The Paper Palace

It’s February 1989 in London. Peter drives Elle to his flat. On the way there, Elle makes him pull over so she can pee in the street.

In the present day, at 5:45pm in the Back Woods, Elle swims back to camp after walking with Jonas. In the water she says, “I stopped to catch my breath, treading water, afraid to turn back and see Jonas standing there, afraid to swim home to Peter, to my life” (221). Wallace comments on how long she’s been gone. Then, Wallace says they’ve been invited to a barbecue by Dixon and Andrea. Elle says she would rather have a quiet family dinner, but she really wants time alone to think.

In October of 1984 in New York, Elle comes home and finds her mum cooking. Wallace says she spoke to Anna in Los Angeles; she’s doing well and majoring in communications. When Elle goes to her room, she notices her old journal lying open on her desk. She reads the pages her mother must have found. The last entries are about Conrad, saying “What if he comes to my room again?” “Mum can never, ever know. It would ruin her whole life,” and “They found Conrad’s body on the beach today [...] Why didn’t I throw him the life preserver?” Elle sees her mother pour herself wine and drink it in one shot. They sit in the living room together, and finally Wallace asks how this could have happened and why Elle never told her. Elle says she didn’t want her to know because she didn’t want her mom to hate her. Wallace says she could never hate her and it’s him she hates. But then, Wallace says if she ever sees him again, she’ll kill him. Elle is confused and then realizes she’s talking about Leo.

In the present, Elle tells the readers that one day after her mother found out, Leo called Wallace drunk, begging her to take him back. Wallace hung up on him.

In 1989 in London, Elle and Peter have sex on their third date. After dinner, they go back to Peter’s flat. Elle admits that it hurts a little, and Peter asks if she’s a virgin. She lies and says yes. She thinks, “And so we begin on a lie” (233).

In December of 1989 in New York, Anna and Elle are returning from a Christmas Eve tea with their dad and his new girlfriend, Mary. Anna doesn’t like Mary, but Elle says maybe she’s nicer than they think. When they get home, Wallace stops them at the door and tells them that Mary’s canister of marijuana is missing after their visit. Their father makes Wallace insist on searching Anna and Elle’s bags, as well as strip-searching them. Elle is so angry that tells their dad she’s never speaking to him again.

Elle goes to her room and calls Peter. She wants to come to London, but Peter says that would be awful because his mother does not approve. His mother has started to like Elle, but she’s made it clear to Peter that she believes it inappropriate to be with a young woman he found off the street. Peter jokes that he’s looking forward to getting high with Elle’s father, but Elle says that he won’t be meeting her dad since she’s never speaking to him again. Then, Elle sees Anna in her room rolling a joint.

Elle picks Peter up from the airport. When they get back, Elle thinks they will be stepping into the dark, dreary apartment she’s been used to; however, Wallace has set up a cheese plate and martinis. She’s making jokes and laughing with Peter. Elle knows the nice gestures are for her and to make a good impression with Peter, but Elle thinks she wants to slap her mother. Peter says he likes Wallace and that she’s nothing like Elle described. Elle says this is not normal behavior because Wallace has been sad lately.

On New Year’s Day, 1990, Peter convinces Elle to call her dad. On the phone, Henry tells Elle that she has to work this out with Mary. Elle says there is nothing between her and Mary, and she’s never stepping foot in a room with Mary. Henry says that he and Mary are both sorry, and they are getting married in March. He wants Elle to tell him it’s okay. Elle says he’s pathetic and slams down the phone. Peter tries to defend Elle’s dad, but Elle gets angry at Peter. Peter apologizes and says that he only wants them to make up so he can meet him. Elle says she needs to cool down and will meet Peter back at the apartment.

She walks to her father’s apartment and rings the buzzer. No one answers, even though all the lights are on. She walks to a coffee shop around the block and uses the payphone to call the house. Mary answers and says Henry is resting. Elle asks again for Mary to get her father, but Mary says Elle was extremely rude to him and they need time to cool off. Elle thinks about the time her father got divorced from Joanne, and he apologized for disappearing on her and Anna. He promised that no one would ever come between him and Elle again. On the phone with Mary, Elle tells her to tell her father that if he doesn’t come right now she is never speaking to him again. Mary leaves for a bit, and then tells Elle he said fine, if that’s what she wants. Elle hangs up and is almost out the door of the coffee shop when she hears someone call her name. It’s Jonas.

