“Should we bang some pots together?”

  “The neighbors might compin.”

  “We’re awake, guys,” Joey called out. Tried to call. She was a little hoarse on awakening. Dry throat. She shook Ronnie. “It’s time to go.”

  “Already? I’m not sure I ever fell asleep.”

  “I don’t know who was snoring then.” Her friend had surely slept better than she had. Joey and insomnia were old acquaintances.

  “Let us pee and we’ll be with you,” she told the boys, on emerging. And spsh some water on their faces as long as they were inside. She did hope An had thought to bring some breakfast. Even if it was vegetarian.

  The boys were huddled by the wagon when they came out. A single surfboard was in the rooftop rack. She couldn’t make out any details about it. “Ready?” asked An. “If you want I can ftten the rear seat and you could sack out a little longer.”

  “Don’t bother for me,” Joey responded. “Shotgun!”

  She suspected Jam and Ronnie were just as willing to let her sit up front. They all settled in and An eased his car away from the curb and out into the night. Plenty of streetlights here. It would be dark out in the empty country between here and Florida’s other coast. Dark—

  Joey jolted awake. “Where are we?”

  “Immokalee.” This came low, almost a whisper.

  She looked out the window. Still dark but there were dim-lit store fronts alongside the road. “So we are.” Joey had been in Immokalee before but never at three in the morning. It had a reputation for being a rough pce any time.

  “We have a bunch of options from here and my brother and I have explored them all at one time or another. I’m not taking the shortest route but it might be the quickest. Up through La Belle and across to Fort Pierce.”

  Joey turned to peer into the rear seat. Both passengers asleep. They’d best stick to whispers.

  “Coffee?” asked An, holding up a thermos.

  Coffee! “Sure.” She took it from him as he eased to a stop.

  “Always make sure you stop completely in a strange town in the middle of the night,” he stated. “The cops need something to break their boredom and a car with surfboards on top is a favorite choice. There are paper cups right there.” He pointed as he slowly accelerated.

  This guy is a lot more knowledgeable of the world than he lets on, thought Joey. She carefully poured out half a cup. “Want some?”

  “Hmm, not until we’re closer to a rest room. By the way, I put a fair amount of milk in there, the way I like it.”

  “Okay with me.” Joey rarely drank coffee at all. “You could always pull over. I’ll close my eyes.”

  She sipped the coffee as they emerged into open country. Again, not that she had seen the empty fields and swamp nd between Naples and the little farming town. Joey put down her empty cup and fell back into sleep.

  “What is that stench?” someone was asking.

  She took a deep whiff. “Orange juice factory.”

  “That was quick,” said An. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “Was. We must be near Lake Okeechobee, right?”

  “Not too far.”

  James leaned forward to talk to them. “Smells like they’re burning the oranges. And letting them rot first.”

  “Maybe they are,” An answered. “Never been in one but driven by a bunch of times.” He gnced into the rear view mirror. “Waking up, Ronnie?”

  “Ummumm,” she answered. “Do I have to?”

  “Not for at least another hour. But if you are awake, there are snacks in that box behind you.”

  She turned around, kneeling on the seat, and dug into the cardboard box. “Grano? Who snacks on grano? Ah, fruit. I don’t think I could eat an orange with that smell.”

  “We could always stop in Okeechobee. Hmm, no, probably nothing much open yet. We passed through La Belle while you all were asleep.”

  “Who wants an apple?”

  “Send one up here,” said Joey. “Where do you stop?” she asked.

  “Fort Pierce, most often. At least for the public restrooms in one park or another.”

  “Ooh, candy bars! That makes up for the grano. Want one, James?”

  “Hand it over. And you can send some of that coffee back here, Joey.”

  On into the darkness An steered the big station wagon. Shortly, he took a right, heading east toward the Atntic at st, and cruised through the town of Okeechobee. There might have been the slightest suggestion of light along the horizon before them when they pulled into Fort Pierce. “I’ve surfed here on occasion,” said An, as they crossed a high bridge across the bay. It y gray and motionless below them, a few lights shining across the water. Fishermen were parked along the causeway leading to it; shadows moved in the mists of morning. “Usually further north but there can be decent waves at the inlet down that way.” He waved an arm toward the south.

