Beach Read

As January drives away from the bookstore, she assures Anya that she’ll have the book done by September 1. Instead of heading straight home, January goes to pick up groceries. She texts Shadi about her encounter with Gus, to which Shadi replies jokingly to “tell him I miss him” (44). January states that she intends never to speak to him again. Shadi jokes again that that’s not possible since she’s his “fairy princess,” referring to a time in college when Gus asked Shadi about January and relayed that January acted like “a fairy princess who’d been raised by woodland creatures” (45).

Back at the lake house, January only manages 400 words of writing, plus an impressive solitaire streak. She stops for dinner and reminisces about how easy it used to be for her to bang out a draft. She wishes she could go back to the time before her perspective of love was warped. She steps out onto her deck, after first carefully checking to make sure Gus is not on his. As she turns to go back in, she notices Gus’s laptop illuminating the darkness of his house and spots him pacing back and forth in front of it—a behavior January recognizes as writer’s block.

Later, January heads to Pete’s house for her first book club meeting. She is greeted warmly by Pete and her wife, Maggie. As January is settling in, Maggie introduces January to the other women of the group—Lauren, who comes up to shake January’s hand, and Sonya, who is trapped under the dogs on the couch. January realizes it’s the same Sonya who had a relationship with her dad and begins to panic.

When January realizes Sonya is at the book club meeting, she quickly says she must pee, grabs the bottle of wine she brought, and hides out in the bathroom. After moments of chugging the wine and panicking, she hears Pete and Sonya talking through the door. January gathers that Sonya has made up an excuse to leave early and that Pete is very confused by the entire encounter but is too polite to ask directly. Sonya leaves, and January comes out of the bathroom, significantly tipsier than before.

She takes a seat in the book club circle, and Pete indicates that they’re expecting one more. Gus shows up. Pete has him sit next to January. January notices that Pete introduces Gus as an honored guest while she received a much more casual introduction. She muses over how much more is expected of women authors than men. She deduces that the book club must be discussing Gus’s book but becomes increasingly confused by the details the group remarks on and the lack of emotion on Gus’s face during the discussion.

Finally, one of the members mentions the author by name, and January realizes they’re not discussing Gus’s book at all; he is just as lost as she is. January notices the bookshelf is full of spy novels. She stifles a chuckle at the idea that she and Gus have both found themselves at a book club for spy novels. She offers Gus some wine, he doesn’t respond, and the book club discussion continues.

As the book club meeting ends, Pete asks January how she’s getting home. January isn’t as drunk as she was before but knows she shouldn’t risk driving. Gus interjects saying he’ll drive her, but January is determined not to let that happen. Pete warns January that there’s one Uber driver in the whole town, who likely isn’t working after dark. January stands in the rain stubbornly attempting to get an Uber while Gus tries to usher her into his car. He starts his vehicle and waits for January, who now insists she’ll walk. Finally, January relents and climbs into the passenger seat after Gus promises he knows a great way to help her sober up.

Gus drives January to a retro-chic donut shop, where the eccentric old man behind the counter is in his underwear. Gus buys them a dozen day-old donuts and some coffee. They take a seat at a booth, where Gus tries to ask January about why she moved to the lake house, but January avoids his questions with more banter, insisting she has questions for him, too. Eventually, she tells Gus that he was very rude to her, and he apologizes for his behavior the night of the party. January then asks him if he thought the book club was reading his book, revealing to Gus that she knows the name of his book. He confesses that he did, then they move into more banter about whether they’ve Googled one another, and they both indicate they have.

They discuss one another’s genres, speculating that neither has read the other’s published work. January rants that her work isn’t shelved as romance but as women’s fiction, then laments that if her characters were all men, it would just be considered fiction. She’s angry that just because she’s a woman and so are her characters, her potential audience is halved when her book hits shelves. Before Gus can react, she asks him to take her home, stating that she’s feeling more sober now.