pocket, then goes on break.

Alice heads home, which is only a few blocks away, and notices that someone is moving into the apartment below her and Rosie. She reflects that the three names on the paper are the names of the three girls who went to play together the day Jennifer Jones committed murder. Alice calls Rosie to tell her about the paper, and Rosie reassures her over the phone. The next day at work, Alice gives the paper back to the man in the leather jacket, and he reveals that he is a freelance detective looking for Jennifer Jones. Alice thinks that he is “despicable” (19). At the end of the chapter, we discover that Alice is, in fact, Jennifer Jones.

Later that week, Rosie finds Alice wrapped in a duvet in her room with the curtains closed and the heater on. Alice has just quit her job at the coffee shop, overwhelmed by the fear that someone might discover her identity and be repulsed by “the girl from Berwick who had spent six years in prison for murder” (21). Rosie makes her coffee and reassures her that no one will be able to find her or find out who she really is. Rosie goes down to help the new neighbor with a plumbing issue, and Alice reflects upon the first time she met Rosie. When Alice was still in the facility, Rosie came to meet her and talk about her future placement with her. Alice came to live with Rosie six months before her official release to mislead investigators and reporters.

Rosie returns and tries to continue to reassure Alice that everything will be fine. Alice thinks about how she mailed a birthday card to her mother several weeks ago, signing her own name as Jennifer, and how this might have led the detective to Croydon.

Alice is at a shopping center with Rosie and is overwhelmed by all the people there. They talk about their plans for the evening, Alice going to get a drink with Frankie and Rosie going to get dinner with Sara, their new downstairs neighbor. Rosie rarely goes out with friends and is excited to have made a new one. Alice is briefly jealous of Rosie’s new connection and is resentful that “Rosie clicked with everyone she met” (33). After she calms down, however, she is glad that Rosie has found a friend.

On their way back from shopping, they pass the coffee shop. Alice is returning to work there on Monday, and she is nervous. She’s taken a week off pretending to be ill, with Rosie covering for her. She still hasn’t told Rosie about the birthday card and is still nervous that someone might find her at the coffee shop.

Rosie goes into a newspaper store to get a copy, and Alice stays outside, lost in thought. She spies a poster with a large headline reading “Have you seen this girl?” and realizes that the poster has a picture of her own face, not as a child but as she looks now. She shows Rosie the photograph on the poster, and they both hurry home.