An Abundance of Katherines: Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

Back in the present, Lindsey tells Colin that the problem with his stories is that they don’t have morals, he can’t do a good girl voice, and he focuses too much on himself. Still, she can imagine Katherine XIX, and she thinks Colin likes her because she’s a little mean to him. Linsey won over TOC from Katrina by being mean, she says. She claims that it is easy to get people to like you. Colin says it isn’t easy for him, but Lindsey protests that she likes him, and she doesn’t like anyone. Lindsey looks at the damage Colin has done shooting trees and says he might be able to kill a pig, but Colin insists that he does not want to do so. He challenges Lindsey on her statement that she doesn’t like anyone: she seems to like the “oldsters.” She says that is because they never messed with her.

Lindsey leads Colin to a small, dark cave. She says she is bringing him there because he is the only guy skinny enough to fit. By the light of a flashlight, Colin sees that inside the cave are a blanket, sleeping bag, pillows, and a jar of moonshine Lindsey says she got from TOC. She told him she drank it, but she brought it here instead. Lindsey has Colin turn off the light, and it is “the kind of dark your eyes never adjust to.”

Lindsey says she found the cave when she was hiking around by herself in eighth grade. She has never been in here with someone else and says it is different being invisible with someone. Colin asks what she does here since it is too dark to read or do anything. Lindsey says she just sits here where no one can find her. The two are quiet for a moment (indicated by ellipses), and Lindsey offers Colin moonshine. Colin has never had alcohol and says moonshine can make you blind. Lindsey is unsurprised. By feel, they find the moonshine and each other, and they both try some moonshine. Colin says it’s like French-kissing a dragon, which Lindsey says is the funniest thing he’s ever said. Colin says he used to be funnier. The two grow quiet but keep bumping into one another’s body parts.

Lindsey decides to tell Colin a story about herself. She says that in elementary school, she was friends with all the Gutshot kids (they went to school in Danville), but in third grade, TOC and his friends started saying she was a dog and calling her Lass, short for Lassie. She goes on to talk about how she gave everyone valentines in fourth grade but got none in return. She returned home feeling horrible and refusing to talk to Hollis about it. Out her bedroom window, she saw TOC run up to the door with a cardboard box covered in hearts and drop it off. She ran down to see what it was and found that it contained a can of Alpo dog food. From then on, it became her life’s goal to get him, kiss him, and marry him. She says he’s different now and is protective.

After another moment of silence, Colin asks if Lindsey thinks people would like her more or less if they could see inside her. He feels like the Katherines always dump him right when they start to see inside him, except Katherine XIX. He doesn’t think anyone would love him if they saw him the way he sees himself. Lindsey says that in two years of dating, TOC has never said he loves her. She admires TOC because he doesn’t pretend to be anyone other than who he is. She says that by comparison, she is “full of shit.” She goes on to remark that “The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real.” She says that for Colin, at least he can get to the part where he doesn’t matter. She says that the only true sentence she can begin with “I” is “I’m full of shit.”

After a longer silence, Colin says that he likes Lindsey, and that she doesn’t chameleon in front of him. For example, she bites her thumb in front of him and has brought him to her secret hiding place. Colin is mid-sentence when Lindsey says “hi.” Colin says “hi,” then Lindsey says, “We shouldn’t.” Colin says she started it, but Lindsey says that was just because she wanted to say “We shouldn’t” dramatically. She says they should leave it at their foreheads and noses touching and Colin’s hand on her leg. She bites her thumb again.

Colin and Lindsey return home after dark, talking about how it is just not meant to be. Anyway, Colin thinks, she’s a Lindsey. They walk in the house quietly and overhear Hollis on the phone, talking about leaving something out for the garbage men to pick up. Colin and Lindsey sneak back out the window then come back in the front door, loudly this time. Hollis asks if they had fun, and Lindsey, looking at Colin, says she’s rarely had so much fun in her life.

On the stairs, Lindsey and Colin conspire about Hollis’s phone call. It must have something to do with the warehouse, Colin says, because that’s where Hollis was today. Lindsey says they might need to take a road trip out there. Hassan appears and says he and Katrina, who he emphasizes is a college girl (Colin has always said he will need to go to college to date a college girl), are in. The date went well.

Colin sneaks into Hassan’s room once Lindsey goes downstairs. They discuss how Hassan got to second base over the shirt, and how Hassan and Lindsey got very close to one another. Hassan wants to know if Colin likes her, and he says in the moment, he kind of did. Hassan encourages him to finish the Theorem so he can predict how it would go.