87 pages • 2 hours read
Matt de la PeñaThe Living
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Day 2, Chapters 7-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 7-13 Summary
Shy wakes, hungover, and immediately regrets kissing Carmen the previous night. He plans to find and apologize to her as soon as possible, but there is no sign of her when he reports for his shift as towel boy. Shy agonizes over the damage he might have done to his relationship with Carmen and tries to distract himself—only to worry instead about the man in the black suit and the unknown bad news his mother needs to give him. He feels at once trapped and isolated: “He was stuck way out here on a ship. Middle of the ocean. No help to anyone” (50).
He finally spots Carmen but is interrupted by a Texan oil tycoon named William Henry before he can go to her. William, whom Shy thinks of as “the oilman,” shows Shy and Carmen the seven-carat diamond ring he plans to use to propose to his girlfriend later that night, boasting about his money and asking “what kind of Mexican” Carmen is (55). Carmen and Shy feign interest and ignore his racist comments, a task Shy struggles with more than Carmen. Carmen refuses to talk to Shy for longer than a moment, but she does tell him that she has come up with “new rules” for their friendship. They make plans to meet at the Destiny restaurant later to watch William propose, and Shy tries and fails to avoid staring at her legs as she leaves.
Later, Shy returns to work and encounters Addison Miller, a rich blonde girl traveling with her father, Jim Miller, and her friend Cassandra. A young boy interrupts their conversation to call Shy an “asshole” for vacating his post, then berates Shy for being disrespectful. Shy is forced to be polite despite his anger, until Addison’s father intervenes to jokingly suggest they throw the boy overboard. Jim then starts showing particular interest in Shy, striking up a conversation with him before deciding to invite him to dinner with his daughter and her friend. Although the girls find the thought “absurd” and Shy has no interest in spending time with them, Jim insists. Shy resolves to skip the dinner, deciding that it “didn’t matter how good-looking the girls were, it would be torture” (61).
As Shy gets back to work, he sees Rodney come rushing up to his stall, out of breath and panicked. Rodney tells Shy that their cabin has been robbed. Shy returns to his cabin to find that nothing is missing, although the room has clearly been ransacked. Shy assumes that the man in the black suit is responsible, and he feels guilty for dragging Rodney into his mess. He also feels responsible for David’s death, believing he might have saved David if he were stronger: “He wasn’t the one who let a passenger fall, who wasn’t strong enough to hold on just a few minutes longer” (64).
Shy finally has his Skype call with his mother, who informs him that his little nephew Miguel has been diagnosed with Romero Disease. He tells his mother to cash the $2,000 check he won at the basketball game and give it to his aunt to help pay for medical treatment; he and Miguel are “more like brothers than anything else” (66). His mother reminds him of all the work he does for their family since his dad left. He remembers one specific example: When he was seven years old, he saw a dog kill his sister’s two beloved rabbits. While his mother and sister had to leave the room at the gory sight, Shy cleaned up the blood and buried the rabbits himself.
After the call, Shy talks to Rodney about Romero Disease, saying: “People’s eyes turn red and their vision goes blurry. Then their skin gets so dry and brittle it starts flaking off. They die from fluid loss in like forty-eight hours” (68). Shy then leaves the cabin and makes his way to his shift at the gym, where he runs into Addison and Cassandra again. The two girls laugh at him, making fun of his attempts to remain polite until Shy gives up and walks away to find Paolo, the head of security. He plans to ask Paolo about the man in the black suit, but Paolo is nowhere to be found; he decides to look for Supervisor Franco instead.
Shy thinks about his grandmother’s death again as he walks, unable to erase the traumatic image from his mind: “In the middle of that night, Shy heard an alarm go off and he lifted his head, saw his grandma scratching off chunks of her own skin. Blood all over the white sheets […] she looked like something out of a horror film” (73).
Supervisor Franco is busy when he arrives, and Shy speaks with an enigmatic, older Black man known as Shoeshine while he waits. Shoeshine warns that a storm is coming and gives Shy a homemade wristband for seasickness, then questions him about David Williamson’s suicide. When Shy asks for his name, Shoeshine tells him, “Names have no meaning out here,” before leaving with a final, ominous warming: “Best prepare yourself, young fella. The sea is fittin’ to make itself known tonight” (75). Outside, Shy sees “a dense ceiling of nasty-looking storm clouds rolling in. Blocking out the setting sun” (75).
