Better Nate Than Ever

This summary section includes Chapter 21: “The Next Part,” Chapter 22: “A Couch That Thinks It’s an Envelope,” Chapter 23: “It’s Like a Bed but Stranger and Lumpier and with More Wooden Slats, and Hidden Crumbs,” Chapter 24: “Coat of Many Colors”, Chapter 25: “Lobbies Are Just Lobbies: “A Weak Metaphor.”

Nate is devastated by the news that he won’t be called back to audition again. He runs to the bathroom, sobbing and thinking, “It’s back to Jankburg. And rifles and bad test grades and grey fields full of grey cows, and—oh, God. The bathroom. To cry it out just one last time I swear” (203).

Nate, Heidi, and Freckles leave for Heidi and Freckles’s apartment in Queens. The place is small, but Nate is enchanted by everything about it—especially the futon where he will spend the night. Heidi runs a bath for him.

Heidi tucks Nate into bed. Nate found a clipping book of Heidi’s stage performances and asks why she left the theater. She explains, “‘You know that little hurt you felt today—or big hurt—when E.T. released you? It’s tough getting used to it’” (213). Nate asks what she will do with her life if she doesn’t continue acting.