81 pages • 2 hours read
Virginia Euwer WolffMake Lemonade
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | YA | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 34-44Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 34 Summary
LaVaughn takes Jolly to her “Steam Class” (86) at school, and Jolly is nervous because she hasn’t been to school since she dropped out three years ago, to have Jeremy. They take Jeremy and Jilly with them, and when they arrive at the high school, Jolly tries to hide her nerves behind “stuck-up snobbery” (86). They drop the kids off in the school’s daycare, and Jolly is impressed by how “simple” it is to leave her children in a clean, safe place for a while (87).
LaVaughn explains that Steam Class was originally Self-Esteem Class. Then the teacher told her students to “BE YOURSELF” and “work up a good head of steam,/and nobody’ll knock you around” (88), and her advice was so popular that the school officially changed the class’s name. When Jolly and LaVaughn arrive, the teacher announces that the word of the day is “capable,” and everyone has to say what they’re capable of. Jolly goes “stiff” (89) with unease as the students speak. LaVaughn says she is “‘capable of giving Jilly a good bath’” (90), and the teacher tells Jolly she doesn’t have to speak because she’s a guest. Later that day, LaVaughn pictures herself, Jolly, Jeremy, and Jilly going to school together, looking like “a family from the continent of I don’t know what” (91).
Chapter 35 Summary
LaVaughn’s mother asks her about Jolly, expressing concern that Jolly’s not in school and saying she’s “‘in some disrepair’” (92). LaVaughn accuses her mother of blaming Jolly for situations that aren’t her fault, and her mom insists that Jolly “‘needs to take hold’” (93). LaVaughn just counts the lemon seeds she’s planning to bring to Jeremy, and thinks that it’s better for her to take care of Jeremy and Jilly than “Jolly who yells” (94). If LaVaughn were turned down by four jobs like Jolly was, she reflects, “I’d yell, too” (94).
Chapter 36 Summary
Jolly wants LaVaughn to sneak new lemon seeds into Jeremy’s pot when he’s not looking, so he’ll think his own seeds have finally bloomed, but LaVaughn doesn’t like the idea of lying. Jeremy makes the decision for them when he sees the new seeds and asks, “‘My seeds?’” (96). As Jeremy plants the seeds on his own, “a brief light comes around him from the window” (96), and for a moment Jeremy looks like he belongs in a picture book about an idealized, traditional family. LaVaughn “take[s] a picture of him in [her] mind for later” (96) before she again becomes aware of the filthy apartment that is Jeremy’s reality.
Chapter 37 Summary
LaVaughn asks Jolly if the kids’ fathers “owe something” (97). Jolly responds defensively, saying she’s doing fine on her own, and LaVaughn notices “the spark of Night Danger Red nail polish/that shoots in the air/from [Jolly’s] left middle finger and disappears” (97). Suddenly angry, LaVaughn insists that Jolly is not doing well, and that “at least one of those dads, he ought to know” (98). Jolly just turns on the TV, and LaVaughn, thinking “nobody on TV is going to do my homework” (98), goes home to do the work that will keep her from ending up like Jolly. On the way home, she still feels that something needs to change, and “Jolly wasn’t going to do it” (99).
Chapter 38 Summary
The next morning, LaVaughn remembers an acquaintance of her mom who used to be a boxer, and who said you should always “Get up on the 1” (100) because if you wait for two and three, you’ll “go on being down” (100). LaVaughn decides she’s going to start getting up on the one herself, and when she gets to school, she quickly fixes her mistakes on her quiz, then reaches out to the Steam Class teacher and tells her she’s concerned about Jolly. When the teacher confirms that LaVaughn babysits for Jolly, and plans to use the money Jolly pays her for college, LaVaughn realizes the teacher thinks she’s “taking advantage of Jolly” (102). LaVaughn also considers that the teacher might be right, that her plan is “some kind of crooked thing” (102). Finally, LaVaughn asks the teacher how she can help Jolly get back in school, where Jolly would be able to use the school daycare for free.
Chapter 39 Summary
Jolly won’t call Barbara, the woman who can help her get back into school, so LaVaughn does it instead. Barbara tells LaVaughn that Jolly will get training to work in an office, child-care classes, and her children will have access to a nurse practitioner, but she has to attend consistently. While she’s at Jolly’s apartment, LaVaughn makes an appointment for Jolly, while Jolly herself “huffs out of the room” (106).
Chapter 40 Summary
Jolly seems upset, so LaVaughn asks her what’s wrong, and Jolly starts talking about astronauts and how they sometimes have to leave their spaceship, connected only by a cord that could break and leave them floating “‘just out there, on and on’” (108). LaVaughn waits for “the rest of the story”—“the point” (108). Jolly is disappointed that LaVaughn doesn’t understand.
