People We Meet on Vacation

Full-lipped Alex Nilsen who is “sandy haired and tall with broad shoulders” with an extremely honed physique (3), has the appearance of an archetypal romantic hero. However, the muscled physique is less a result of vanity than the hypochondria resulting from his mother’s death from childbirth-related complications when he was six. His anxiety is also evident in his slouch, back pain, and sleep-deprived appearance.

Unlike Poppy who lives for fun and to escape her past in Linfield, Alex—who raised three younger brothers when his father was unable to do so—feels tied to his familial responsibilities. He values families so much that he is certain he wants one of his own; his future partner must share this vision. While Alex’s conservative dress, desire for stability, and nurture of a foundling cat may make him attractive to many women, Henry sets him up as the diametric opposite to the urbane, hip type of man Poppy superficially desires. Moreover, when Henry gives the reader a glimpse of Alex’s ineffective Tinder profile—including such missteps as having a profile picture rendering him indistinguishable from the three other men in it—she shows that introverted, self-effacing Alex is the type of man who it takes a while to get to know and fall in love with, aligning with the novel’s slow, drawn-out sexual tension.

While Alex, a teacher and literary writer is a “study in control” (6), Poppy is the one who truly brings him to life and allows him to be young and spontaneous rather than the responsible person he thinks he should be. Although Alex displays obvious signs of sexual attraction towards Poppy and is open about how much he loves her, he is put off from making an explicit advance because their visions of life are incompatible. His attempt to regain self-control causes him to put distance between himself and Poppy—not only during the two-year estrangement following the Croatia trip and drunken kiss, but in his sporadic contact with her as he attempts a relationship with Sarah, the woman who embodies his feminine ideal. However, while Alex’s head tells him to go for someone like Sarah, they do not share the chemistry he has with Poppy and despite his original plan, his honest principles force him to break up with Sarah. The sense that Alex would be a disappointing boyfriend for Sarah—or any woman who is not Poppy—is conveyed in Sarah’s half-sarcastic retort that Poppy is “doing the world a favor by taking Alex Nilsen off the market” (343).

Prior to allowing himself to commit to Poppy, pained Alex must confront his past fears and allow himself to be happy, even with the terrifying chance that death, loss, or other forms of change may take away that happiness. His more flexible attitude at the end of the novel is conveyed in his willingness to consider living in New York and not feel the need to fix every detail of his future life with Poppy. It is enough for him to know that his home is with her.

Rachel Krohn—a style blogger and social media influencer—is also Poppy’s first and truest New York friend. While Rachel is a “born-and-bred Upper West Sider” (17), art school-educated, photogenic, and impractically glamorous enough to wear high heels while doing the dishes, she is not condescending about Poppy’s midwestern origins. Unlike Poppy, who loves to travel, Rachel is more of a homebody who feels nervous at the prospect of leaving New York, her French bulldogs, and her therapist mother. Thus, in a reversal of stereotypes, the small-town girl wants to see the world, while her metropolitan friend wants to stay in the only place she feels at home.

While Rachel, who has an even bigger social media following than Poppy, enjoys the financial and sartorial perks of her job as an influencer, she is also conscious of the darker side where her influence contributes to the mass breeding of pedigree dogs with painful genetic mutations.

Rachel’s role in the novel is that of the typical best friend in romantic comedies—the heroine’s confidante and to give her advice. It is Rachel who encourages Poppy to think of when she was last happy, and advises her to continue with therapy when she wants to give up. While Poppy is happy to use Rachel as a springboard for ideas and emotional relief, she is not able to confide everything in her. Her relationship with Alex is so personal and important that she keeps its details to herself. This indicates that while Poppy and Rachel are close, their relationship is no substitute for the one she shares with Alex.

Sarah Torval, the serious, willowy brunette who Alex has idolized since college, is Poppy’s polar opposite. Sarah and Alex are in an on-off relationship in the later part of his and Poppy’s friendship. Even before Sarah became Alex’s girlfriend, she was the woman he admired from a distance during his days as an underconfident student at the university of Chicago. Sarah is literary and neat with classic tastes, where Poppy is erratic, indulgent and likes things with basic emotional appeal, like reality television. Sarah is certain about marriage and having children where Poppy is not. Alex can logically explain his reasons for wanting to be with Sarah because “we want all the same things, and I loved her in this way that feels… so clear and easy to understand, and manageable” (301).

