Chapter 2 -- White Oleander by Janet Fitch

Things I looked up:
White Oleander: A poisonous Eurasian evergreen shrub (Nerium oleander) having fragrant white, rose, or purple flowers, whorled leaves, and long follicles containing numerous compose seeds. Also called rosebay.
Site: http://www.answers.com/topic/oleander

Haiku: A Japanese lyric verse form having three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, traditionally invoking an aspect of nature or the seasons.
Site: http://www.answers.com/topic/haiku


Characters so far in the book:

Ingrid: Beauty is everything to her and she says that without it you are nothing.
-Once she meets Barry she seems to be a lot happier and is writing poems a lot more.

Astrid: In chapter 2, it talks about how she hungered for Barry because he could be the one who feed them and holed them and made them feel real.
-Lived in Amsterdam when she was 7.

Barry: He is the writer of personal essays. In chapter 2 you meet Barry and you can tell right away he is rich as he owns a Lincoln. He also says that he can get whatever he wants and soon starts to follow Ingrid around. He also travels a lot as in the book he talks about when he traveled to the Orient, his trip to Bali and Bangkok, and when he went to the temples of Anghor Wat in the Cambodian jungle accompanied by Thai opium smugglers.

Describing Barry: Barry's physical goatishness, his need for dental work, his flabby physique, his squalid taste in clothes, the wretchedness of his English or his shameless cliches

Michael: He lives next door to Astrid and Ingrid.

Kit: Ingrid's boss at the art room.

Chapter 2 Summary: Ingrid comes home at 2 in the morning after the bars had closed. Right when she gets home she doesn't even talk to Astrid and just goes to bed. The next day when she is working at the magazine place Barry comes in and brings them an envelope for her and Astrid. He bought them tickets to go to Gamelan concert at the art museum. When they get to the concert there is 20 slim men playing a bunch of different instruments. After the concert, Barry asked if they both want to get something to eat but Ingrid says no and goes home with Astrid. Finally Ingrid gives in and decides to go on a date with Barry. Astrid, Ingrid and Barry go to the races and Barry tells Ingrid to pick a horse so she chooses 7. In the end her horse ended up winning and the $20.00 he bet on the horse turned into $100.00 and he gave that money to Ingrid. After the race they all go out for dinner and everyone eats except Ingrid who only gets a glass of wine. After this he invites both of them over for supper the next day ad Ingrid accepts. Astrid waited until the very last minute and then told her mom she wasn't feeling good but told her mom still to go. After Astrid made herself some supper she went over to Micheal's. He was watching a Lana Turner movie that she didn't like so she picked up the Chekhov book(her mom told her he was a horrible writer) and started to read it. Once Micheal had passed out she went down to the pool and swam in the pool hoping her mom would fall in love. All that week her mom did not mention one thing about her date with Barry or how it went.

In the Art Room the next day(where Ingrid works) she was working on some work when Barry called her work. The secretary said Barry was on the phone and her co-boss Kit thought the phone was for her. She was shocked when she heard that he had called for Ingrid but all she said to tell him was that she no longer worked there. Later that night Barry came knocking on the door saying he was in the neighborhood. Astrid was surprised when her mom let him come in. When he looked into the room he asked if they had just moved in because there was no furniture and they didn't say a thing. That was because they had lived there for over a year now. I think that this shows that they don't have a lot of money to spend as there apartment that they rent hardly has any furniture in it because they cannot afford it. In the morning when Astrid wakes up she finds that Barry had stayed the night.(Ingrid is breaking her rules.) After that night Astrid noticed that a lot of things changed. On Sunday Barry, Astrid and Ingrid all went to the Farmers market together and her mom who would only eat a carton of yogurt or a can of sardines and soda crackers as a meal was buying so much food. On the way home her and Barry held hands and sang to each other.

So many things Astrid never would have imagines happened. She started writing little "haiku" and slipped them in Barry's pockets. Her mom started to have passion. Ingrid and Barry would go out and once she would come back she would tell Astrid all about it. Gone were the references to Barry's physical goatishness, his need for dental work, his flabby physique, his squalid taste in clothes, the wretchedness of his English or his shameless cliches.

Astrid would sit in her bed and think about how she never told her mom she wanted a father. She had only questioned her once when she was in Kindergarten. This was because school had just started and her teacher had asked them about their fathers. So many people had dads that worked as lawyers, or drummers and few had died and when it came to Astrid she said she didn't know who her dad was. When she asked where her dad was her mom said she had no father. After that the subject was never brought up again.

Barry took them to a Dodger's game and bought them hats. They ate hot dogs as Barry tried to explain the rules of the game to us. It felt like we were a family and I just sat there and tried to pretend we were. The next week he took them to Catalina. Astrid got sick on the ferry but Barry was there the whole time holding a wet cloth to her head.

All of a sudden something happened. Barry said he would come at nine and never showed up, he went out of town on assignments for different magazines, canceled their dates. Astrid couldn't see how this could happen. They could go from taking them out on a lot of trips, how he could hold that cloth to her head, and talk about taking them to Bali and then forget their address completely.

Once afternoon, they stopped by his house unannounced. Ingrid went in by herself and Astrid stayed in the car and half an hour later she came back crying. She said that he had made love with her and then said he had a date. Astrid now understood why you should never break the rules. She understood now why her mom had held to them so hard because once you broke one of them they all began to break. Before they drove away a blond girl half Barry's age drove up, and she became his new love.
The next day at work Kit came up to Ingrid i the production room and smiled. She said she saw Barry last night at the "Virgins" with some cheap blond half his age. At lunchtime, her mother told Astrid to take everything she wanted from art supplies to stationary. That was because they were leaving and not coming back.