The Address

Bailey is the novel’s deuteragonist, a character who nearly achieves the importance of a secondary protagonist because her story of alienation and loss is told alongside Sara’s to foreshadow and even shed light on Sara’s experiences and changes. She, too, trusts some of the wrong people, has only one, emotionally withholding parent, and seeks a place where she belongs. Like Sara, Bailey refuses to think of herself as a victim, even when others enable her use disorders and fail to prioritize her well-being. After she relapses on the night she goes to Limelight,

She [feels awful that she] hadn’t lasted a week out of rehab before diving back into the joyride of Manhattan nightlife. Melinda was the first person she’d like to blame, but she knew from the treatment center that the fault lay only with herself (155).

Bailey takes responsibility for her choices, as Sara tries to do, demonstrating The Resilience of Women. Further, when she does think something negative about Melinda, she chides herself, thinking those types of thoughts are unkind as Melinda gave her a job. Bailey is too trusting of Melinda as Sara is too trusting of Theodore.

Bailey is static, however, while Sara is dynamic. Sara learns to stop trusting others, but Bailey’s father, for example, becomes more trustworthy, emotionally available, and supportive of her by the end. She confronts him about his failure to escape the past, encouraging him to face it and whatever truths it holds. Unlike Sara’s mother, Bailey’s father identifies his role in his daughter’s problems, and his acceptance eventually paves the way for her to find out who she is, by way of learning her grandfather’s history. Therefore, Bailey—unlike Sara—does not become jaded or embittered. Bailey even pays Melinda’s exorbitant asking price for the Dakota apartment and tries to maintain contact with her “cousin.”

Theodore Camden is an expert manipulator, one who can win people over with his “magnetic” personality, good luck, and charisma. He can guess what people want to hear and is willing to say it, whether it’s true. For example, early on, he tells Sara, “I figure you’re a good one to have in my corner, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you there” (77). He knows she will interpret this as praise. In truth, it means that he recognizes her resourcefulness and quick thinking, and he knows these qualities can serve him. The next day, however, “all the familiarity of the previous day was gone from his demeanor” (94). When other men who control his professional success and social standing surround him, Theodore does not treat her the same way he does when they’re alone because it wouldn’t benefit him.

Likewise, when the Dakota’s opening day hits a snag, his friendliness toward Sara disappears because he does not want to be blamed for the day’s chaos. Theodore speaks condescendingly to Sara, reiterating obvious truths as though she were too stupid to understand them the first time. On the other hand, when he takes her to the Rutherfords’ ball, he asks, “Are you ready to see the worst of society?” (127). In doing so, he presents himself as like her rather than like them, ingratiating himself with her to keep her on his side and even get her in his bed, which he does later that night.

The narrative characterizes Melinda as selfish, materialistic, and entitled. It costs her nothing to tell Bailey that they are “cousins” or that she’ll always consider Bailey a “sister,” so she says it often; however, when DNA tests mean that the inheritance Melinda expects now goes to Bailey, Bailey is a “bitch.” When Peggy died and Jack withdrew emotionally, it was Melinda who gave Bailey a place to belong, and this creates a level of trust that Melinda’s subsequent behavior counters.

Melinda showed Bailey a world of drugs and alcohol, which offered Bailey a way to escape her pain. She has no qualms about reintroducing Bailey to that world, though Bailey is fresh out of rehab. Just as Melinda seems to walk “in a bubble that protected her from the humidity that plagued the common man” (30), the text also portrays her as immune to the concerns, needs, or vulnerabilities of others. She cares for her pleasure and little else.

A metaphor the narrator uses to describe her demeanor when she enters her apartment to find the renovations halted evidences Melinda’s entitlement. When the construction workers do not arrive, “Melinda reminded Bailey of a bull in a bullfight, about to charge” (116). Even though they haven’t come because Melinda hasn’t paid, she becomes aggressive and angry, willing to lash out at anyone in her path, just like an outraged bull. Her entire life revolves around doing what feels good to her, and anyone or anything that crosses her—including Bailey—can end up in her crossfire. Bailey realizes, early on, that “Melinda was the type of person who drew power from others’ frailty (190). Even though Bailey tried to dissuade herself of this impression, Melinda’s actions reveal its truth.

Minnie is a foil for Sara Smythe. Like Sara, she is the daughter of a nobleman; unlike Sara, she was born to that man and his wife, so Minnie enjoys the privileges of his class. Like other members of the peerage, Minnie has a certain “way of moving in the world, a confidence that [her] every desire would be met” (7). She is elegant and refined, a loving mother though one often beset by illness. Throughout much of the novel, Sara suspects that Minnie knows about Sara’s affair with Theodore, leading Sara to blame Minnie for her incarceration. It is only when Sara sees how weak Minnie is that she considers the Camdens’ relationship from Minnie’s perspective. This, in part, prompts Sara to visit Daisy in prison, after which Minnie admits that Theodore forced her to take in Christopher, saying she “owed” it to him to do so.

The novel’s climax illuminates the similarities between Minnie and Sara, despite their different classes. Minnie discloses the affair she had with another man when her husband became cruel and exacting. She tells him, “I could never please you. You never loved me, then punished me when I sought comfort elsewhere” (344). Theodore reveals that Minnie “fell for some romantic poet who professed his love and then left her with child” (344), just as the earl did to Sara’s mother and Theo did to Sara. These revelations make it clear that Sara’s claim about how women must endure the betrayals of men is true regardless of class. When Minnie stabs Theodore, as Sara stabbed Mr. Ainsworth, their experiences intersect again. Like Sara, Minnie reaches a breaking point and will not allow herself to be victimized anymore. Their shared experiences highlight The Resilience of Women in the face of Betrayal and Trust.