Bad Summer People

Lauren dislikes the Fourth of July. In Salcombe, it is a long, hectic holiday that inevitably concludes with a picnic. At the moment, she is contemplating her relationship with Jason and realizes that although she once found him attractive, he is now faintly repulsive to her. Lately, she has been fantasizing about Robert. Her contemplation of Robert is now interrupted by her daughter, Amelie. Little Lucy Ledbetter has spilled ketchup on Amelie’s new dress, and Lucy’s mother, Beth, laughed at Amelie. Lauren and her own group of friends have come to loathe Beth, whose habitual and strategic lies are designed to set people against one other. The group initially tolerated Beth, but they have gradually shut her out of their social circles. Beth has her own little coterie of people whom Lauren derisively thinks of as “B-listers.”

Lauren sends Amelie to play with another friend, and Amelie quickly forgets the unpleasant incident. Infuriated by Beth’s cruelty to a child, Lauren confronts the woman in an explosion of fury, and the other adults quickly intervene to break up the unseemly exchange. Afterward, everyone works quickly to reestablish the status quo. Even so, Lauren knows that Rachel will soon begin spreading