Alice opens the chapter with a recurring nightmare of fleeing up stairs and finding only a silent telephone. She wakes in the cottage to a call from editor Willa, who rejects the swimsuit images Alice submitted the night before, saying readers will be distracted by “lumps and bumps,” and requests digital slimming and smoothing. Alice is sickened by the demand for “nips and tucks,” receives annotated files with red circles and instructions to “smooth, trim, erase,” and decides she cannot deal with it immediately.

Alice joins Nan in the living room and hides her professional anxiety, steering the conversation to Nan’s current memoir, Ina Garten’s Be Ready When the Luck Happens. In the kitchen, Alice tends to Nan, makes breakfast, and outlines plans to shop for groceries and look for a sewing machine. Nan jokingly requests scotch; Alice refuses, mindful of Nan’s fall risk. Alice reflects on the risky thrill of the flirtatious selfie she sent Charlie Florek the night before but decides she would rather keep the distance of texting than meet him just yet.

Once Nan is settled on the deck with a crossword, Alice heads into town. She notes a flashy black Porsche in the grocery store lot and mentally distinguishes locals from cottagers while shopping. As she selects produce, she notices a tall, broad-shouldered man in a blue T-shirt and red bathing suit with striking calves and presence.

When Alice reaches for a cucumber beside him, he startles; she bumps a display of tomatoes, sending them to the floor. They both kneel to clean up, and Alice is captivated by his face: pale green eyes, tapered brows, full lips, a squared jaw, slightly crooked nose, light stubble, and boyish dimples. The sight triggers a visceral creative impulse—she wants to photograph him—and a powerful physical attraction. Overwhelmed, she blurts “Whoa,” stammers out fragmented thanks, and hurriedly flees the aisle, flustered and excited.