twenty-three

Here, honey, I bought you some underwear for the road.”

“Aunt Jack!” Peyton felt his face flush with heat as she handed it to him in the motel office.

“Ha! You’re a sight, Peyton. How come you get embarrassed so easy?”

“Lady, you just handed me a bundle of underwear right in the middle of a busy motel office!”

She pinched him on the cheek. “You’re just as cute as a button, Peyton. I know your mama must be real proud o’ you. But now, Aunt Jack’s serious about the underwear. You’ve got to keep yourself dry or you’ll be hurtin’ again. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And Key West ain’t goin’ anywhere. You need to break up your trip a little better and get some rest.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You really gonna listen to me, or are you just sayin’ ‘yes, ma’am’ to shut me up?”

“I’m really listenin’. I promise. Now hug me goodbye so I can take my new skivvies and hit the road.”

Peyton hugged Aunt Jack and thanked her again for getting him well. His extended visit with her had made him ready to ride again.

As he loaded his bike and made his way back to A1A, Peyton had to wonder: Had anybody helped his father? Was there an Aunt Jack in his path, someone to salve his wounds and help him heal? Something about this trip made Peyton feel at war with himself, one minute struggling to piece together his dad’s every move, the next wishing he could put the long-cherished map away for good and find his own way, taking the road as it came, on his own terms.

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.

“I’m Will Fournier!” the man shouted. “Now look out that window and tell me who’s out there an’ back yonder.”

Peyton braced for the next turn and checked out the track. “You’ve got a Chevy comin’ up on this side, but the engine’s on fire—’37 Ford on your bumper!”

“Attaboy!” Will eased up as he entered the banked turn, then swept down it and accelerated for the inside lane, leaving the ’37 and the now flaming Chevy in the dust.

Peyton soon got the hang of spotting and helped Will move ahead of most cars in the pack. By the time they crossed the finish line, they were in third place, and Daytona Beach was littered with wrecked or otherwise disabled cars. A couple of tow trucks set to work removing them.

Peyton watched as Will accepted his third-place trophy and a hundred dollars. Then he waved to the driver and started walking back to his bike.

“Hey, Peyton! Wait up!”

He turned to see the racer coming toward him.

“You forgot your take.” Will took out his wallet and handed Peyton twenty dollars.

“You don’t have to do that—I had fun,” Peyton said.

“Naw, now, them’s the rules. Spotter gets twenty percent. That’s fair.”

“Most fun I ever had on a summer job,” Peyton said with a smile.

“You want to go one more time?”

“Really?”

“There’s another race soon as they get the track squared away, an’ I sure could use you. Same pay—twenty percent o’ whatever I win.”

Peyton thought it over. “Just one more?”

“Yep. One more race o’ twenty laps, and we’re through.”

“Okay.”

Will slapped him on the back. “We might come outta this one with the whole shebang, me an’ you! Meet me at the car in half an hour.”

Peyton had skipped breakfast and was starving now that there was no excitement to take his mind off his stomach. He grabbed a cheeseburger and a Coke at a beachside stand and then went to find Will’s number 10 car in the line that was forming, two vehicles deep, right on the sand.

He got in just a few minutes before the starting gun fired, and the cars went flying up Daytona Beach and into the first turn. Peyton was especially vigilant in the turns because he quickly figured out that’s where a truly heinous crash was most likely. But the thrill of the speed in the straights more than made up for any apprehension he might’ve felt in the turns. It was the closest you could get to flying on land.

They got bumped and scraped and cut off now and again but somehow made it to the final five laps without major incident. As Will accelerated on the beach straightaway, Peyton noticed that the tide was coming in. Ocean water was now licking at the right-lane cars closest to the sea. But nobody was slowing down. Around and around they kept going, and the water came higher and higher onto shore with every lap until Peyton could actually hear the tires splashing through surf and see ocean spray coming off the car in front of them.

Just as they came out of a turn and onto the beach for the last lap, Peyton saw it—an abnormally large swell very near the shore. Finn had warned him about rogue waves, which could get as tall as a building out at sea. “Will, look out for that wave!”

“Ain’t got time to look at the ocean, Peyton—we’re in second!”

