Janie arranges a lavish funeral for Joe, and important people come from all over South Florida to see him off. Janie publicly presents as a grieving widow dressed in expensive black mourning clothes, but internally, she celebrates being free of restraints for the first time in her life. As she thinks of Nanny’s decisions, Janie realizes that she hated her grandmother for foreclosing the possibilities in her life, and she blames Nanny for choosing material security over happiness for her granddaughter.

After the funeral, Janie carries on with her normal routine of minding the store with the help of Hezekiah, Joe’s assistant. Free of Joe, Janie burns all her head rags, wears her hair uncovered, and occasionally sits on the porch. When suitors begin showing up just a month after Joe’s death, she ignores them, telling Pheoby that love for her newfound freedom, not grief, leads her to deny these men. Pheoby tells her to keep that subversive thought to herself.

One day, when Janie is tending the store by herself, a young man named Vergible Woods, who goes by the name “Tea Cake,” walks in to buy some cigarettes. With most of the town away at a baseball game, Janie agrees to sit with Tea Cake and play a game of checkers; she finds him instantly charming.