  “Are there ever good waves in Florida?” asked James. “I haven’t seen much sign of them.”

  “Naples doesn’t get much in the way of waves in the summer. Florida doesn’t, really, but there’s a better chance on the east coast. Up north, like Cocoa. Not Miami. The Bahamas get in the way of any summer swells there.”

  “So Cocoa is where we’re going?” This from Ronnie.

  “We’ll see.”

  “He sounds like my dad,” she said.

  “One of us has to be the responsible adult,” Joey told her. “I’m not volunteering!”

  “And not that my dad is a responsible adult.”

  “Here’s A-1-A,” announced An. “That means we’re officially on the coast, even if we haven’t seen the water yet. We can follow this road north all the way to Canaveral.” He turned left. A short distance up the road, he pulled into a little park on the left hand, illuminated by a single overhead light. “Restroom break.”

  That seemed an excellent idea to all. James went to look at the small embossed metal sign. “Pepper Park. Oh, named for Cude Pepper.”

  “Red Pepper?” chimed in Ronnie. “I’ve read about him.”

  Joey only knew the man was someone important in Florida history. That would have been enough for her not very long ago. Now she felt she should be more knowledgeable about things like that.

  But right now she felt a need to visit the restroom. When she returned, the others seemed to be in some sort of earnest discussion. “Oh, Joey,” said Ronnie. “I was telling An about what we talked about st night. The draft and all. He agrees with James.” She turned to the boy. “I think.”

  An smiled. “I’m certainly as eager to avoid the draft. And—yeah, I get a bit miffed at the whole idea of the government having the right to ship my body off wherever it wants.”

  “Oh, that’s looking at it from a slightly different angle,” said James. “More libertarian, maybe? I’m not sure I understand patriotism, honestly. We have a duty to our country or we’re supposed to love it? Why? I never heard a good answer to that. I certainly don’t see morality having anything to do with it.”

  Ronnie cocked her head at him. “Don’t you feel you have an obligation to anything?”

  “Only to do what is morally right. And to people. They’re real. A country is just an idea.”

  “Like the logos made real?” asked Joey. She had to ugh at his expression. “I haven’t forgotten everything Catholic I learned.”

  “You have a point. The concept is something like that except, again, it isn’t God.” He grinned at Ronnie. “As our friend told us st night.”

  Joey sighed. “If we’re going to talk about this kind of thing I need to get stoned again.”

  An raised an eyebrow at this. He had no idea what they’d been up to in his absence. He chose not to pursue the subject. “Let’s hit the road again.”

  It grew lighter as they drove northward. Clouds were banked to their right, out over the ocean, but the skies were clear above. Through some town. No one bothered to ask the name and An didn’t volunteer one. Then a high bridge rose ahead of them. “Sebastian Inlet,” their driver announced. “The perfect pce to watch the sun rise.”

  He pulled onto a dirt road and brought the car to a stop in the shadows beneath the span. “It’s actually illegal to surf here. Close to the jetty, that is, but that’s where the waves are good.” There might have been a trace of an uncharacteristic cockiness in his smile. “I’ve admittedly broken that w.”

  A pretty unlikely outw, thought Joey. You think you know people but they sometimes insist on surprising you.

  All four strode toward the water. “It’s kind of primitive, isn’t it?” asked James.

  “That’s supposedly going to change. Whether for the better or worse, I couldn’t say.”

  Ronnie leaned in and whispered to Joey. “Now he sounds even more like my father.”

  A long jetty of massive gray rocks and concrete extended into the Atntic, beside the wide inlet, where the water flowed fast and rough with the tide. “There are loads of sharks in there,” said An. “And out further.” He nodded toward the ocean. “Yet guys persist in surfing way out there when big swells break. Most other pces become unridable.”

  “Have you?” asked James.

  “No way.” He surveyed the beach. “More surf than I expected, to be honest. But this isn’t the pce to ride today.”

  Fishermen holding heavy poles at varied angles lined the jetty, bck cutouts against the light of dawn. My dad would have loved this pce, thought Joey. Who knows? Maybe he has fished here. She didn’t know much of what he had done after the divorce. Joe Varney had pretty much disappeared altogether when her mom remarried.

  “And here it comes,” whispered Ronnie, as the red orb peeked over the horizon.