A Good Neighborhood

The Whitman family, Lottie, and Pepper are at the beach house Brad purchased after the previous owner went bankrupt. Brad grew up poor, was bullied, and dropped out of college; large purchases, such as the beach house, make him feel accomplished.

Brad watches Juniper playing frisbee with Pepper while they are at the beach house, and he rationalizes it by telling himself he is “just looking” and that he can’t avoid seeing her. Brad tells Julia that Juniper is doing well at Whitman HVAC, but inwardly, he is concerned about Juniper’s tentative nature when it is just the two of them in the office. Julia is bothered because Juniper does not talk to her, and Brad tells her she needs to give Juniper space. Lottie joins Julia and Brad, and Brad leaves to change into swim trunks.

Lily and Brad go into the water, and after failing to find any sharks, Brad makes a game of tossing Lily into the water. He invites Pepper and Juniper to join them, but Juniper says she is too big. He keeps pressuring Juniper, and she concedes. As he watches Juniper tighten her bikini top, he gets an erection, and the second time he flips Juniper, her leg touches his erect penis. He likes that Juniper is visibly embarrassed. After Brad tosses her, Juniper goes back to playing with Pepper. Brad convinces himself that Juniper is sexually attracted to him and wanted to touch him.

Brad plays golf with Tony, the district attorney. He is losing to Tony, and he blames it on being distracted by Juniper and his fantasies about her. It starts to storm, and a bolt of lightning strikes near Brad. Brad is scared, and he thinks the lightning was a sign that he needs to get himself together. He tells himself that he needs to have sex with Juniper one time so they can get it “out of their systems, and then they’d be able to get over it” (178).

Back in January when Juniper cooked for Brad while Julia and Lily were out of town, Juniper wanted to try out the housewife role she was supposed to fill when she grew up. She thought that Brad would appreciate the gesture, see it as a sign of her maturity, and relax the strict rules. She had fallen asleep while reading, but she woke up when Brad came into her room. She pretended to be asleep because she could sense his malintent, and she was “horrified” when he kissed her though she continued to feign sleep.

The family returns from the beach house vacation, and Juniper continues working for Whitman HVAC. She performs her job well, but she can sense Brad’s sexual desire for her, and it makes her uncomfortable. She battles with whether she should tell someone about the kiss and about Brad’s erection during vacation. She worries that she will be blamed and rationalizes that it was just a kiss and Brad was drunk, but she also feels like her mother should know the truth and worries that Brad could do something similar to Lily. Her strong desire for Xavier makes it easier for her to excuse Brad’s perversion, and she remembers being taught at New Hope that men have a harder time controlling their sexual urges.

Juniper and Pepper formulate a plan to get away. They intend to graduate early and then move into an apartment together with the money they’ve been saving. Juniper would apply to schools in San Francisco, while Pepper would stay in North Carolina.

Juniper is working at Whitman HVAC when Brad is served the paperwork for Valerie’s lawsuit, and he flies into a rage.

Xavier is waiting at the park for Juniper. They were supposed to meet at noon, and she is late. He waits for hours, wondering why she has not arrived. The narrators address the reader directly and discuss whether Juniper and Xavier feel real love. They note that Xavier had slept with two other girls but that he was not interested in dating them, and he enjoys spending time with Juniper. Juniper and Xavier have chemistry, which draws them together even though they know it is not rational.

Juniper finally arrives and tells Xavier that she could not leave while Brad was raging about the lawsuit. He confesses that he had known, but he did not know how to tell Juniper. She understands his perspective, and she is not angry with him. They discuss Brad’s reaction, and Xavier tells Juniper some of the offensive things he said about Valerie. He had called her an “opportunistic bitch,” and he thinks Tom left her and is not dead. Juniper agrees that Brad is out of line.

Juniper says that she won’t be able to ask permission to date Xavier, and he understands. They agree to keep seeing each other. They chat more about the lawsuit. Juniper knows that Brad won’t back down, and Xavier knows that Brad won’t be able to find any dirt on his mother. Xavier describes San Francisco to Juniper, and the two of them discuss a hypothetical future together where they run a food truck. Juniper says she is trying to graduate early and that she wants to go to San Francisco, too.

Julia had unkind thoughts when she first learned of the lawsuit, but after thinking about it, she realizes that Valerie is not trying to scam them—she is honestly seeking justice for the environmental damage. She is disappointed that she will not be friends with Valerie. She has noticed that Brad seems distracted lately, but she assumes it has something to do with Lottie being in the house. She tries to console him about the lawsuit after he finishes swimming, and he announces that he will “find a way to persuade [Valerie] to drop it” (197), but his tone makes Julia uneasy. Julia talks about having the tree evaluated to see if Valerie is right, and Brad snaps at her for taking Valerie’s side. She asks if Julia married him for the money, and she says she loved him and it wasn’t about the money. Brad, she reflects, had used his wealth to court her. He says that Valerie couldn’t get a husband, so she is using Brad to get money. He continues fighting with Julia, suggesting that she does not work because she is taking advantage of Brad. He admits that “some rules got bent” during the construction of the house (200), but he refuses to settle.