“The Hunk” Summary

Beth is recovered from her surgery and back to riding buses. She takes Rachel to meet her new favorite driver, Cliff. Beth likes him because “he has that car. Because he’s a decent person. Because he’s fine-looking” (263). Rachel thinks about all the crushes Beth has had and expects this one will be the same: “For the next month or year, the Cliff saga will duplicate all those that came before: she’ll chatter endlessly about him while he drives on, unaware of the enormous responsibility that she has thrust upon him” (264).

Rachel feels scared as she recognizes Beth’s patterns and same difficult behaviors and wonders if this is all there will ever be for Beth. She sees that the only way Beth ever seems to change is if a catastrophe happens, liker her mother’s abandonment. Rachel remembers the way her father’s patience with Beth eroded over the years, and after 10 months of riding buses with Beth, she can relate: “I know many of us babble on about nothing, too, but she does it over and over and over—and it’s really eroding the limits of my endurance” (267).

Cliff asks Beth to “chill,” but it doesn’t last long.