- The book opens up with the narrator watching a flame—her mother is lighting a cigarette in her nightgown and sitting in bed next to her.
- She knows that they are all in the newspapers and that they have to avoid the hotel dining room now.
- The narrator rides her bike down to the beach and looks out—thinking about someone named Peter and how his body was brought home.
- She decides that she needs to start the story from the beginning—from the day before they left for Florida. Well, let's hear it.