Later, Shy and Carmen meet in the Destiny Dining Room to talk and watch William Henry’s proposal. Shy is immediately distracted by Carmen’s revealing dress, and the two argue for a moment about whether he should be allowed to compliment her under their new “rules.” They quickly change the subject to discuss William, who is still waiting for his girlfriend to show up, but they are interrupted by an announcement over the loudspeaker about a major storm approaching. Carmen and a woman named Toni talk about their upcoming weddings as Shy grows increasingly uncomfortable, and another announcement requests that all dining areas be evacuated. As Supervisor Franco selects Shy to help prepare for the storm, the staff members begin to worry that the storm is a real threat: “Shy turned around and found Carmen staring at him. It was the first time he’d ever seen fear in her eyes” (82).
Franco and Shy get to work packing up the umbrellas, pool chairs, and tables as the rain picks up, and Shy notices that Shoeshine doesn’t seem afraid. Franco tells him that there’s nothing to be scared of, but Shye can’t tell if Franco is being sincere. Just before Shy heads out to clear off the Honeymoon Deck, Franco tells him that someone from LasoTech, a company that sponsors Paradise Cruise Lines, was the one who searched his cabin, promising to explain more tomorrow. Shy heads out into the storm and begins clearing the deck.
Chapters 14-20 Summary
The storm is reaching a dangerous pitch as Shy moves to the Honeymoon Deck; the wind threatens to blow him off his feet, and the rain makes it difficult to see. He pauses to watch the sea crash around the rolling cruise ship in a mixture of awe and fear: “He’d never been a true believer like his grandma, but he closed his eyes now and asked whoever might be listening for Miguel to be okay. And his mom and sis. And himself” (86).
Shy spots Addison and Cassandra standing on the deck despite the wind and rain, looking out across the ocean with a set of binoculars. Shy urges them to go back inside, but Addison—who appears to have been crying—refuses. Cassandra explains that Addison’s father is no longer on the cruise ship, having taken a boat to the “Hidden Islands” where he works. Shy tries again to get the two girls inside, and Addison refuses before demanding to know why her father had a photograph of Shy at a cemetery in his cabin. She orders Shy to tell her who he is, and he responds, “I’m nobody!” as Addison and Cassandra finally return inside.
As Shy resumes clearing the deck, he sees Bill, the man who has been following him, standing in the rain and watching him. Shy goes about his work and attempts to ignore the man, pretending to be too busy to deal with him. When Shy finally heads back inside, Bill follows him and begins interrogating Shy about the conversation he had with David Williamson on his first voyage. Bill makes no outright threats, but he makes Shy uneasy; when Shy tells him he has no more information to give, Bill responds with a threat: “And if your story doesn’t check out, I’ll be forced to find you. Do you understand what I’m saying, Shy?” (93). Shy makes his exit.
Shy returns to his cabin, fails to sleep once again, and then heads out to try to find Carmen. Despite the unsteady ground their relationship currently stands on, he needs to be around her: “She could go right back to being mad in the morning if she wanted, but right now he seriously needed her” (96). He finds her in the empty Karaoke Room, watching the news. Shy gives her Shoeshine’s wristband to help with her seasickness, then tells her about Miguel’s illness. Carmen tells him that Romero Disease has started to spread further into the United States; now that the disease has begun affecting rich white Americans, it has become international news. Carmen is furious that the disease is only now receiving media attention: “Why isn’t it international news when it hits where we live? Why isn’t there a profile about my dad? Or your grandma?” (98).
Shy and Carmen head to Carmen’s cabin to unwind, and they share pizza while talking about Shoeshine’s mysterious past. Shy tells Carmen about his family’s money problems, worrying that Miguel’s medical treatment will be too expensive without insurance. The fact that the disease was ignored for so long when it was only affecting poor people makes Shy angry: “He was starting to understand that some people’s lives mattered more than others. Back home, that thought never would’ve crossed his mind. But working on a cruise ship made him notice things” (102).
As they talk, Carmen goes into the bathroom to change. Shy catches a glimpse of her undressing through a crack in the door and wonders if he might be in love with her. Carmen catches him watching her. After an uncomfortable moment, Carmen admits that she might have some feelings for Shy but that her commitment to her fiancé is more important to her. Shy tries to reassure her that getting married is the right choice, but then the ship starts jerking violently. The alarm sounds, and Shy and Carmen run into the hall. As they leave the cabin, Shy spots Bill running away, clearly having been listening outside the door. An announcement over the loudspeaker declares a state of emergency, and the ship erupts into chaos as the passengers panic.
