I’m stopping here to become someone else.
-- Narrator (Summer, Chapter 1)

Importance: The narrator sums up the attitude that she encounters among the people she meets in New York. Like the narrator, everyone seems to be in the city in order to redefine themselves rather than carrying on with their identity from the past. This makes the city an exciting place to be but also quite isolating and challenging due to the lack of grounding and solid roots of people who arrived here with no ties.

The escape was complete. I put on navy stripes. I thought I felt a breeze. It was as if I were coming out of anesthesia. I saw, I recognized, a person.
-- Narrator (Summer Chapter 3)

Importance: When receiving her uniform after her trial period at the restaurant has come to an end, the narrator begins to feel like an individual with an identity for the first time since arriving in New York. The...