Contents ( 66)
- Cover
- Books by Valerie Fraser Luesse
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Map of Florida
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- forty-nine
- fifty
- fifty-one
- Epilogue
- Keep Reading for a Preview of Valerie Luesse’s Next Book!
- Prologue
- one
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Ads
- Back Cover
The sound of engines—loud ones—caught his attention. He pulled his bike onto a sidewalk fronting the beach so he could see what was going on.
About twenty or thirty cars with numbers painted on their doors were racing each other on the beach. They would fly down A1A, hang a left into a sand-entrenched curve that banked high, race up the beach, then speed or slide through a second sandy curve and back onto A1A. They formed a big oval loop, driving around and around, passing each other, crowding each other, and fighting for position. Spectators sat on blankets and beach chairs in the center of the oval, which seemed pretty crazy to Peyton, given the way those guys were driving. About the only thing protecting the crowd was the three- or four-foot height of the giant mound of sand.
Peyton found a bike rack and used the lock and chain Aunt Jack had given him to secure it, because “this is Florida, honey, and you’ve gotta know what’s what.” He took his money out of the saddlebag and slipped some into each shoe before walking onto the beach and standing at the edge of the spectator mound to watch.
Man, his dad would’ve loved something like this. Peyton wasn’t sure whether he had taken this trip to remember his father or forget him. Thinking about him and knowing there would be no new memories of him—that was almost too much to bear. But trying to forget him or push his memory aside seemed like a coward’s way out. Whatever had happened to his father in the Pacific, whatever demons had followed him home, he deserved to be remembered for who he was before the war and who he could’ve been after it, if only he had lived long enough.
“Hey, neighbor!”
Peyton looked up to see a man standing next to a ’39 Ford while a mechanic changed one of his tires. “Me?” he asked.
“Yeah, you! Can you spot me for the last ten laps?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you sit in the passenger seat and watch out that side—help me get around.” The mechanic was finished, and the man ran to the driver’s door. “Well? You in or ain’t you?”
Peyton didn’t know why he did what he did—years later, he would still try to figure out what made him do it—but he ran to the car and jumped in.
“’At’s more like it!” the man said as he stomped the gas and streaked up the highway. “What’s your name?” he shouted.
“Peyton Cabot!” Peyton shouted back, bracing his arms against the dash.
The man headed into the first turn on the beach so fast that the back end of the car skidded to the right. He braked and clutched and steered and accelerated till the car righted itself and went flying up the beach. Peyton felt a rush of adrenaline that came as close to taking flight as anything he had ever experienced.