The manageable and reasonable aspects of Alex’s love for Sarah lie in stark contrast to his unwieldly passion for Poppy, which is the opposite of comfortable. The idea of an attractive woman who is his type is a more secure prospect for Alex than an adventurous woman like Poppy, who might find him boring and eventually get tired of and reject him. Henry complies with the traditional tropes of romance novels by showing that the woman the hero thinks is his type does not stand a chance in the face of the chemistry with a woman who is his opposite.

Poppy has a complex relationship with Sarah. Poppy harbors an increasing passion for Alex and resents Sarah for standing in the way of Alex seeing Poppy, or a woman like her, as girlfriend material. Sarah represents the docile “wannabe kindergarten teacher” type of woman who always fits in (191), rather than the outlier like Poppy. When, during a Tinder session Alex is inclined to swipe right on a girl of Sarah’s type after rejecting girls of Poppy’s type, Poppy is furious at his conformist preferences that make her feel lonely and weird. However, when she finds herself alone in New York after the Palm Springs vacation, Poppy learns she has been at least partially responsible for Alex’s ongoing fixation with Sarah, as she kept mentioning her in conversation as a means of preventing her own intimacy with Alex. This leads to the misunderstanding that Alex thinks Poppy is leading him to other women because she is uninterested in him.

On the Tuscany vacation, Poppy comes to realize she likes Sarah after getting to know her; however, both Sarah and her relationship with Alex are kept at a distance from the reader, who sees events through Poppy’s limited perspective. Nevertheless, when Sarah complains about Alex’s lack of tactility and gets so frustrated with him she states, “their relationship was about as exciting as the library where they’d met” (228), Henry offers tantalizing glimpses of a difficult relationship with a withholding partner. Through Sarah’s eyes, Alex might not be as perfect as he is in Poppy’s. As part of her maturation process at the end of the novel, Poppy accepts responsibility for being the partial cause of Sarah’s pain. She has to accept that her behavior in not acting on her feelings for Alex, whilst hovering in the background and destroying his chances with other women, was “careless” (341). However, Sarah also must admit that Poppy’s absence did not resolve her relationship problems, and the two women reach a truce when Sarah wishes Poppy good luck and points the way to Alex.

Julian is Poppy’s first real boyfriend who she meets in Cincinnati after dropping out of college. He is also a college dropout and an aspiring artist. A smoker, he is “rake-thin with hollowed-out cheekbones and alert eyes that can feel like they’re x-raying you” (140). Julian is Alex’s opposite—he is careless, loves to travel, and never wants to marry or have kids. This encourages Poppy to be equally noncommittal in these areas, though she is uncertain about what she wants. Although Julian is only the second guy with whom she has slept, she pretends to be more worldly and experienced because she fears that the truth will scare him off. Poppy’s lack of confidence is typical of an inexperienced person in a first relationship.

Julian’s carelessness and erratic temperament, whereby he turns up late and Poppy does not hear from him for long stretches of time, causes Alex to despise him. Alex also states Julian has no idea who Poppy really is or how lucky he is to be with her—a comment that makes Poppy embarrassed. Alex counters Julian’s non-committal ways with the pronouncement that he will always love Poppy and will ensure she does not die alone.

Poppy’s first New York boyfriend, Guillermo, a chef, is a step up from Julian. Guillermo is “gorgeous and sweet, with soft brown eyes, dark hair swept back of his forehead” (174). He and Poppy meet at his restaurant six months after she moves to New York. They are attracted to each other from first sight, unlike Alex and Poppy, and their dynamic is easy and predictable—unlike her experiences with Julian. However, Poppy feels ill at ease when Guillermo tells her he hopes that New York life will not change her, as she worries “maybe the thing Gui loves best about me isn’t some essential part, but something changeable, something that could be stripped away by a few years in the right climate” (174).

This warning signal proves prophetic when Guillermo accompanies Poppy back home to Linfield and makes a wounding comment about how he is unsurprised she was so eager to leave her home. Poppy is hurt, as she is already self-conscious about her parents; however, she feels that things will return to normal when they leave Linfield behind and return to New York. This proves not to be the case when Guillermo breaks up with her, following an incident where she reveals how little she knows about contemporary art and Guillermo says they are too different for things to work. He takes up with a blue-eyed waitress from Nebraska who reminds him of the newly arrived out-of-town girl type he prefers.

