When
Vivian is nineteen, her lively friends
Lillian and
Emily invite her on a trip to Minneapolis to see
The Wizard of Oz.
Mrs. Nielsen encourages Vivian to go, because she worries that Vivian spends too much time working and studying. After they arrive and check into a “ladies’ hotel,” Vivian realizes that her friends’ actual plan is to visit the local nightclubs. Despite her hesitation, Vivian is excited. Vivian and Emily go to the “picture show” while Lillian visits her fiancée,
Richard. The movie captivates Vivian. She marvels at the magic of Oz and reflects on how Dorothy’s “black and white” home is “already populated with the only characters she’ll ever know.” Afterward they meet up with Lillian and Richard. Vivian worries she seems prudish among her sophisticated peers, But as they walk to dinner, her “spirits lift” with the feeling that it is “marvelous to be young on a big-city street.”