The two of them sit down in a booth. They haven’t seen each other for seven years. Elle says that he disappeared and never came back to the Woods. Jonas notices that she still has the ring he gave her. Elle thinks, “All these years I’ve thought about him, missed him, wanted to walk next to him on the quiet paths, souls twinned together. But now that is here with me, all I see is how far apart our lives have grown” (257). Elle says she should get back to Peter. Jonas says he doesn’t regret what happened because Conrad was hurting Elle. She says they both should regret it and that she would have survived. Elle says she wears the ring to remind her of what they did. She gets up to leave and gives the ring back to Jonas. She says it also reminds her of him. Jonas gets up to walk her to the subway. They walk in silence, and then Jonas says that she doesn’t have to miss him. Elle says yes, she does.

In 1991, Elle has moved in with Peter in London. She’s taking a walk one day when she hears shouting near the swimming pond. A man is drowning in the water and needs help. Elle tells someone to call the ambulance, and then dives into the water and is able to bring the man to shore as the paramedics arrive. When Elle gets home, she tells Peter about what happened. He helps Elle out of her wet clothes and takes care of her. Elle says she needs to get home.

It’s September 1993 in New York, and Elle gets a call from her Granny Myrtle. Now that her grandfather has died, Elle’s father and Mary decided to move Myrtle to a nursing home. Elle promised her that she would let them, and Henry gave his word that they won’t move her until they find something comfortable. Granny Myrtle is crying on the phone, and says she’s frightened. She says that she doesn’t know where she is because someone came and brought her there. Elle asks who came, and she says it was Mary and a friend and Henry told her to go with them. Then, Elle hears a man enter the room, and Granny Myrtle says to get away from her. The man hangs up the phone. By the time Elle gets to the nursing home two hours later, Granny Myrtle has passed away.

At the funeral, Henry sobs and stumbles towards Mary, but instead of going to her open arm, he throws his arms around Elle. She feels a small triumph when she notices Mary’s humiliation, then she whispers to her dad that he has no right to cry. After the funeral, they go to the house. Anna came in from her job at a law firm in L.A., and her new boyfriend Jeremy is driving in as well. There’s only one thing Elle wants from the house, but when she looks for the paper dolls she and Ann used to play with, they aren’t there. She asks her dad, and he tells her Mary gave them away to her niece. In the car ride home, Elle tells Peter that she hates him, and Peter says then he hates him, too.

In April of 1994, Peter, Elle, and Peter’s parents are going to the Whitney for an art gallery show. Elle gets there early and tries to grab a glass of champagne from a waiter carrying a tray. The waiter doesn’t hear her, so Elle tugs on his sleeve. He almost loses control of the tray, but he manages to steady it. He calls her an idiot under his breath, and Elle thinks the voice is Jonas’s. It isn’t, but the thought of him causes Elle to pull out the piece of paper with Jonas’s number written on it. It’s been four years since they saw each other at the coffee shop, and since she ignored a voice message Jonas left for her.

Jonas answers and asks if she is drunk dialing him. Elle says of course not, and that she is waiting for Peter at the Whitney. Jonas asks why she never called him back, and Elle says it was because Jonas made her choose. Jonas says he was asking her to choose him. Then, Elle asks if she can see him. She sees Peter and his parents coming, so she turns her back to them. She tells Jonas, “For what it’s worth, I called because I was so excited when I thought the waiter was you. I was so happy. Then he wasn’t you, and I couldn’t think of anything else except I needed to see you right that second” (276). Jonas says then she should come now.

Peter spots Elle, and she greets him and his parents. She tries to think of an excuse to leave, knowing that if she stands Jonas up again, he will never forgive her. She says she’s not feeling well, and Peter’s mother says maybe she should go home to not get anyone else sick. Elle agrees and tells Peter to stay with his parents.

Jonas is outside of his building waiting for Elle. She tells him that she lied to Peter to meet him, and Jonas looks happy at this. They walk to the river with a few beers. Jonas tells her he waited a long time for her to call, but then it became too hard, and he stopped. He asks Elle if she plans on marrying Peter. She says probably. Jonas makes her promise to warn him beforehand. Then he says he will never love anyone the way he loves her.

