Summary

In “Smack,” a woman named Nicola observes from the deck of her beach house that a great swathe of dead jellyfish has washed ashore on the beach. She is technically squatting in the house because she is in the middle of a contentious divorce and her former husband, Daniel, has demanded that he keep the house, which he owned prior to their marriage. She took her sister Cece's car without permission to get there. Nicola's phone is dead and she does not know how to turn on the electricity in the beach house. She is eating from a small ration of non-perishable foods she brought. The house is filled with Nicola's novelty purchases from QVC. She recalls the night she first met Daniel at a party thrown by Cece. They hit it off immediately and he took her to the beach...