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I believe it all comes back to the brooch. When Odalie shows up at the precinct (the perfect spot to work if you're looking to sweep any legal trouble with your speakeasy under the rug), Odalie intentionally drops her brooch as a test. Will the dull typist, Rose, return the brooch (aka do the right thing?) or, keep it (thus exposing a secret desire for the forbidden?) We know Rose makes the choice to keep the brooch, and starts herself down a dangerous path of slow and complete corruption by Odalie. I completely believe Odalie and Ginerva were the same person Ginerva invents Odalie as her escape from life as Ginerva) and that Rose is conned into giving her personality to Odalie/Ginerva, through the course of their relationship. Rose slowly gets sucked into the web Odalie weaves. She entices Rose with lavish clothes, lifestyle, parties, etc.
Notice that Odalie doesn't start earnestly learning exact details of Rose's past until she realizes her identity as Odalie has hit a dead end, with the reappearance of Teddy.
Odalie/Ginerva kills Teddy, pins it on Rose, and uses all the info she learned about Rose to give herself a third identity, leaving the real Rose to clean up the pieces.
At the end, what does the Lt Detective give Rose? The brooch. "Odalie said you would want it." The brooch is Rose's clue that Odalie knew from the start, that Rose wasn't the perfectly innocent typists she portrayed. The brooch was the realization to Rose, that in order to get out of the mental institution, she would need to let go of the notion she's some innocent victim, and fully embrace her "other"/dark half. She then, manipulates the Lt Detective into kissing her, so she can grab his knife, bob her hair (the last physicall difference between her and Odalie) and fully embrace her "other" self. She is now "free" to fully become Odalie, the charming, manipulative gal who can get herself out of any sticky situation. Odalie does the same thing when she sheds her Ginerva persona. The last line of the book "two can play this game" is Rose accepting the challenge and the new game of becoming Odalie. That's at least my take on the book. Would love to hear reactions from others!

this is a story of unrequitted love. Rose kills Teddy to protect her greatest love: Odalie. In the end , while she is in jail, she comes to realize how hard it is for her to not love O. as evidenced by the fact that she had to make a list of reasons why she should not love her anymore. When she recieved the brooch she saw that O. was still thinking of her (Rose) even as O. was preparing to skip town. Rose cuts/bobs her hair as a sigthat she is still in love with Odalie who, for all her faults, has shown Rose friendship, family, shelter and a life she could never have imagined. Odalie used her but Rose accepts it as she accepts the brooch and cuts her hair. Good story.

What if Odalie and Rose were 2 separate people (Odalie was also Ginerva as the story leads you to believe) but Rose killed Teddy FOR Odalie- because she loved her and wanted to protect her... that would explain the detective visiting.. I think Odalie manipulated everything to lead up to it though-
I thought the story was incredibly well written, love the author's descriptions and word choice.

I was/am still confused by that ending but I do think that Odalie and Rose are two different people. I am thinking that possibly Rose killed Teddy and maybe Gib to look out for Odalie since she was truly obsessed with her and that would explain the last line of the book. I agree that Rose took on Odalie's personality at the end in the attempt to be her.

Hi!I just finished this book and came here to find out what on earth happened! I see I'm not alone . . .
I think "her" real name is Genevra, because that's what the doctor in the asylum says is the truth. She took on the name Rose and got a job as a typist. And I think there is an Odalie, a real person, not just another manifestation of Rose, because she is hired too and goes out with the other girls. But then, Im confused. Was Rose the person who ran the speakeasy and corrupted Odalie?

The Lieutenant Detective also told her that Odalie left right after because “she didn’t feel safe.� If Odalie were an alternate personality, that would not make sense. I do think now that Rose WAS Ginevra because the ending seems to imply to me that she is setting Odalie up with her journal, creating evidence. She did say in the beginning that the typists can essentially change the facts in the statements, so she is changing the facts with her written alternative version of events in order to make Odalie the guilty one. It should be easy enough for the investors to have residents of Newport identity who is really Genevra, so if Rose is being set up, she should be able to get clear. The fact that the hospital calls her Genevra, and that in the epilogue she flashes back to Teddy falling, seem to support her really being Genevra, but since the Lieutenant Detective can confirm that she was in the boarding house at the time that Odalie entered the scene, and the hotel room could be traced, Odalie is not an innocent victim either. “Two can play at that game Odalie� is very significant. Rose is trying to reinvent the truth the way Odalie must have, because Rose appears to be taking Odalie’s lead in this statement.

