The woman goes back to her hometown in St. Thomas and helps her mother with her fruit trees. Briefly, the mother mentions that the look of the road nearby has changed because a tree has fallen down after the recent tropical storm. Soon enough, she gets a text from her boyfriend—whom her mother likes—telling her to come down to Brewer’s Bay as soon as possible, after which she is told to go see him, bring him fruits, and bring back some flowers for her. As she drives, she wonders what’s so urgent that she, a food journalist, has to go and see to immediately.

At Brewer’s Bay, the woman immediately sees countless police officers and medical personnel on scene. She eventually runs into an editor she used to intern with at her newspaper, which is now a popular publication. They briefly reunite and catch up. The woman says she just landed in town, while the editor says that she’s been really fond of her television programs about food. She says that her boyfriend called her down here, after which the editor explains that everyone is gathered here because a fishing boat, and the senator manning it, was just recovered after a tropical storm struck St. Thomas. The woman thinks about the senator, how he has become a popular politician after running a sign shop. She recalls how, at the sign shop, her father almost got scammed but eventually got out of the senator’s scam after threatening to expose him to the cops.

Eventually, a lieutenant gathers everyone’s attention and announces that the senator has been safely rescued after EMTs took a rescue boat out to recover him, although the three EMTs were briefly thrown off after their rescue boat struck some rocks out at sea. Everyone is thankful that the senator is alive, but the girl’s boyfriend, standing behind the lieutenant with the other EMTs like himself, looks glum. She wonders why. The girl then shouts out and asks the lieutenant about the status of the EMTs. He explains that two survived and one passed. However, no one seems to care about the dead EMT—they only ask about the senator’s condition. Soon enough, the senator comes up to speak and thanks everyone for saving him after a fishing incident. He thanks the EMT but misgenders her as a man, to which the boyfriend steps up angrily and says it was a woman. The girl then comes to him and tries to get him to calm down, after which they leave the scene.

The girl and her boyfriend drive to Drake’s Seat and sit under a Flamboyant tree which has bloomed. He talks more about the dead EMT, and she consoles him. He also says that he was one of the three EMTs on that rescue boat with her. He thinks about what a great life she was going to have in her future and how she should have lived, not the senator, whom he greatly dislikes. The woman then gets a text on her phone from her editor, saying that they’ve secured the first interview slot with the senator tomorrow. The man then tells the woman not to tell her parents that he informed her about the tree incident, namely the tree incident where her father drove into a tree nearby their house—it wasn’t actually the tropical storm, as her mother said. Before she goes, the woman says that she’ll take up the interview and make sure he knows the dead EMT’s name and life.

The next morning, the woman and her parents drive to the senator’s house, where they’ll drop her off for her interview. Briefly, they argue about a dent in the car, which the father thinks was caused by the woman, but the woman knows it wasn’t new. At the senator’s house, the woman and the editor go in, greeting the senator’s wife, who explains that she’s a YouTuber who makes trail mix with her own special spices. They then get situated for the interview, during which the senator explains how he went out fishing ahead of the tropical storm’s arrival but was accidentally caught in it. After twenty minutes, nothing new is discovered about what happened. To round things off, the woman asks about the food he had while he was shipwrecked, to which he says that he didn’t eat sargassum, as it’s inedible, though he did eat lizard food, which he says is in fact edible. When the woman and the editor leave, the senator passes them new cards for his upcoming campaign.

In her parents’ car, the woman complains about how the senator is already campaigning despite the recent tragedy. Together, they look at his campaign cards and see that something is wrong. Soon enough, police officers are summoned to the senator’s house alongside the woman. Outside of the senator’s house, the woman and the editor, on a live tape, talk about how they figured it out. The woman says that she noticed, on his campaign card, that there’s a picture of the Flamboyant tree at Drake’s Seat. He senator claims that the campaign cards were freshly printed after the recent tragedy, but in their pictures, the Flamboyant tree isn’t blooming, thus indicating that he had the cards produced before the recent tragedy and implying that he may have set everything up. Not only that, but the boyfriend and his team of EMTs found a bag of supplies on a nearby island which included the senator’s girlfriend’s signature trail mix. In other words, the senator deliberately put himself in harm’s way to create a convenient situation for his reputation.

The editor says that the senator can be charged with fraud, though the woman says he can also be charged with the dead EMT’s murder by knowingly causing a fatal situation to happen. Eventually, police officers come outside of the senator’s house and put him in a cop car, saying that the remaining conversation will happen at a station. The woman then warns them to let him bring a change of clothes, as the lizard food he ate can cause explosive diarrhea. (Meanwhile, contrary to what he said, sargassum is in fact edible). Later, in the car with her parents, the girl is told that her father may have Alzheimer’s. They resolve to have a conversation at dinner about what really happened about the tree and the car.