Carmen and Shy head to the Normandie Theater before getting separated, and Shy does his best to help direct the frightened passengers to their muster stations. He finds that helping others in a time of crisis makes him feel calmer: “Shy no longer had time to think about his own fear because he had a job” (109). Another announcement reveals that a “catastrophic earthquake […] beyond anything previously recorded on the Richter scale” has decimated the US west coast of the US and much of Mexico (112), meaning that Shy’s hometown has likely been destroyed. Shy panics, realizing that his entire family might be dead, and watches as the theater’s screen displays “a mess of war-zone-like footage” (114): “It hadn’t been just one earthquake but several, leveling the entire coast of California and Washington and Oregon and Vancouver, and they were already estimating over a million deaths” (114). The news shows landmarks such as the Hollywood sign, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Seattle Space Needle all in ruins.
The passengers and crew in the theater panic in earnest, and Shy loses track of Carmen in the chaos. He chases after her, afraid that she might throw herself off the ship in despair, but can’t find her. The captain warns over the loudspeaker that there are still rougher seas ahead as Shy searches for Carmen. There is no sign of Carmen, but Shy does find Paolo helping prepare several lifeboats to be launched. The cruise ship is too close to the Hidden Islands, and the shallow water combined with the powerful winds mean that the ship may crash and sink. Shy and another crewmate, Vlad, see a pod of dolphins fleeing from what they now realize is an approaching tsunami. The captain chooses to steer in the opposite direction instead, hoping to bring the ship over the wave before it crests.
Chapters 21-27 Summary
Shy returns to the theater to attend to his assigned group of passengers. He meets Kevin there and joins him at the window, where they watch the wall of water form in the distance. The wave rises too high and too fast for the captain’s plan to work: “A massive wall of water, almost twice the height of the ship and climbing still, and coming directly at them. It was clear they had no chance of making it over, but the ship continued plunging forward” (122). Just before the tsunami crashes into the ship, Shy believes that “it was the end of everything, and no person could change this fact, and no God” (123). The wave reaches the ship, destroying the room and knocking Shy unconscious.
In the aftermath of the tsunami, Shy falls in and out of consciousness. He wakes in the middle of the disaster to a horrific scene: “Fallen passengers lay all around him, battered and twisted, faces frozen in shock or facedown, ocean water raining down on all of them from a gaping hole in the theater ceiling, and everything smelled of brine and seaweed” (124). He watches a woman bleed to death in front of him, then loses consciousness. He wakes to see Kevin unconscious and bleeding from the head and manages to bandage his wound before blacking out again. He wakes again, surrounded by corpses, and watches Supervisor Franco die as well. The next time he wakes, he manages to scramble to a window, only to see another tsunami coming, “this one so high above the ship it left no room for sky or moon or stars” (126). The tsunami crashes into the ship, and Shy loses consciousness again.
Shy wakes up again, this time sheltered beneath a collapsed section of ceiling. He frees himself and stumbles through the corpses looking for anyone he knows but finds no one he recognizes. Eventually, he makes it to the Lookout Deck, where Marcus is helping ready the life rafts to launch—the life rafts are smaller and flimsier than the lifeboats, but there are few lifeboats remaining. The surviving passengers fight over whether to launch the life rafts, and one passenger demands that the premier class survivors take priority over the others, stirring disagreement: “This sparked a new debate, about who should be loaded onto the lifeboats first: women and children or premier class” (130).
Reunited with Kevin, Marcus, and Paolo, Shy helps prepare the lifeboats, bringing them to the launching site and loading passengers onto them. He spots Carmen being lowered into one of the lifeboats, but she doesn’t hear him when he calls out to her. The ship continues to burn and sink as they load the lifeboats. Still in shock, Shy notices that “it was strange how numb to death Shy had already become” (135). Shy makes it to the kitchens and finds Rodney, who heads to the lifeboats—but also finds Bill trapped under a chandelier. Shy and Kevin free his trapped leg and carry him from the burning kitchen toward the lifeboats. Another giant wave drags one of the lifeboats away, destroying it, and Shy finds himself shoved into one of the last two remaining rafts.
