Molly Notkin's party: Joelle's overdose — "feared for quitting instead of failing…"
feared for quitting instead of failing, and because of the connection of the memory of Jim […] turning from him, rudely, brain heaving in its bone-box, memorizing every detail like collecting empty shells
Context
Joelle orbiting the Very Last Party's fringes, given wide berth partly because Jim's memory clings to her — socially constituted by someone else's remembered dead. Her response is deliberate memory-work in the opposite direction: memorizing every detail of the last room she expects to see, the simile already conceding the details are hollow, collected for no future rememberer.