Mary Jane

When Mary Jane comes downstairs in the morning, she is confronted by her angry parents. The photo taken at Night Train Records has made the newspaper's front page, which Beanie immediately showed to Mrs. Dillard. Mary Jane tries to explain, but her parents forbid her to return to the Cone house. She protests that Izzy needs her and her job is only for two more weeks before school starts, but her parents remain firm.

Mary Jane is then banished to her room. On Sunday, she is expected to attend church and sing in the choir to keep up appearances. During her performance, she sees Sheba, Jimmy, and Izzy in the back row. After the service, Mary Jane darts away from her parents and jumps into their car as Sheba speeds off. Happy to be reunited, the group takes off for a short joy ride.

Less than an hour later, everyone returns to the Cone house, where the Dillards are waiting to claim their daughter. Mary Jane asks to make Izzy a snack before she goes home. As she prepares the food, the Cones rave about Mary Jane’s culinary skills to her parents, which surprises her mother. Afterward, the nanny bids a sad farewell to her charge: “I leaned into Izzy’s ear and whispered, ‘I promise I’ll be back, but it might not be until school starts again.’ Izzy looked at me, her eyes huge and wet. I kissed her” (276).

Even though Richard asks if Mary Jane can stay on as Izzy’s nanny, her parents refuse. At home, her mother says, “How did those people eat before you arrived? They talked about you like you were Gandhi feeding the starving masses” (278). Mary Jane tries to soften her mother’s criticism: “‘You did a really good job teaching me how to keep house and how to cook. Everyone was amazed by my cooking, and I learned all that from you.’ I blinked rapidly to keep my eyes from filling with tears” (280). Mary Jane declares that working for the Cones was the best summer of her life, no matter what her mother might think.

Mary Jane is still under house arrest for the following few weeks, which keeps her from getting a chance to say goodbye to Sheba and Jimmy before they leave. Two days before school starts, Mrs. Dillard takes her daughter to buy new school shoes. In the store, they encounter Beanie, who shares some gossip about the Cones. Apparently, the couple is getting divorced. Bonnie has taken Izzy and moved into a row house in the Rodgers Forge area, where the child will be enrolled in public school. After Beanie leaves the shop, Mary Jane thinks,

Beanie Jones was the only person I knew who understood how energized and dazzling it felt to be with Jimmy (and Sheba). She was the only witness to my secret summer. But she was someone with whom I wanted to share none of it (289-90). 

A few weeks after school starts, Mary Jane is asked to join the adult choir. At the end of one of their performances, the choir director hands her a package addressed to her at the church. Mary Jane recognizes the writing on the box as Jimmy’s, so she sneaks it home and opens it privately. Inside is a note from Sheba saying how the Cone house wasn’t the same without Mary Jane. She talks about how she found a new movie script with a great part for herself in it. Jimmy remains clean and sober after leaving Dr. Cone. He has also recorded a new album with the band, and Sheba believes it’s his best work yet. She says,

I think we did it right those couple of months, don’t you? Great food, great music, and great fun. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that fun isn’t important because, damn, Mary Jane, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my strange life, it’s that fun counts (296).

The package also contains a cassette recording made by Jimmy. He’s written a song entitled “Mary Jane.” When the girl listens to all the wonderful things Jimmy sings about her, her summer memories flood her mind. Afterward, she approaches her mother and makes her listen to the recording. By the end of the song, Mrs. Dillard is moved to tears. Mary Jane notes, “[My mother’s] smile broadened and that electric feeling turned into a buzzing that covered my body in something that felt like happiness. I could tell just then that my mother was proud of me” (304).

Sometime later, Mary Jane and her mother visit Bonnie and Izzy in their new home. It’s just as untidy as the original house was. Bonnie has invited them over for a special reason. They’re going to listen to Casey Kasem’s American Top Forty. As they wait for the broadcast, Bonnie talks about her amicable divorce. May Jane observes that the Cones are still in frequent contact with each other: “Instead of a drawn-out tug-of-war between two people who wanted to destroy each other, the Cones’ divorce appeared to be a gentle rearrangement of housing and time” (309).

Izzy waits impatiently for the announcement they want to hear. Kasem finally says, “Moving up from the number two spot, here is the most popular song in the land, written and produced by Jimmy Bendinger. At number one, Running Water’s ‘Mary Jane’” (311). Mrs. Cone, Izzy, Mary Jane, and Mrs. Dillard join hands and sing the words. They know the song by heart.