The Palacio family had been calling their beachfront neighbors to the west “The Chekhovians” for years, ever since Alex’s youngest brother, Etan, returned from Hotchkiss one summer, fresh from Readings in Russian Drama, and coined the nickname. He said, one slender arm draped over his chair, “Are the Chekhovians coming over tonight?” and Polly said, “Who?” and he said, “The Van Camps.” And the whole Palacio family, which was large and theatergoing, paused to think for a moment, then cracked up. They laughed so hard. Because it was true, the Van Camps were like characters from a Chekhov play: Olivia Van Camp, a former actress best known for her portrayal of Chekhov heroines, now a wan beauty in her middle years who’d inherited her family’s gorgeous, dilapidated house by the beach; her older brother, Hull, a Princeton grad and a bachelor wastrel who spent his days arguing with their ancient handyman and making proclamations about absolute aesthetics; and her daughter, Lara, who still carried dolls around in adolescence. Oh, and a little son who’d died. And a husband who’d left. The family had an air of exhausted gentility—doomed but terribly romantic. And the Palacios—a practical, humorous bunch—held the Van Camps in high ridicule, yet they were all, in their own way, fascinated by them.

Lara Van Camp lay prone on the shore, head propped on her palm, perpendicular to the ocean, and disregarded the surf as it drew up her like a blanket, foaming her meaty legs, her round hips, then retreated, leaving her flesh glazed and shining. The girl used her free hand to trace circles in the wet sand. She had been reclining for a solid hour in that awkward place, as beachgoers stepped to the left and right of her and children sped into the waves. It was like she was in a trance, her mother thought as she reorganized the beach basket, rolling up towels around tubes of sunscreen. It was a place where one dropped something, or walked through, the exact place where the lovers in From Here to Eternity had their famous kiss; not a spot to park oneself and play with mud—not a girl of fourteen who looks eighteen. And that bathing suit was too small. Sighing, Olivia picked her way across the hot sand, to the cool edge of the water, and looked down at her daughter.

“Lara, honey. Are you all right?” she asked with her cigarette voice.

“Mhm.”

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

“No, thanks.”

“A run? Read?”

“I’m fine.”