Everybody's right, and everybody's wrong. I think the final sentence was the perfect phrase to introduce absolute ambiguity. Pretty clever!

I'm in Rose's camp, sucked in by her innocence. The alternative is to tricky for my tiny mind. Well, maybe I could entertain the notion of multiple personalities or two women with Rose as the baddie, but I'd have to completely reread the book to see if that worked. Again--a pretty clever writing device.

Here's my understanding - and I'm hoping typing it out will help me make sense of it. Rose and Odalie were two separate individuals, first of all. Rose has some kind of psychotic break in which she threw off her past as Ginerva and tried to place that persona on Odalie to externalize the blame and be justified because "Odalie was manipulating her" when in fact Odalie was simply a body upon which Ginerva/Rose projected her darker half. Likely, Odalie was the one who grew up in the orphanage, etc.

To me the brooch seemed to almost serve a metaphorical purpose. It's like the talismans in Inception - what is real and what's not, what is good and what is evil. And the initial exchange of the brooch signified the beginning of Rose/Ginerva's dissociation while the returning of it at the end was her acceptance of the "Odalie/Ginerva" persona as her darker half.

It's like some epic-level Multiple Personality Disorder happening here. Almost as though Rose/Ginerva "blanks" and invents those moments in which she has alibis and innocence because the Rose-identity truly believes herself to be good. So when Ginerva-identity takes center-stage and murders Teddy, runs the speakeasy, etc. Odalie becomes the scapegoat on which Rose-identity can lay the blame for Ginerva-identity's wicked actions.

I think?

I think Rose and Odalie are the same person. Yes, she really is the socialite. A figment of Rose's imagination. The character Odalie never speaks to anyone in the typing pool/police station. She only interacts with anyone through Rose's point of view. Never independent of her. At the end, at the mental institution, it all comes together. She is not charged for the crime of killing Teddy as a prison sentence. But is sent to a mental asylum instead. She is mentally ill. Genevra has personalities of Odalie and Rose.

Maybe the author just wrote a really bad ending to an otherwise good book. Unless I missed something, the ending isn't even possible...so either the author should explain it, or rewrite it. Not sure how an editor was okay with this.

Right. I think the Lieutenant Detective was enamored of Odalie, who was really Rose, but was frightened of her at the same time because he saw differing sides of her personality. Rose mentions at the end the look on Teddy's face as he goes over the wall. She wouldn't have seen it if she had really been gone to the store. That's why I think Rose and Odalie are the same person. Odalie is a glamorous, fun loving side of Rose's personality, and Rose is the side who is resentful and the release valve for her anger. Ginevra, I believe is another iteration of her personalities.

Rose admitted killing Teddy (I think?!)...but wasn't she at the store buying cigarettes? I think Ginerva reinvented herself as Odalie...and used Rose to take the fall, realizing (after lunching with them all one-on-one) that she was the most gullible of the 3 typists. Who knows how many times "Odalie" (or whoever she was!) reinvented herself...or found another poor sucker to pin her bad behavior on. I enjoyed it...very good read.

I believe that Odalie/Ginevra has been the narrator ALL ALONG (remember how she gets Rose to tell her her stories?). She is being treated for her manipulative disorder plus having killed Teddy. Rose is truly an innocent.

Well, it is clear that Rose was in an asylum/mental hospital at the end. And, on one hand, she says that she went to the corner store for cigarettes but on the other hand, she admits to pushing Teddy. And several times she says how her doctor stresses how important it is to tell the events in order. I thought that maybe Odalie was a figment of Rose's imagination or something like that but now I do not think that could be true. Personally, I think that Odalie is treacherous, framed Rose, fooled everyone and drove her to insanity at the end. Thoughts?

I am confused as well! I am thinking that at the end Rose decided to become Odile? And she must have killed Teddy?? Not sure....confused.

I believe Rose was the only real character in her story. The rest of the characters she created in her mind. The Lieutenant Detective called her bluff when he said Odalie wanted her to have the brooch. There was no real Odalie and that's why Rose said "two can play the game and cut her hair to look like Odalie.

But if our narrator was really Odalie all alone, why would the Lieutenant Detective call her Rose?