51 pages • 1 hour read
Tessa BaileyIt Happened One Summer
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 23-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary
When Piper tells Hannah about her plan to throw a Labor Day party at the bar, Hannah suggests this would be a good time to invite Daniel to visit and see what they’ve accomplished. Though she doesn’t feel quite so out of place anymore, Piper doesn’t see herself as belonging in Westport. She calls Daniel and invites him, telling herself she’s leaving options. Piper, Brendan, Hannah, and Fox travel to Seattle. Piper is overjoyed when she sees the luxurious hotel room she’s sharing with Hannah.
Chapter 24 Summary
Brendan admits he is “dumbfounded by the level of extravagance” at the hotel (294), but if this is what Piper is used to, this is what he will give her. He takes her shopping and when Piper exclaims over the price of jeans—she’s begun to understand more about money—she expresses dismay to learn that Brendan is quite wealthy. Fishing for king crab is dangerous but lucrative. Brendan touches her in the dressing room stall and says he wants to spoil her rotten.
Chapter 25 Summary
Piper is shopping for a cologne for Brendan when she realizes she is in love with him. She is frightened by the realization, “Because where would that leave her? In a relationship. A permanent one. Not only with this man but with Westport” (305). Piper’s phone begins vibrating with messages and notifications. Kirby calls and explains that LA Weekly did a feature on Piper’s disappearance. Kirby wants to throw a party to celebrate Piper’s return and books it for the day after Labor Day. Sponsors will pay Piper to wear their gowns and shoes and drink their drinks. Piper doesn’t commit to the party, but she doesn’t turn Kirby down, either. She doesn’t know how Brendan will take her declaration of love and is still uncertain about where she belongs.
Chapter 26 Summary
Brendan senses that something is off and tries to get Piper to tell him what the phone call was about. Piper tells him Kirby wants to throw an LA party for her but Piper doesn’t know if she wants to go. She blurts out that she loves him but is worried that being with her is “work” (231). Brendan swears that he loves her and that being with her is an honor. They make love on the hotel bed with its mirrored headboard, and Piper promises she won’t keep anything from him.
Chapter 27 Summary
As they return from Seattle, Piper finds herself looking forward to returning to Westport and the friends she’s made there. Brendan wants Piper to move in with him, and Hannah agrees to stay in his guest room so Piper won’t feel like she’s abandoning her sister.
Piper enjoys living with Brendan while she and Hannah plan for the Labor Day party. The finishing touch is to paint the new name on the sign for the bar. Piper suggests calling it Cross and Daughters. She tells Hannah she plans to stay in Westport.
Chapters 23-27 Analysis
In terms of the romance plot, these chapters show the characters’ deepening desire and willingness to further their relationship. Brendan hopes that in showing Piper he can give her nice things, he can not only bring her pleasure but assure her that, in choosing to be with him, she won’t have to give up the luxuries she enjoys. The jeans are a further way that Brendan extends an invitation; jeans are the attire of a Westport woman, a fisherman’s wife, and Piper hitherto has appeared in jumpsuits, sequins, skirts, and flirty dresses. She wants something flattering, but when Brendan excites her in the dressing room stall with his touch and kisses, she realizes that the chief pleasure life in Westport offers is him.
Shopping for a cologne for Brendan is a way Piper can put her mark on him. Choosing a scent that matches him shows how well she has come to understand and appreciate his character, which sets her up for the realization that she is in love. The recognition of love is, in the conventions of romance novels, also a recognition that the characters want a future together. But loving Brendan means she stays in Westport, and Piper needs a moment to reconcile this change in her outlook.
Her internal conflict is increased by the external conflict of Kirby calling to tell Piper she’s attracting attention in LA because of the article about her disappearance. Kirby sees an opportunity to capitalize on the attention by throwing a party and securing sponsors who will pay Piper to wear or use their products. With her new understanding of money, Piper is drawn by the promise of financial independence; she wouldn’t have to depend on Daniel if she had money of her own. But LA is the opposite of Brendan, and Brendan is what she wants.
Brendan senses Piper’s internal conflict and presses her to confide in him, demonstrating his need to have no barriers, no artifice between them. He is overcome by Piper’s confession that she loves him and it increases his physical desire and his wish to please her, sexually and in other ways. The mirrored headboard of the hotel bed gives Brendan a moment to reflect on him and Piper together, physically joined. He feels humbled by the intensity of his love for her.
When Brendan invites Piper to move in with him, and she agrees, it feels for them both like the last barriers are down. They have moved from courtship to declarations of love to domestic partnership. In giving Hannah his guest room, Brendan shows that he is willing to accommodate Piper in whatever she needs to be happy. He has completely changed his routines for her. Piper enjoys inserting herself into Brendan’s life.
At the same time, Piper is more at home in Westport. She has made friends and has the Labor Day party to plan. She is proud of the hard work she and Hannah have done on the bar and pleased with the way she feels part of life in the town. Naming the bar Cross and Daughters works on multiple levels to show Piper’s feelings. She has connected her and Hannah to Henry’s place in the town by naming the bar for all of them. In painting and putting up the sign she honors Henry’s memory and shows that he has left a legacy. But by putting herself on the sign, as a Cross daughter, Piper shows that she is ready to be part of life in Westport. She tells Hannah this, but she doesn’t tell Brendan, and that suspense leads to rupture in the following chapter.
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