There is one thing that Nicola reiterates throughout the story: her ability to take care of herself. Unfortunately, it is patently obvious that Nicola possesses no practical skills. In the middle of her divorce with her husband, Daniel, she lays siege to the beach house he insists upon having, holing herself up inside. However, she can’t turn the power on because she doesn’t know how to work the fuse box; she didn’t think to pack suitable food and everything becomes stale and moldy; and no matter what she tries, she can’t remove her wedding ring. And yet this inept manner of Nicola is not entirely her fault; it is a product of her childhood:
“Before their father died, he had called her the princess, the precious cargo. Pressed his hands together and mimed an attendant’s bow.” (145)
This upbringing does nothing to endear her to her sister Cece, who thinks Nicola loves having other people take care of her and is acting childish by refusing to leave the beach house.
Because of Nicola’s inability to turn the power on, she has nothing to do but think of the deterioration of her marriage. But it is during these contemplations that she realizes Daniel wasn’t as good a man or husband as she had believed:
“Her type of television is the sort that Daniel says speaks to a weakness of character…Daniel has already gutted the place of anything really worth taking…an exercise in bare-faced deception. Daniel had gone ahead and sold the Persian rugs and a good percentage of the silver before even asking for a divorce.” (131, 135)
Daniel and Cece, and most likely everyone she knows, thinks she is incapable of doing anything on her own. And yet her refusal to leave the beach house is an act of defiance. It is unexpected of her. She smacks back at all the critiques of Cece and Daniel by this action. Even when she receives a court order to leave the house, she leaves it defiantly:
Daniel’s lawyer will not, she imagines, appreciate the mess when he returns tomorrow, nor will he appreciate the empty house or the fact that she has left the front door open, thrown the windows wide on both the north and southern sides, left the key under the mat.” (146)
When Nicola sits on the back porch contemplating her marriage, she also observes the incalculable amounts of jellyfish washing up on shore dying or dead. People have all sorts of theories about it — teenagers take videos and pictures, tourists complain, TV stations turn it into a show, and a cleanup crew burns them –but no one seems sad, distressed, or disturbed by this occurrence. Nicola states that jellyfish take up to fifty minutes to die, which leaves me wondering how no one had the kindness to help them before they suffocated from the air. The only thing that made those passages a bit bearable was the complete smack-down by Cathy of her co-host Tim every time he speaks about the jellyfish.