Rachel’s house
| Rachel's house | |
|---|---|
 | |
| First appearance | Leaving Home, page 11 July 9, 2013 |
| Related characters | Rachel, Paulo, Mike, Daisy, Abbey, Sue, Amaya, Jessica, Matt, Tiff |
Rachel’s house is the suburban family home of Rachel in Roseville. Her parents live there too, though they have never appeared on panel, and her birthday party happens while they are conveniently out of town.[1] They also aren’t home when Paulo visits later.[2] More than anything, Paulo goes there when his life falls apart. He turns up at the front door hurt, drunk, or heartbroken, and Rachel takes him in.
Exterior
The house sits on a quiet residential street, with rooftops and trees all around and a shoveled, snow-lined sidewalk out front in the winter chapters.[3][4][5] A drive-in theater is close by, near enough that Rachel can catch Casablanca there just about every night.[6] The front door is white and paneled, with a brass knob, a separate deadbolt, and a green-tinted multi-pane window that shows the bare branches outside.[7]
Interior
The front door opens onto a small entryway, where carpeted stairs climb up to the main living level past a black metal railing with thin vertical balusters.[7] A framed picture hangs in the hall.[9] The living room has vertical cream-and-tan striped wallpaper. Two matching beige couches with olive-green floral upholstery sit at roughly right angles over a striped rug, with room enough for about a dozen partying teenagers.[10][11]
Upstairs, a hallway leads to the bathroom and to Rachel’s bedroom.[12] The bathroom has a toilet, a tiled floor, a window, and at least one satisfied reviewer, the anonymous partygoer who declares it a nice bathroom.[13][5][12] Rachel’s room is the house’s most familiar corner. The bed has a tall brown wooden headboard, green sheets and pillows, and a white comforter with large blue-green polka dots.[14][4] The walls are pale blue-green, with a big white-framed window beside the bed and a white nightstand topped with a tissue box.[14][4] Her bedroom door opens onto a cream-walled hallway with a wooden floor.[4]
History
The house makes its first appearance in Back and Forth, and it is a brief one. After a school day of being slapped around by Lucy and Tess, Paulo rings the doorbell and tackle-hugs Rachel the moment she answers (“MAN am I glad to see you!!”), and she strokes his head for his trouble.[9]
On the morning after Lucy leaves Roseville, in Leaving Home, Paulo wakes up groggy under the polka-dot bedspread with Rachel asleep beside him, slowly registering that “This isn’t my room.”[14] Study Buddy picks up seconds later. Paulo panics about what they did, and Rachel is perfectly breezy about it.[15] He mutters an apology to the absent Lucy, then bolts from the bedroom and flees down the snowy sidewalk, while Rachel watches the doorway with a fond smile.[4]
The house’s biggest chapter by a long way is Happy Hour, Rachel’s birthday party while her parents are away for the weekend.[1] Daisy, Abbey, Mike, Sue, Amaya and David all turn up, along with Rachel’s senior friends Jessica, Matt and Tiff, and Paulo’s gift is two bottles lifted from his dad’s liquor cabinet.[7][16] The night gets drunker as it goes, and the celebration ends up doubling as a group mourning of the absent Lucy. Mike finally confesses the cruel things he said to her before she left, and Paulo answers him with a punch to the face.[17]
The wind-down is quieter. Paulo finds Mike crying on Rachel’s bed and, for once, just sits with him.[18] Rachel sees everyone out at her own front door, cheerfully assuring Paulo that it’s a “good thing we’re not dating”, since a real girlfriend might have thrown him out for all the ex talk.[19] The night ends on the bathroom floor, where she holds a vomiting, heartbroken Paulo while he admits that Lucy was the one.[20]
Daisy’s hazy memories of that party resurface in Take Heart: dancing silhouettes, a donkey-tail pin, the toilet, and Rachel’s concerned smile, all dredged up while Abbey presses her about what she said about Mike that night.[21]
The bedroom returns in Afterglow, a book-exclusive bonus chapter set just after Class of 2008. Lying beside Paulo after sex, Rachel tells him “I love you, you know”, and he flounders badly enough that she hastily takes it all back as silly post-sex talk.[22][23] The chapter closes on Rachel standing alone in a kitchen, clutching a mug, with the worry plain on her face.[24]
In Behind Closed Doors, Paulo returns to Rachel’s house. After a blow-up with his friends, he walks there at dusk, still wondering whether he really is a terrible person.[3] Rachel opens the door and he kisses her, then asks whether her parents are home. She answers “No, it’s just me..” and the door closes behind them.[2]
Trivia
- Veronica’s commentary on the opening page of Happy Hour places the party in February: “Yeah, we’re in February guys”.[1] That puts it right around Rachel’s own birthday, February 11.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 2
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 32]
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 31]
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Chapter 77: Study Buddy, page 2
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 50
- ↑ Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 15
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 6
- ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 6
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 14
- ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 9
- ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 11
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 43
- ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 48
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Chapter 76: Leaving Home, page 11
- ↑ Chapter 77: Study Buddy, page 1
- ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 8
- ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 26
- ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 44
- ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 47
- ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 49
- ↑ Chapter 81: Take Heart, page 8
- ↑ Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Five, “Afterglow”, page 4
- ↑ Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Five, “Afterglow”, page 7
- ↑ Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Five, “Afterglow”, page 8