Leave the World Behind

The family arrives at the house. The vacation was Amanda’s idea; she has just gotten a promotion, and she feels this is the last vacation where she will still think of her children as children (Rose is approaching high school, and Archie is about to turn 16). They take a tour of the house and find it beautiful and thoughtfully appointed, and take note of the pool and the owner’s admonition that if a deer fell in it would drown. Clay goes to get the things from the car, which Amanda knows is pretense for smoking a cigarette, an open secret between them. Amanda watches as her children leap into the pool, happy with the scene.

Amanda volunteers to go to the grocery store, where she buys a litany of items; the novel slows down to catalog everything she gets for their stay at the vacation home, providing commentary on the quality and meaning of the items as it does so: “three pints of Ben & Jerry’s politically virtuous ice cream,” for example (12). The shopping excites her to the point that it is almost sexual, and she lingers on a fantasy of seducing a teenage employee. Before she drives home, she checks her work email, feeling thrilled that work needs her while she’s away, then stops to buy Clay cigarettes on the way home, knowing that they will have sex that night and then do nothing together.

While everyone is in the pool, Clay sneaks off to smoke a cigarette, thinking that he should feel guilty but also convincing himself that tobacco is a part of the American experience. Clay feels safe and private in their remote vacation home, and he thinks about how he and Amanda’s accomplishments (he has tenure at his university, and Amanda is a director at her job) still haven’t provided them with the luxury that this house has, though he is pleased that they’re able to pretend for a week. He goes inside and prepares hamburger meat, then goes outside to grill in his bathing suit, imagining a connection to Indigenous people who grilled meat in loincloths.

After dinner, the family lazes in the living room. Archie is considering another hamburger while he watches cartoons with Rose, and Amanda goes to take a shower. While showering, she thinks of her desire to be both powerful and girlish, contradictory urges that make her work life sometimes difficult. When she finishes showering, she dresses and tells the children that it’s nearly bedtime, intimating to Clay that they’ll be having sex soon, then gets in bed and logs her phone onto the Wi-Fi; she enjoys seeing so many emails from work and begins happily working her way through them. Clay arrives, and the two have passionate vacation sex. After, she comments that he needs to stop smoking, which he agrees to without real commitment. Still nude, they go outside—Amanda briefly feels that someone is watching—and sink into the hot tub.

The next morning, the family eats breakfast and prepares for a beach day. Archie is starting to see his father in a sad light, particularly in the way he wants others to perceive him as a good cook and in how he isn’t as strong as Archie; Archie’s teenage sullenness goes unnoticed. Their GPS malfunctions, but Clay finds the highway and they eventually pass by a memorial for an airplane crash.

They spend an uneventful day at the beach; Amanda and Clay independently notice and feel attraction toward the lifeguards, but overall it is a lazy, pleasant morning. On their way back to the house, they stop at Starbucks, the familiarity of which comforts Amanda.

Back at the house, they clean up. Amanda agrees to make pasta while Clay goes to the store for cereal; Amanda knows that means Clay will smoke cigarettes and buy too much food, but she doesn’t say anything. They are being sweet to each other, which feels unfamiliar but nice.

While Clay is gone, Amanda makes pasta, noticing a deer and two fauns outside while she does. Clay returns, as expected, with too much food, but he notes that it seems like rain and he didn’t want to have to go back. Amanda feels drunk, having had some wine, and the family spends a lazy evening together watching TV and doing very little. After the children are in bed, Amanda becomes afraid of a noise she hears outside. While she discusses it with Clay, there is a knock at the door.