Brooding puppy dog Ryan Atwood is in the clinker because his brother has just stolen and totaled an Impala full of guns and drugs. Ryan, an accessory to the crime, is in big trouble. His public defender, a surfing pair of on-trend eyebrows named Sandy Cohen, has just asked him what he’s going to do with his life. 

Ryan: “Modern medicine is advancing to the point where the average human life span will be a hundred. But I read this article which said that Social Security is supposed to run out by the year 2025. Which means people are going to have to stay in their jobs until they’re eighty. So I don’t want to commit to anything too soon.” ¹

Sandy: “You’re gonna have to get over the fact that life dealt you a bad hand. I grew up–no money. Bad part of the Bronx.”

Ryan: “And look at you now.”

Burn! 

Ryan calls his friends and relatives but they all hate him or something, so of course he calls Sandy, who comes and picks him up: 

Ryan: “This is a nice car. I didn’t think your kind of a lawyer made money.” ²

Sandy: “We don’t. It’s my wife’s.” ³

Sandy and Kirsten’s house, a mansion in Newport Beach:

“The most expensive everything. Spanish tile. The kitchen is steel and chrome. The shower has a steamer and a seat in it! And soap that looks like sea shells. A terry cloth robe hangs on the door.”

We are in an age of innocence, where bad boys wear subtle leather necklaces and California socialites wear bootcut jeans. Ryan smokes a cigarette in the driveway of the mansion and spots the beautiful girl next door, a doe with a clogged throat named Marissa Cooper. They share the cigarette. Sandy Cohen’s eyebrows come out of the house and approach them. 

Sandy, to Marissa: “We’re really excited about that fashion show fundraiser tomorrow.”

Marissa: “Me too. It’s been so much work, but it raises a lot of money for the National Charity League so–”

Sandy: “At two hundred dollars a head, it should.” ⁴

Later, at Marissa’s house, men in suits come to the door demanding a chat with her father Jimmy, who’s been taking money from his client’s investments to support his wife’s lip injections and early-2000′s prestige footwear. 

Marissa: “Those men came by again, Dad. What’s going on?”

Jimmy: “It’s just a client. You have nothing to worry about.” ⁵

The fashion show:

“Feels like something for heads of state. Instead it it is filled with Newport’s wealthiest denizens. Every ear, neck and wrist glimmers gold and silver. Even the dogs are well dressed. Everyone white. But tan.” ⁶

The after-party:

“An expensive vase getting knocked over. Shatters. No one bats an eye.” A guy takes pictures of a couple hooking up through an open bedroom door. “Total blackmail. Easy money y’all!” ⁷

At the party, Ryan’s puppy dog magnetism acts like a tractor beam on pint-sized hottie Summer Roberts, who is the longtime secret love of Seth Cohen, who is Sandy and Kirsten’s firstborn Death Cab poster and has never been to a party before. 

Seth misinterprets the situation: “I can’t believe you! I invite you into my world! I bring you to this party! And this is how you treat me?! Why don’t you go back to Chino. I’m sure you can find a nice car in the parking lot to steal.” ⁸

It’s the morning after the party and Kirsten is horrified to find her one and only Death Cab poster hungover with a black eye. “Seth!” she yells. She runs to tell her husband, whose eyebrows have good-naturedly strapped on a wetsuit and gone surfing. 

Kirsten: “This is what happens when you invite that kind of element into our home.”

Sandy: “I’d rather Seth hang out with Ryan than with some trust fund kid who only cares about getting his new Beamer. He’s gotta grow up some time. There’s a real world out there. Outside of this Newport Beach bubble.” ⁹

Kirsten: “You don’t seem to mind living in this bubble.”

Burn! 

Kirsten goes back to the house and finds Ryan’s homemade apology breakfast. “Uh, Rosa’s not here today,” she says, unsure if people who speak English can prepare food from scratch. “I made it,” Ryan says. Well, it’s not enough. Sandy takes the brooding shelter puppy home, who gazes through the window at Marissa as the sun flares golden like an early-model Instagram and a Joseph Arthur song swells bittersweet. The two of them arrive at Ryan’s mom’s chain-link-fence place in Chino: 

“The disparity between the two houses is remarkable… The house is cleaned out. Nothing. A few boxes left.”

