All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

Wavy finds Renee reading outside the library. She tells Renee she and Kellen at last have had sex, shocking Renee, who assumed they had sex many times before they were caught and Kellen went to prison. Wavy tells Renee she and Kellen are finished, and Renee responds by being on Wavy’s side immediately. Minutes later, when Kellen arrives, Renee sees Wavy leap back into his arms. She watches them from inside the car, in the rearview mirror, hoping things work out for Wavy. Renee believes if Wavy can find happiness, she might find it herself.

That evening, Wavy and Kellen look at the stars together from his truck, and Kellen tells Wavy how much he missed seeing them. Wavy wants him to come home with her to Norman and her apartment with Renee, but Kellen tells her he cannot cross state lines as a condition of his parole. He pours out his misery to Wavy. Whether he loves her or wants to be with her does not matter. He sees an endless loop of parole violations and years of no contact, no matter what they do. Even if they could circumvent his parole conditions, Kellen believes he has ruined his life, and he refuses to ruin Wavy’s at the same time. Kellen tells Wavy he can bring her nothing but trouble because he raped her, changing the course of her life.

Wavy clamps her hand over Kellen’s mouth, wishing she could “shove those words back down his throat” (299). She tries to convince him that he did not rape her; she tells him his life is not ruined. She imagines how his life must have been for those six years of prison, surrounded by inmates who wanted to attack him for the kind of crime he admitted committing. She thinks of her four years living with Brenda, realizing Kellen has suffered something much more traumatic and annihilating. She takes her ring off and gives it back to Kellen. She tells him he is free.

Wavy gets back into Renee’s car, but they cannot leave because Kellen’s truck remains parked behind them. Renee asks Wavy to tell him to move, and Wavy admits that she cannot do it. Renee has never heard Wavy say that she could not do something. She gets out of the car and goes to talk to Kellen, whom she finds on his knees. Kellen tries to get Renee to take the ring back to Wavy, but Renee refuses. He tries to give it to Wavy, but she locks the car door and will not let him in. When Kellen kicks his truck door out of frustration, he attracts attention. Some guys playing Frisbee in front of the library come over and tell him to leave the women alone. They call campus security. Wavy comes and takes the ring to stop the escalation. A policeman tells Kellen to move his truck, and he leaves.

Seeing Kellen for the first time, Renee shifts her opinion of the romance. She judges Kellen, thinking he cannot be the right kind of man for Wavy. Her opinion shifts again, however, as she witnesses Wavy’s plaintive keening on the drive home. Renee has never felt about anyone the way Wavy feels about Kellen. When she gets home, she cannot get Wavy out of the car.

Renee goes up to the apartment to call for help but cannot decide who to call. She sees Darrin’s number and calls him. He helps her carry Wavy upstairs to her bed. Renee and Darrin talk, finding they have a lot to say to one another despite coming from different social spheres. Renee hears Wavy typing and then a crash. Darrin and Renee find Wavy in the stairwell, her typewriter in pieces at the bottom. Wavy runs out, but Darrin and Renee find the letter she was writing. In it, she gives instructions to a lawyer for returning Kellen’s motorcycle.

Renee calls Amy for guidance. In the conversation, she finds out Amy and Brenda have known for a year that Kellen had been paroled, but both of them kept the information from Wavy. Renee chastises Amy and hangs up on her.

Darrin and Renee fall asleep near dawn, and when they wake up, they find Wavy poring over a mound of law books, researching ways to repeal a no-contact order.

Wavy treasures her injuries from her encounter with Kellen. She returns the ring to its velvet box, saying she cannot wear it because Kellen did not put it on her finger. She explains that she rid herself of the typewriter, a gift from her aunt, because “gifts take up space in your heart” (311). However, Wavy keeps the typewriter from her grandmother. That gift came without expectation, and she sees her grandmother as part of her heart itself.

Kellen’s parole officer writes back to Wavy and tells her she must file a formal appeal to have the NCO rescinded. Wavy already has the appeal form in her file and begins to fill it out. She waits, watching the mailbox for news from Donal or from the court. She considers Kellen, bleeding on the road after his crash, waiting for her to return with help.

Kellen lives in the places he can find: bad motels, a campground, with a friend. Beth finds him at work to return his coat and the baseball bat he carried for protection. She invites him to move back in. Kellen agrees to move back in, but only as a roommate. He would prefer to live alone, but he at least will not have to listen to Beth talking at night or have sex with her when he does not want to. He thinks about Wavy all the time, seeing himself as desperate and irresponsible. He does not regret the sex as much as he is ashamed he waited until after it was over to tell her he could not be with her. In his mind, this action shows he has not changed, that he still takes advantage of her.

When Wavy receives disappointing news from the court about her petition, she asks to meet with the judge. It takes a series of letters, but Wavy’s persistence results in a meeting. Renee spends a day and a half helping Wavy dress like an adult for the meeting. Because of Wavy’s size, Renee ends up taking her to a chic women’s store, where she buys a silk blouse and some heels. Renee helps Wavy with makeup. However, Renee wants Wavy to look like a serious adult, not a “child prostitute” (319). When Wavy leaves for her meeting, Renee pronounces her “adultlike” (319), at least.

Judge Maber remarks how relieved she feels when she finds Wavy to be sensible, unlike the women who “weep” and “scream” and make her “ashamed of my own sex” (320). Maber counters every aspect of Wavy’s story with conventional wisdom about abusive partners. Wavy’s family photo of Donal and Kellen does not move the judge; she has seen photos of happier times before. Even when Wavy tells the judge how Kellen protected her from her father’s violence, the judge dismisses the information as a typical gambit of abused women.

Wavy upends the judge’s expectations by leaving with grace; most women stay and fight. As she rises to leave, Wavy picks up the framed photo of the judge’s family and studies it. When Wavy turns her gaze on the judge, the judge understands the accusation. Wavy reprimands the judge for thinking herself smarter and more real than the women for whom she makes decisions. The judge has Wavy escorted from her office, but Wavy sternly reminds her that her family is just as real as the judge’s own.