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By Deborah

Kevin waits for Beth in some little patisserie or other. She enters reluctantly and says she was surprised to hear from him. He admits he's surprised she showed up, given the way he's acted toward her. Kevin says Joan told him something he doesn't remember, and he wants to know what really happened. He asks if she wants to sit down, but she's not sure if she does: "What do you want to know?" Kevin says Joan told him Beth did visit him in the hospital: "Why didn't you stay when I came to?" She doesn't really answer, and Kevin explains that his memories of the days around the accident are basically gone, and he just assumed she couldn't handle what happened. She decides to sit down, and tells him that he dumped her. Kevin's flummoxed: "But I was crazy about you." Well, apparently he was also crazy about some girl named Jeannie Heron. He was two-timing Beth, and she called him on it at the post-game party they attended the night of the accident. He didn't like that happening in front of his friends, so he dumped her. He doesn't seem to have much trouble believing that he would have done something like that, which tells us a lot. She adds that he'd just gotten his scholarship to Arizona, and that he was so full of himself that he was unwilling to feel guilty about his behaviour, so he took off -- for the car ride that paralyzed him. Wow. Like he didn't already have enough issues with that choice. Kevin says he didn't know. Beth says sadly that it's okay. Kevin, finally facing up to what an enormous jerk he can be: "No, it's, uh -- it's -- it's not." He sits there looking disappointed in himself. I think that ever since the accident, whenever Kevin acts like a jackass, he explains it to himself by blaming his situation. It's good to see him get that most of that isn't about the accident at all. He was always selfish and arrogant and had an entitlement complex the size of Massachusetts.

Grace and Joan are sitting on the stairs at school. Joan's hair is an unbrushed, dirty, sketchy mess, she's not wearing any makeup, and she's dressed in dark clothes with a rumpled plaid overshirt. She tells Grace, "Ohhh, it felt so good, throwing down against the oppression of eyebrow pencil -- like a true revolutionary." Grace, dryly: "Without the bloodshed, social upheaval or CIA involvement." Hee. Joan nods. Grace: "So, Rove like the new look?" Joan's slightly discomfited by this question, and says that he hasn't said anything yet: "But I'm sure he will." Grace: "Past is prologue, dude. He didn't notice before." I wish we'd gotten to see Grace's reaction to the X-treme Tart look. Joan: "Look, we're both about more than just superficial appearances. Like you!" Grace, bristling slightly: "Hey, I look good!" The smile falls off Joan's face. Glynis and Luke walk up to them, hand in hand, tailed by Friedman. Glynis -- plenty made up, with her hair sort of vaguely waved and wearing a trendier outfit than she usually does -- declares, "What a glorious day today!" Joan: "Can you even see it?" Glynis says she saw the blue of the sky, and felt the warmth of the sun: "And when I get my contacts, um --" Joan stands up and interrupts her, "Glynis…you look great in your glasses. You don't have to be a slave to society's fake, sexually exploitive view of external beauty! Power to the pimple." She doesn't actually raise her fist, though. Glynis looks puzzled as Joan walks down the hall. Grace hustles after her with a look of consternation. Perhaps she's going to quote Elizabeth Bibesco to Joan: "You don't have to signal a social conscience by looking like a frump. Lace knickers won't hasten the holocaust, you can ban the bomb in feather boa just as well as without, and a mild interest in the length of hemlines doesn't necessarily disqualify you from reading Das Kapital and agreeing with every word." Or, you know…not.