Chapter 41 Summary
LaVaughn tells Jolly she’s made an appointment for her at the Moms Up Program for the following Tuesday. Jolly looks at LaVaughn “like she’s a prisoner, resenting” (110), but she doesn’t refuse to go.
Chapter 42 Summary
Jolly worries that if she joins the program, Child Protective Services will take her kids away from her. LaVaughn calls Barbara and has her explain to Jolly that the program will actually help her to keep her kids, and LaVaughn thinks Jolly sounds like a little kid, talking to her mother, even though Jolly “never remembered any real mom” (111).
Chapter 43 Summary
Jolly can’t read all of the application to join the Moms Up Program, so she calls LaVaughn to help her fill it out. LaVaughn’s mom listens in as LaVaughn answers Jolly’s questions. They have difficulty deciding how to explain Jolly’s recent job loss, and decide she should say she was laid off. When LaVaughn ends the call, her mother “stands there shaking her head/like it’s all a complete shame” (113).
Chapter 44 Summary
Jolly starts school in the same building as LaVaughn, although the Moms Up Program is separate from LaVaughn’s. LaVaughn feels pride that she’s helped Jolly return to school, but her sense of accomplishment is incomplete, “like somebody took a chunk out somewhere/and didn’t put it back” (117).
One of LaVaughn’s teachers says she can tell LaVaughn is getting more sleep, as her performance has improved. She advises LaVaughn to get into Leadership Class and sign up for the Financial Aid Seminar. The teacher tells LaVaughn her desire to go to college is “‘in your face […] It’s a discontent/with how things are’” (118). She adds that she doesn’t want to see LaVaughn still in this neighborhood when she’s old, unless LaVaughn is a teacher, too. Finally, she tells LaVaughn to take Grammar Build-Up, since “‘your grammar frankly stinks’” (118).
Chapters 34-44 Analysis
At the beginning of this section, LaVaughn clearly becomes a part of Jolly’s family unit, as LaVaughn pictures herself, Jolly, Jeremy, and Jilly walking together like “a family from the continent of I don’t know what” (91). Here, Wolff further explores her theme of family, as she shows how an unlikely group can come together to form their own family unit. LaVaughn and Jolly’s makeshift family might be unusual and less than ideal, but it allows both girls to grow and transform, as LaVaughn encourages Jolly to return to school and better herself, while LaVaughn learns to care for others and see the world in new ways.
Wolff further explores the theme of family while returning to the novel’s lemon-plant symbolism. LaVaughn brings Jeremy new lemon seeds to plant, and as he puts them in his pot of soil, LaVaughn thinks he looks like a child in an ideal, traditional family, where “everybody has those NO PROBLEM/looks on their faces” (96). Of course, Jeremy’s reality—he’s surrounded by “sticky stuff on the floor” (96) and the smell of Jilly’s throw-up—is very different from this idealized image, just as Jeremy’s family is very different from a traditional one. However, the one thing Jeremy does have is hope, as represented by the new lemon seeds that LaVaughn helps him water.
In these chapters, as Jolly is now out of a job and looking for new options, the relationship between Jolly and LaVaughn grows more complex. The question of how much of Jolly’s situation is her own fault again arises, with LaVaughn’s mother criticizing Jolly for having two children and not returning to school. LaVaughn defends Jolly, saying “‘she needs time’” (93) to get herself together. However, LaVaughn herself grows increasingly frustrated with Jolly, as Jolly insists that “‘[she’s] doin’ okay’” (98), when LaVaughn knows that she’s not. LaVaughn realizes that something has to change, and “Jolly wasn’t going to do it” (99). Here, LaVaughn does seem to be placing some of the blame on Jolly, not for the bad choices she’s made in the past, but for not attempting to make changes in the present.
The situation between LaVaughn and Jolly grows even more complex when LaVaughn approaches a teacher with her concerns about Jolly. The teacher asks if Jolly is paying her to babysit for her children, and LaVaughn realizes the teacher thinks she’s “taking advantage” (102). This is a completely new idea to LaVaughn, and she starts to see her plan as “some kind of crooked thing” (102): she’s using Jolly’s money in an attempt to not end up like Jolly. LaVaughn has to wrestle with guilt, as well as her concern for Jolly and her own desire to succeed, as the novel continues.
The author also illuminates Jolly’s character in this section through the image of an astronaut floating through space, which Jolly uses to describe the way she feels. Jolly says that if the cord tying the astronaut to his spaceship breaks, he’s left floating, adrift: “‘he ain’t connected’” (108). This image allows readers to understand just how deeply alone and disconnected Jolly feels, despite the fact that LaVaughn is trying to help her. LaVaughn, however, does not understand Jolly’s story, which leaves her feeling even more isolated as “the lights go out in her face” (108).