Sandy: “C’mon. Let’s go.”

The door closes. Ryan’s going back to Newport and our lives will never be the same. MMMMMMM WHATCHA SAYYY. ¹⁰

Jia Tolentino lives in Ann Arbor.

When it first started getting hot earlier this summer, I felt bad about using my air conditioner because I was worried what my electric bill was going to look like. Well folks, I don’t feel bad anymore. My utility bill jumped up by $25, and it was $25 well spent. I also used less energy than I did last summer when I had friends staying with me and the A/C was on all the time. What I really want to know is: Where was I last September?

I don’t have an air conditioner. Am I smug about it? A little. But that’s because it’s all I’ve got to hold on to when I’m lethargic, smelly and faintly dehydrated all summer.

I tell myself that I can’t afford an air conditioner, but I think I might just be cheap. Plus, I always begin each summer optimistically: I tell myself that summer’s not all that bad! That I can do this! But that’s in May, when it’s always in the 70s.

In July, the heat is relentless, my apartment never gets below 90 degrees, and I’m cranky. By then, I’ve got it in my mind that it’s too late in the summer, that I don’t have enough money for an AC unit, and I’ll just have to wait it out. Plus, I think heat is a little bit like pain: You remember it’s bad, but you quickly forget just how bad.

But am I really saving money by not having an AC? What about the discomfort, or the lack of sleep, or the terrible sweatiness? By my logic, I deserve lots of treats for saving myself from high electricity bills. Do those treats add up to more than the cost of a window unit? Let’s find out! 

I’ll go with this unit recommended by The Wirecutter since they already did the research, saving me from sweating over my laptop. Total cost: $219

Let’s go ahead and say I keep it for five years, because that’s how long the first reviewer on Amazon said the AC compressor is good for (and again, I’m cheap).

I used this website which shows how much electricity household appliances use, and plugged in the type of AC I’d use, and estimated I would use it 20 days per month, 10 hours per day. Total cost per month: $54 (adjusting for inflation)

Total cost per summer: $209
Total cost for five years: $1,045

Thinking back on the last few years, here are all the ways I’ve tried to beat each summer the heat, sans-AC:

• Ice cream cones: $20/month 
• Lemonade and other refreshing beverages: $30/month
• Movie tickets: $25 (I’m not a big movie person, but they do have some good AC)
• Doing laundry nearly twice as often because I’m sweaty: $6.50/month
• Lunches bought at work because it was too hot to cook the night before: $32/month
• Dinner out because it’s too hot in my apartment: $30/month
• 75% more showers: let’s just say $20 for extra soap and shampoo
• Electricity bill from running a fan all night: $0.18/night according to this website, $6/month
• And finally, there’s the inevitable day each summer when I crack because I’m so uncomfortable that I march to the nearest clothing store and buy myself some new summer dresses, and immediately feel guilty: $100 per summer

Total cost per summer: $518
Total cost for five years: $2,592

Verdict: Wow. The numbers do not lie, and although I am a thrifty lady, it seems as though AC would be the way to go. I just need to first get over my internalized notion that AC is a luxury I can do without, or that having one means I will be cooped up in my apartment all summer. I need to finally admit to myself that I am a person who cannot deal with the heat. And then I will go buy an air conditioner. Immediately.

Emily Stephenson lives in New York. She recently made the budget-friendly switch from fancy ice cream trucks to Mister Softee.

When the heat and humidity set in this summer, I’m going to thank my lucky stars that I’m able to work in an air-conditioned office. I also have an air conditioner in my apartment, but I didn’t use it very much last summer because my studio remained oddly cool even when it was scorching outside—maybe because I live near the park, or because I have a breeze coming in from the Hudson river, or because my apartment is haunted. In any case, I can usually get by with a much more energy-efficient oscillating fan. This summer, I’ll be upgrading to this fan, because I trust the gadgets The Wirecutter recommends.