Poppy’s relationship with Guillermo is as aspirational as her move to New York; however, while it has all the style of a proper adult urban relationship, it is flimsy in substance. Poppy cannot be herself around Guillermo and tries to hide the Linfield parts of herself that she finds unattractive. When the disguise slips in the return to Linfield and the lack of interest in contemporary art, Guillermo lets her go. 

Trey is a photographer who was meant to accompany Alex and Poppy on the trip to Scandinavia which never happened due to Poppy’s sickness. Despite his urban tattooed and pierced appearance, Trey seems more mature and less idealistic than Guillermo. Both Alex and Poppy’s family get along with him when he visits Linfield. While Poppy is attracted to Trey’s energy, she admits her anticipation of Alex’s reconciliation with Sarah was a key factor in Poppy’s beginning to date him. Poppy maintains her apartment and her independence with Trey, being amused by the fact that he is a “relentless flirt” (270), although the two connect over their love of traveling. She feels “Trey was to me what Sarah Torval was to Alex. Someone who fit” (273), even though her passion for him does not even begin to equal her love for Alex.

Despite her determination to make the relationship work, Poppy finds it difficult to open up to Trey. She hides her suspicions that she may be pregnant from him, as he does not seem keen on having kids. The relationship runs out of steam, as no novelty in the world will bring back their initial chemistry. When Poppy finds that “our never-ending vacation started to feel like running, like we were two bank robbers making the best of a bad situation while we waited for the FBI to close in” (320), she cannot see a future with either Trey, or the version of herself who created the relationship. She is tired both of him and her restless, wanderlust-filled self.

Bernard is the talkative, lonely widower who joins Alex and Poppy on their ill-fated trip to Croatia. “Endlessly social and talkative” Bernard wears Alex down by day (318) and keeps him awake with his snoring at night. Although Poppy intends to share a room with Alex, Bernard insists on sharing with Alex. Bernard’s presence means that unlike the Palm Springs trip where outside events conspire to ensure Poppy and Alex are practically on top of each other, in Croatia, the reverse happens, and they are never alone. Bernard’s unwanted presence hints at the disadvantage of Rest + Relaxation-funded vacations. Alex and Poppy cannot be masters of their time and space but must instead follow an agenda dictated by the magazine’s profits. This makes Poppy nostalgic for an independent vacation when they embark on the Palm Springs trip.

Bernard’s obstruction heightens the dramatic tension when Alex has to actively take the step to knock on Poppy’s door in order to find her alone. The fact that they have had no time alone for the duration of their trip fuels the passion in their first kiss.

Poppy’s father Mr. Wright is the gruff, eccentric patriarch of the loud Wright clan. The Wrights are misfits—both in their conformist Midwestern town and according to urbanites like Guillermo, who judge them as parochial and overbearing. Mr. Wright encourages individualism and creativity in Poppy and her two brothers, and intimidates every man she brings home, especially Alex who is his opposite in temperament. However, while Mr. Wright may seem intimidating in the style of an old-fashioned, interfering patriarch, he is actually quite tolerant of whatever makes his children happy.

Poppy describes her father as a “cheapskate” who has a collection of used cars in the front yard “just in case he ever learned to fix them” (24). Poppy, who was bullied for her parents’ eccentricity, styles herself as their opposite in as many ways as she possibly can. She meets their small-town hoarding with big city minimalism, even to the extent that her New York apartment seems unlived in. Still, deep down, Poppy knows they are good people, and she learns to embrace their energy and youthful schemes. This is part of her maturation and acceptance of her past. She instinctively knows that her right partner will also value their good qualities without judging their brashness as a failing.

Poppy’s mother Mrs. Wright is warm, effusive, and so sentimental that she cannot throw anything away; she even has a refrigerator overflowing with her three grown-up children’s sketches. Poppy, who shares her mother’s tendency to want to horde sentimental objects, limits herself to one box to connote that she is a different sort of woman.

Brash and direct, Mrs. Wright does not believe Alex and Poppy’s relationship is platonic; she surprises Poppy with a bulk box of condoms, insisting she only wants them to be safe. While Mrs. Wright accepts Poppy’s other boyfriends, she holds a torch for Alex, who she believes should be the one to marry Poppy. By the time of the Palm Springs trip, she sends Poppy pointed texts about securing Alex for her future son-in-law and father of her grandchildren. Henry thus floats the notion that as Poppy’s mother, Mrs. Wright has the authority to know Poppy’s true feelings and what is in her best interests.

