Praise

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content.

On the night of the club opening, Charlie is excited and nervous and gets dressed with her mother and sister. When Emerson picks her up, they both compliment each other’s appearances. They flirt with one another as they arrive at the club, and Charlie enjoys this immensely. In the weeks since Emerson rubbed her feet, she has grown more enamored of him.

Charlie admires the club, which is now finished, and marvels at the idea that some of the elegant partygoers may have sex in the club’s private rooms. When Garrett compliments her appearance, Emerson snaps at his friend. Charlie becomes preoccupied with observing a girl kneeling next to a man, her contentment apparent. She struggles with her theoretical dislike of kneeling for a man, which she sees as disturbingly patriarchal, and her sense, upon witnessing the adoring couple, that their connection is highly romantic.

Charlie spots a man who seems familiar, which makes her worry about encountering someone from her “regular life,” but Emerson distracts her with a request to dance. (She later learns that this man is a coworker of her father’s.) She finds it “freeing” that the