Bad Summer People

Lisa and Emily became friends in Salcombe when they were both newcomers. They are gossiping now about the Parkers, the Weinsteins, and Rachel Woolf. They have noticed that Rachel has been avoiding her usual crowd. They have also noticed that Sam and Jen seem to be reconciled and that Jen and Lauren seem unusually close lately. They are surprised, for they never believed that Lauren and Jen had ever really been friends. Lisa remarks that throughout the winter, she always tries not to forget Salcombe’s specialness. Emily replies that she is glad they have each other and dismisses everyone else in Salcombe as being irretrievably erratic.

Rachel sprained her ankle when she fell off the boardwalk on the night of the storm. She is hiding the injury now because she doesn’t want anyone to know that she was out; she hopes to avoid anyone questioning her about what she saw. She feels that she is being rejected by everyone and regrets revealing Jen and Jason’s affair. She especially resents that both couples seem stronger than ever now. She is also missing her sisters in California. Feeling lonely for the old crowd, she sends a text to Lauren, hoping that Lauren will forgive her.

She thinks back the fatal night of Susan’s death. After Rachel fell off her bike, Robert found her and helped her back to her house. She asked him why he went to Susan’s house, but he did not answer. The next day, she learned about Susan’s death. Afterward, Rachel tried to start a rumor that Susan had been depressed.

Now, Rachel gets a visit from Sam. He asks her what rumors are going around about Susan’s death. He also makes love to her. Afterward, she tells him about Robert’s actions that night. He seduces her again, and she admits to having seen the four of them together and hearing a scream, but she didn’t see what happened. She asks if Sam and the others killed Susan. He tells her that if she never says anything to anyone about what she saw, they can be together any time she wants.

Jen is exasperated with Sam, for he keeps nagging her, insisting that they need to know why Susan was out in the storm that night. Jen just wants to get home to Scarsdale and forget all about the summer. She has been steadily manipulating Sam toward a reconciliation. She knows that she will have to be more careful in the future to make sure that he never discovers any of her affairs. Now, Sam comes into the bedroom looking strange and disheveled. He tells her to take Robert out for drinks so that he will have time to break into Robert’s house. He explains what Rachel told him, and Jen agrees to distract Robert.

Jen meets Robert at the yacht club, and during their conversation, she suddenly realizes that Robert must have been embezzling from the tennis club, and that Sam must now be looking for the ledger. Jen meets Sam at Robert’s house. Sam has found the ledger. He tells Jen that he doesn’t know if he can ever get over her betrayal. She assures him that he will, reflecting as she kisses him that he is much simpler than her. Together, they destroy the ledger.

Robert arrives and finds them with the destroyed ledger. He tells them that he didn’t kill Susan and that he may be a thief, but he isn’t a murderer. Jen claims that she has a plan to make sure that no one will be blamed for Susan’s death.

Brian Metzner was also out in the storm on the fatal night and saw the accident in which Susan fell off the boardwalk. He knew that he should help, but he did not want to get involved.

The narrative shifts to Sam’s perspective on recent events. Sam has been frantic over the fact that they left Susan that night and believes that they might have been wrong to assume that she was already dead. Instead, they left the scene of a crime. He now feels compelled to find out what really happened. It is a distraction from trying to understand his dysfunctional marriage. He feels dirty after having used sex to manipulate Rachel, with whom he has no intention of becoming permanently involved. His next move is to search Robert’s house. When he finds the ledger, he concludes that Robert must have been embezzling and that Susan caught him. If Sam turns over the ledger to the police, Robert will undoubtedly tell the police about the rest of them being at the scene.

Then narrative shifts to Jason, who feels relieved that he is no longer obsessing about Jen and darkly thrilled to think that he has gotten away with murder. He has been thinking about Sam more than anything else. Now that Sam hates him, Jason feels closer to his former friend. Jason wants a new start, something fresh in his life. He wants to return to Salcombe as a new man. Now, he is waiting with everyone else at the dock for the ferry, looking forward to next year. When he sees Sam, he lies and tells his former friend that his affair with Jen was not about Sam, but about Jen. He reminds Sam of their childhood and says that he has never felt closer to anyone than he was to Sam in those days.

Sam takes Jason aside and tells him to go home because something is going to happen, and it shouldn’t happen in front of everyone on the dock. However, it is too late for Jason to avoid the fate that awaits him. With tears in his eyes, Sam tells Jason that whatever he does, his best course of action is to deny everything. As the ferry pulls in, police disembark and arrest Jason for Susan’s death. Sam quickly declares himself to be Jason’s lawyer and goes with him.

Micah’s parents are driving him back to Yale. He feels sick with the knowledge that he knows a secret that would probably ruin the community of Salcombe. He learned from Larry Higgins that Robert was embezzling and that Susan was onto him. A few days later, Susan died, and now Micah feels complicit in her death. He decides to keep the knowledge to himself and find some way to atone for the omission. Maybe he will find some way to use his education to fight oppression somewhere. He reminds himself that he is young; he has plenty of time to figure it out and choose another way of life.

Robert is reveling in his new life as Larry’s protégé, learning the ins and outs of finance. He is never going back to Salcombe and its “bad, bad people” (253). Walking down the street, he literally bumps into Lauren. Robert has heard from Larry that Jason and Lauren are still together and have bought a house in the Hamptons. With Sam’s help, Jason was cleared of the charge of murder in Susan’s death. It transpires that Jen had tipped off the police, telling them that Jason had been seen alone on the boardwalk that night. Sam and Jen are now getting divorced, and Rachel has moved to California to be near her sisters.

Lauren walks away, and Robert tries again to suppress his memory of the night that Susan died. After helping Rachel home, he went back to the scene and found that Susan was still alive despite her broken neck. The ledger lay nearby. He took the ledger and suffocated Susan; she seemed to accept her death without resistance.