Kingsolver shifts, for the last time, to a first person point of view, allowing Taylor to tell her own story as she experiences and perceives it. After eating breakfast at Burger Derby on several consecutive mornings and getting to know Sandi, a young waitress at the Derby, Taylor applies for and gets a job as a waitress there. She leaves Turtle at Kid Central Station, a baby-sitting service for shoppers at a local mall, while she's at work. The child care service is free, and Taylor and Sandi, whose son is there also, take turns going to check on their children. Although Taylor is fired from her job after only six days, at least she no longer has to leave Turtle at Kid Central, which she doesn't like. Perhaps unknowingly, Taylor is growing more protective of Turtle and more committed to motherhood.
Taylor begins scouring the local coffee shops for newspapers left lying on the tables for help-wanted and housing ads. A woman named Jessie, who claims leftover fruit and melon rinds, always has an "interesting-smelling shopping cart" with her and professes to be an artist, collecting the fruit "for still-lifes." Kingsolver uses Jessie to allude to homelessness.
Without a job, Taylor is unsure whether she can still afford the room at the Hotel Republic, so she begins looking not only for a job but a new place to stay. Kingsolver includes a comical sketch of individuals who are perceived as living on the fringe of society when she has Taylor meet three New-Agers looking for a roommate. Taylor can't imagine giving up toxins found in junk food or spending hours straining curd. She turns down a cup of alfalfa tea and humorously tells the three roommates that she and Turtle are going to "envision [themselves] in some other space."
