It Happened One Summer

Piper Bellinger is astonished and alarmed when her boyfriend, Adrian, breaks up with her at a rooftop party in Los Angeles. They’ve dated for three weeks—Piper’s longest relationship. At 28, Piper’s only career is “partying” and “being seen” (3). After the breakup, Piper is concerned that she’s aging and becoming irrelevant, nothing but “a pretty girl with a millionaire stepfather” (4).

Knowing everyone on the rooftop is watching her breakup, Piper tries to prove that she is fun and carefree by breaking into the rooftop pool at the Mondrian Hotel. She calls her best friend, Kirby—who already knows about the breakup from posts on social media—and as Piper takes a hired car to the Mondrian, she tells Kirby to invite everyone they know to join them.

Piper is in jail. Kirby identified her to the police as the person behind the break-in at the hotel, and Piper was arrested. When the guard asks why she created such havoc, Piper acknowledges that her boyfriend broke up with her and reflects that she “just wanted to be seen. Acknowledged. Celebrated instead of…disregarded” (11).

After chatting with the guard about her unflattering uniform, Piper persuades the woman to let her use the private bathroom.