Eunice's Fiat breaks down as she is on her way back to Scudder camp, a property passed down through the generations to her ex-husband on Presque Isle. Her ex-husband and the father of her child, James, had been stalking her and sending spies to bother her, but she is safe now, she thinks. The mechanic Jake calls her car a piece of junk and refuses to fix it, so Eunice takes a taxi home, stopping to stock up on liquor on the way. She returns to her house where her guests stay, including Reed, her twenty-something-year-old boyfriend, an Irish girl named Niall, and a talkative man named Kim. Also at the camp is her daughter Jean-Marie, a sixteen-year-old who turned up at the camp last night after having been kicked out of her music program.

When Eunice returns home, she gets out a phonebook to call the mechanic so she can figure out her car situation and gets a vodka drink to start off her day. Her daughter Jean-Marie comes into the kitchen acting grumpy, and Eunice thinks about how her daughter could be pretty but is not taking care of her eyebrows and acne and does not dress well. She mentions that Jean-Marie should say hello to Reed, but Jean-Marie says she did last night and questions the fact that her mother does not remember. Eunice is embarrassed but continues on, trying to call the mechanic when James calls. She assumes he has called to yell at her, but he is merely asking if she will tell the doorman to let him in her apartment so he can find some receipts. Eunice begins to get frustrated as Jean-Marie walks around the kitchen eating bites out of everything. She suddenly remembers that Jean-Marie put her to sleep the night before after she threw up on her drunken self. Jean-Marie was sobbing, but Eunice cannot remember why.

James puts Eunice on hold while he takes another call, and Eunice cannot tell why Jean-Marie does not want to talk to her father. Jean-Marie begins cursing and telling Eunice that she saw Reed and Kim doing sexual and dirty things last night after she put her mother to bed. Eunice becomes enraged and starts crying, calling Jean-Marie a liar. James comes back to the phone, and Eunice yells at him, telling him to leave her and her property alone. When Jean-Marie comes down the stairs, Eunice tells her to call the rude mechanic. Jean-Marie does not reply.