“It’s gonna hit the—” The number 10 car was just passing the swell as it began to crest. “Floor it, Will, floor it!” Peyton shouted.

“’At’s the spirit!” Will said. He cleared the car ahead of him and floored the accelerator, making it safely to the finish line back on A1A just as the wave broke against the shore and swamped all the cars behind them.

Will was so focused on the checkered flag and his first big win that he was completely unaware of what had just happened. Peyton bailed out of the car as soon as he could and ran toward the beach. All the cars behind them were stalled, with ocean water up to their engines. One Chevy had been pulled out by the tide, and Peyton watched as the driver climbed out of the window, then stood helplessly in the water as wave after wave hit his car and pulled it out to sea.

When none of the other drivers showed up to congratulate him, Will joined Peyton on the beach, staring in disbelief at what looked like a lake full of race cars. “What happened?” he said, rubbing his eyes as if that might clear the scene for him.

“They got hit by a wave,” Peyton said. “I saw it comin’. That’s what I was tellin’ you to look out for.”

Will frowned, and then a forlorn expression saddened his face. “You mean I didn’t really beat them other cars?”

Peyton laid his hand on Will’s shoulder. “You didn’t just beat the cars, Will, you beat the ocean.”

That brought a smile. “You’re a good man, Peyton. I sure wish you could ride with me every race.”

“I ’preciate that. And I thank you for takin’ me along. But I gotta get on down the road.”

“I hear ya. Well, I reckon I need to give you your take.” He handed Peyton a hundred dollars.

“Dang, Will, are you sure?”

“Fair’s fair. You earned every penny.”

“Thank you. Guess I better get goin’. You take care, now.”

“You too, Peyton. Keep it in the road.”

“I’ll try,” Peyton said with a smile. “You do the same.”

They shook hands before Peyton retrieved his bike and asked directions to the police station. He was feeling flush with cash but knew he had a long way to go, so he compromised—he’d have a nice supper at a fish house on the beach but see if he could spend the night in the city jail.

“Thank you, son—thank you so, so much for calling. I love you, sweetheart!” Kate hung up the phone in Aunt Gert’s living room and returned to the kitchen, where her aunt and Finn were shucking shrimp for supper. “He’s alright!” she told them as she began shredding a head of cabbage for slaw.

“’Course he is!” Finn said. “I’m tellin’ you, Miss Kate, you ain’t gotta worry about that one. Peyton’s rock-solid. You can count on him to see a thing through.”

“Where is he?” Aunt Gert asked as Finn gathered up shrimp shells and carried them to a trash bin outside.

“The Daytona city jail!” Kate said. “Apparently, Herschel—he’s our police chief in Savannah—wrote him a letter of introduction so the chiefs would feed him and give him a place to sleep. Can you believe that?”

“Of course!” Aunt Gert said. “Honey, you and Marshall got it right with that boy. He’s grade A, a hundred percent. Did you tell him his sweetie called?”

Kate put the shredded cabbage into a mixing bowl, grated onion over it, and added sweet pickle relish and mayonnaise. “I debated it—didn’t know if it would make him feel better to know she called or worse because he missed it—but I told him.”

“You think she’s got it as bad as he does?”

“Yes.” Kate smiled at the thought of such a lovely girl being smitten with her son. “She’s just not ready to admit it yet. She told me how sorry she was to hear about Marshall and asked me a million questions about how Peyton was doing.”

Aunt Gert began heating a Dutch oven filled with oil, then joined Kate at the table, where she started breading the shrimp. “What about you, Katie?” she asked without looking up. “How are you doing?”

Kate mixed the coleslaw with a wooden spoon. “The best I can hope for is numb, Aunt Gert. When I think about Marshall, it’s like a raw nerve—like a physical pain that runs through my whole body. And to tell you the truth, if it weren’t for Peyton, I would’ve gladly gone with him.”

Aunt Gert stopped breading the shrimp and looked up at her. “But there is a Peyton. And he needs you—now more than ever. Best not to even let those thoughts enter your mind.”

Kate poured the slaw into a serving bowl, covered it, and put it in the icebox to chill. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. “How did you do it, Aunt Gert? How did you make it through?”

Aunt Gert began dropping shrimp into the hot oil. “Who says I’ve made it through?”