Make Lemonade

Jolly comes home one night “walking like somebody damaged” (54)—not physically injured, but emanating “fear” (54). Jolly tells LaVaughn she’s been fired; her boss claiming her work isn’t “good enough” (55), but that’s not the true reason. While Jolly and her boss were together in a supply closet, her boss put his hand under her shirt, kissed her with “his big old smelly wet mouth,” and “was jabbin’ [her] jeans” (57), so Jolly stuck a pencil in his hand till he bled. Jolly considers reporting her boss, but she’s afraid doing so will get her into worse trouble. LaVaughn, troubled by the “glare of helpless hating” (58) on Jolly’s face, encourages her to report. As the chapter ends, LaVaughn washes and changes Jilly while thinking that she could hold Jolly’s infant daughter and protect her the entire night, “and not get tired” (59). 

Since Jolly has been fired, she doesn’t need LaVaughn to babysit anymore. Jolly has become “mad enough” (60) to report her boss’s behavior, and as she tells LaVaughn during their nightly phone calls, she’s called the factory fourteen times and received no response. LaVaughn explains the situation to her mother, who says Jolly will need a lawyer.