“No Ones’ Ever Truly a Mystery”
...rience of knowing what babies breath smells like. Jack tells the girl everything about his marriage without hiding anything from her. As the reader you feel bad for the girl at first, thinking she being taken advantage of by Jack. After reading the story you change your feelings toward the girl because with all she knows about her future with Jack her feelings toward him remain the same. The girl portrays herself as selfish when she says “the table is set- my grandmother’s linen and her old silver and the yellow candles left over from the wedding- but I don’t know if I can wait until after the trout a la Navarra to make love to him.” This shows that the girl wants to prove to Jack that she can be a better wife to him rather than his predictable, gullible wife. She wants to do whatever it may take to make Jack happy. The girl is just worried about being romantic for Jack. When she says she doesn’t know if she could wait to make love to him she shows that she is physically attached to Jack and doesn’t care about anyone else. The girl is selfish because she stays in his truck and doesn’t leave when she knows his wife and kids are waiting for him at home. Throughout the entire story it is understood that the girl is self -destructive. The girl is only eighteen years old and has been involved with Jack since she was sixteen. At sixteen years old she is still a child, who shouldn’t even know about affairs, let alone be in one. Not only is she is an affair but she wants to have this married mans’ children. She thinks she’s so in love with Jack that she lets him take advantage of her. Every time she tries to have a conversation with him about change he shoots her down. He knows just as well as she does that he isn’t going to leave his wife for her. When Jack says, “It must have been a fast divorce”(548) he jokes about it as if divorce would never happen. The girl is so self-destructed that even in the 1980’s when divorce was hardly heard of, she thought it would be a quick one. Jack is very honest with the girl. He doesn’t keep anything from her about his wife. The girl doesn’t care that he says they will never have a real future together. She keeps herself in the relationship knowing nothing will go forward from that point. They are strictly sex; no other feelings should come into play. The only way the girl can have Jack’s full attention is by sex...