Alex’s father Mr. Nilsen is a widower who had to raise four sons alone after the death of his wife. He is emotionally fragile and underestimates his own ability to cope with parenting his adult sons alone. As a result, ever since the period of mourning when he was barely able to get out of his pajamas, he has overly relied on Alex to perform practical tasks in his brothers’ upbringing. Mr. Nilsen continues to reverse the traditional parent-child roles when he uses Alex as an emotional crutch for difficult events such as breaking up with his girlfriend. Poppy is instrumental in Alex’s cultivation of a healthier dynamic with his father when at David’s wedding, she responds with tough love to Mr. Nilsen’s anxieties about being able to cope.

While Mr. Nilsen is an old-fashioned, conservative Christian who did not raise his sons to be huggers, he is still open-minded enough to accept his children’s life choices and is thus fully supportive of his youngest son David’s wedding to another man.

David’s, Alex’s youngest brother, wedding is the reason for the trip is to Palm Springs. When he marries his boyfriend Thad, Alex will be the only unmarried brother in his family. David, an actor staying in L.A, is more carefree and charismatic than Alex and although David physically resembles his elder brother, he is the best-looking in the family “with his thick, wavy hair and wide, thoughtful eyes, and his excitability, the way he lights up whenever he starts talking” (271). David exists as a plot device that not only brings Poppy and Alex to Palm Springs but encourages them to take on a vacation style that is not completely an escape for reality. David’s wedding is an opportunity for Poppy to try out the role of Alex’s girlfriend at a family event.

At the wedding, David tells Poppy how worried he is that following his own marriage, Alex will be left alone in Linfield as a “kind of empty nester” (294). David feels guilty that Alex was trying to raise his brothers while he should have been focused on his own youth. David also confides how close Alex came to marrying Sarah and indicates that the family were eager for him to do so, even though he personally thought Alex and Poppy should end up together. Still, Poppy understands from David that Alex was going to marry Sarah and feels guilty for coming between them. David’s intervention thus functions to introduce the obstacles emerging at the end of the Palm Springs trip which delay the happy ending.

Alex’s maternal grandmother Betty was one of Poppy’s favorite people from Alex’s family. Unlike the more conservative members of Alex’s family, Betty “was changeable […] even at her age, she asked questions in conversation like she didn’t already have all the answers” (272). Betty’s personality bears a resemblance to Poppy’s, indicating that when Betty dies there is a gap for someone of her temperament in the Nilsen family.

Poppy is devastated to learn that Betty died during her and Alex’s two-year estrangement, finding this a painful reminder of lost time and intimacy. Alex inherits Betty’s split-level home in Linfield and is in the process of refurbishing it at the time of the Palm Springs trip. The house and Alex’s feeling of loyalty to Betty serve to augment the tension surrounding the practicalities of a potential relationship between Alex and Poppy because it ties him to Linfield—the exact town to which Poppy does not want to return.

Like Poppy’s mother, Betty is open to Alex and Poppy’s other partners while simultaneously convinced the two of them should be together. At the party before the couples’ trip to Tuscany, Betty compliments Poppy on Trey—her current boyfriend—while asking whether she loves him as she loves Alex. When Poppy is forced to admit that her love for Alex is on a different level, Betty expresses the wish that Alex was aware of that, implying her instinct that Poppy and Alex should be together. Betty’s death before the fulfillment of her wishes adds poignancy to the narrative as it shows there have been irretrievable costs to Alex and Poppy’s relationship delay.

Poppy’s editor at Rest + Relaxation magazine “could not possibly exude any less of our fine magazine’s two core values” (13), in being neither relaxed, nor inclined to take a break from work. Swapna who has the “slicked-back high-fashion bob” common to magazine editors such as US Vogue’s Anna Wintour and a similar wardrobe of designer clothes (13), typifies the type of modern career woman who wants to have it all. She takes video calls while on doctor-mandated bedrest during pregnancy and has high standards for the type of luxurious yet rare vacations Rest + Relaxation magazine should feature. While she pushes her staff hard, she is not devoid of human qualities, allowing them to forgo assignments when they are sick and encouraging Poppy to find out what she really wants to do when working at Rest + Relaxation magazine turns out not to be her dream. While Swapna could have been her role model, Poppy finds that such a high-intensity lifestyle would not make her happy.

Swapna’s refusal to feature an article on Palm Springs out of season is a key plot device, as it forces Poppy to fund the trip out of her own pocket. The inferior accommodation within Poppy’s budget is instrumental in heightening her and Alex’s tempers and forcing them to confront their problems.