In August of 1996, Anna and Elle walk to the beach for the end-of-summer bonfire at the Back Woods. Anna’s boyfriend Jeremy isn’t there, and Elle is glad because she can’t stand him. Jeremy thinks the Paper Palace is “a decaying slum: the sagging cabin steps, Homasote ceilings stained brown with small circles of mouse piss or the slow drip drip of their afterbirth. [...] ‘He insulted my favorite place on earth’” (282-83). Anna says Elle is being harsh, and everyone has different shit. Elle says that’s fair, but she will never like Jeremy because he makes Anna less-than. Elle asks if Anna has spoken to their dad recently, and Anna tells her Mary forces him to call her. Elle says it’s a relief not to hear from him, so she doesn’t have to wait for disappointment.

At the beach, they run into Jonas’s mother and a woman Elle doesn’t recognize named Gina. Gina gives Elle and Anna a big hug and says it’s so nice to finally meet them. They talk a bit about how Jonas is doing, and Elle says, “The thought of Jonas living with this Gina person fills me with a jealousy I have no right to feel. Physical, palpable. Jonas belongs to me” (288).

Then, Jonas approaches them and stops when he sees Elle. She is sure he’s angry that she’s broken the promise she made to him two years ago. Anna takes Gina’s arm and takes her to get a beer, leaving Elle and Jonas alone. Elle remembers the summer after she graduated high school, Anna asked Elle if she’s still a virgin. Elle lied and said yes but had already been in love with Jonas. Now, Elle tries to apologize to Jonas for not telling him that she’s engaged. Jonas says it’s fine, he was hurt but now he’s in love with Gina.

It’s December of 1996 in New York, and it’s Elle’s wedding day. Dixon walks her down the aisle, and as she sees Peter smiling at her, she thinks, “I wonder if he would love me if he could see inside my head—the pettiness, the dirty linen of my thoughts, the terrible things I have done” (296).

Two months later, while Elle is on her honeymoon she gets a call from a distressed Anna. She’s crying, and Elle can’t understand a word she is saying, then Anna hangs up. Elle tries to call back, but Jeremy answers. He says Anna is good and she’s been doing a lot of work on herself.

Elle and Anna take a trip to the Back Woods together in the winter. Elle doesn’t know what’s wrong with Anna, but she recognizes that Anna had to return to the Back Woods in a time of struggle: “I only know that whatever it is, it led her back here. Like a homing pigeon, who, deaf to everything but pure instinct, hears the wind blowing across a mountain range two hundred miles away and sets its course” (302).

Anna says that she thought she was pregnant because she missed her period, but when she went to the doctor, they told her has ovarian cancer. Elle is in denial and says they have to get a second opinion. They tell each other they love each other, and they start talking about their childhoods. Anna asks if Elle remembers the time Conrad punched her on the porch and says that she still feels bad about goading him into getting in trouble. She says, “I keep thinking if I’d been a nicer person, this wouldn’t be happening to me” (306). Elle tells her that if karma exists, it would be her with cancer and not Anna. Then, Elle almost tells her that it’s her fault that Conrad died, but Anna interrupts her and says she doesn’t want to die. Elle says she won’t let her. Anna says poor Conrad, she wasn’t even sad.

In May of 1998, Elle and Peter take Wallace out for a birthday dinner. When Elle and Peter arrive back home at their apartment, things are knocked over, and the phone is ringing continuously. When Elle enters their room, there’s a man in the window above the bed. On the fire escape, she can see their TV and answering machine. The man grins at Elle, and she runs towards him with the intent to push him out the window. Before she gets there, Peter knocks her on the floor. Peter holds a knife to the man and tells him he can have the TV but to leave the answering machine because there’s a number on there he needs. Then the man leaps out the window to the fire escape.

After they call the police and clean up the house, Peter asks Elle if she really was going to push the man out the window. Elle says she doesn’t know, but the man was coming back inside for her. Peter says she’s hardly a killer. Elle is upset at him, and Peter says the only thing he cares about is that she’s safe and there’s nothing she could say to make him not love her. Elle wants to believe him, but she doesn’t. She almost tells Peter everything but decides against it.

In July of 1999, Elle rushes to the hospital in Los Angeles to see Anna before she passes away. She rides the elevator up, praying that Anna will wait so Elle can tell her what she did.