When the raft drops into the water, Shy is thrown free and submerged. With Christian’s help, he swims back onto the raft along with Kevin, Paolo, and Marcus. One more wave threatens to destroy the raft, and Shy and the others are forced to dive into the water. Shy loses consciousness, and when he wakes, he is floating in his life jacket and entirely alone. The storm has calmed, but Shy feels hopeless: “He felt like he’d been shown the truth of the world. The absolute power it held. People just meaningless specks that came and went as easily as flipping a switch” (148). In time, however, he finds an oar, a raincoat, and the floating remains of a partially destroyed lifeboat, which he manages to climb into. The boat contains several corpses, but Shy chooses to leave them in the boat in the hope of giving them a proper burial when he is rescued. The boat is taking on water, so he plugs the hole in the hull with his sweatshirts and spends hours bailing the water out by hand. When the boat is stable, Shy is able to take in his surroundings. As he watches the cruise ship sink completely, he realizes that he is the only living person in sight.
Day 2 Analysis
Tension rises on the second day of the voyage, mounting to the climactic sinking of the cruise ship and the deaths of hundreds of passengers and crew. De la Peña ties together all of Shy’s anxieties and troubles in one thread in these chapters; Shy has to contend with his damaged relationship with Carmen, his nephew’s illness, his conflict with the premier class passengers, and the increasingly persistent Bill. All the while, the storm outside is growing stronger, a physical representation of Shy’s growing anxiety. The tension is low at first, with Shy mostly focusing on patching things up with Carmen, but it rises as Shy’s time is monopolized by the passengers demanding his attention. We feel Shy’s mounting frustration as he is trapped in a conversation with the oilman, followed immediately by a series of small humiliations at the towel stand. Then, just as storm clouds begin to gather overhead, Shy learns that his cabin has been ransacked. Shy’s internal monologue in these scenes reveals his slowly mounting panic as all of his problems compound on top of each other: “Shy was starting to feel like a prisoner on the ship. People were spying on him. Breaking into his cabin. And there was nowhere to hide” (64). As the storm grows, and Shy’s mother reveals that his nephew has caught Romero Disease, it becomes clear that all of this is becoming too much for Shy to handle; he feels “like if he breathed the wrong way or something he might start crying” (68).
This constant piling-on of stressors forbodes a terrible climax when the tension inevitably breaks, leaving a sense of doom pervading each scene. At the same time, de la Peña begins referencing death more and more frequently: Shy remembers watching a dog tear apart his sister’s beloved rabbits as a child, dwells on the thousands who have died of Romero Disease, then relives the traumatic moment of his grandmother’s death. By keeping death and tragedy at the forefront of the reader’s mind so consistently, de la Peña reinforces the feeling that something is about to go terribly wrong. Shy is forced out into the storm, risking his life for the sake of some poolside furniture; Addison reveals yet another layer of the growing conspiracy Shy is involved in; and Bill tracks him down to threaten him for information. The ever-present feeling of danger mounts and mounts.
Shy is allowed a moment of reprieve as he and Carmen spend time together and work out their problems. The storm is almost forgotten for a moment, the tension begins to fall—and then the earthquakes begin, and everything is thrown into chaos. The first jolt of the ship and the sudden alarm mark the point where everything finally goes wrong, cashing in the tension that has been building all this time. Shy learns that the US west coast has been destroyed, the passengers panic, and he loses sight of Carmen. Finally, the tsunamis—the final and overpowering manifestation of the storm that has been building all day—tear the ship apart, killing hundreds and setting Shy adrift on the ocean that has haunted him since he saw David Williamson die.
Day 2 of The Living also highlights just how much of an impact values of class, race, and status have on life on the cruise ship—which acts as a microcosm of life in modern, capitalist America. As a member of the crew, Shy endures constant slights from the passengers, who maintain a position of power over him. This dynamic reflects on their roles in society outside the ship as well: The passengers come from money and privilege, while Shy is a person of color from a poor family. Addison and Cassandra (as well as the young boy who calls him an “asshole” at the towel stand) treat him with casual disrespect, and Shy and Carmen have no choice but to take William Henry’s blatant racism and sexism with a polite smile. The value placed on Shy’s life compared to the lives of the passengers is especially clear when he is sent onto the deck to clean while the passengers shelter inside with their life jackets on. Even as the lifeboats are being readied to launch, class remains a powerful influence as the premier class passengers demand to escape first. These imbalances only disappear when the ship has finally sunk and survival is all that matters.
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By Matt de la Peña
