“Why can’t you buy a nice Porsche, like your brother’s?” Celia had asked. “Or something with say, air-conditioning? Or satellite radio?”

The Chevelle’s air probably hadn’t worked all that well when it was new, and as for a radio, Mason preferred its tape deck, on which he listened to his stash of ’80s hair bands.

He’d had some times in that Chevelle, for sure. In his youth, he’d ripped up and down the East Coast in it, ridden the length of the Outer Banks, the one summer of his youth when he hadn’t worked at Quixie, his summer of rebellion, when he’d gotten a job working at a convenience store at Nags Head. He’d even driven to California and back, following the old Route 66, the summer he’d graduated from Penn.

Sophie’s tear-swollen eyes widened. “Can you make the top of the amb’lance go down so I can see out?”

“I can’t do that, sugar,” Mason said soothingly, “but just as soon as we get your tummy better, I’m gonna take you all the way to the beach in the fun car. Just you and me.”

“And Annajane,” Sophie added. “Annajane loves the fun car, too.”

Mason exchanged a look with his ex. Her cheeks colored and she looked away. He wondered if she remembered.

*   *   *

He’d been driving the Chevelle the second time he remembered an important encounter with Annajane Hudgens. She was what? Maybe nineteen? Which would have made him twenty-three.

It was summertime, and he’d somehow allowed himself to be roped into driving the convertible in the Passcoe Fourth of July parade, chauffeuring a local beauty queen, Tamelah Dorman, who’d actually been crowned Miss Passcoe, although it should have been Miss Spray-Tan, because she was surely the most artificially overbronzed girl he’d ever encountered.

Anyway, he and Tamelah were having a pretty good time that day. She, perched on the back of the Chevelle, decked out in a short, low-cut spangly firecracker-red dress that definitely showed off her best assets, and he in shorts and a white Quixie Soda polo shirt. He’d filled a flask full of crushed ice, Captain Morgan rum, and Quixie, and he and good old Tamelah had emptied and refilled it before they got a quarter of the way down the Main Street parade route that morning.

The Fourth of July parade was always a major deal in Passcoe, and that year, the hundredth anniversary of the town’s incorporation, made it an even bigger deal than usual. Thousands of people lined Main Street, seated on lawn chairs, standing in the shade of storefronts, or crouched on the curbs.

He’d hoped for a spot either at the very beginning or the very end of the parade lineup, but no such luck. They’d slotted him slap in the middle, between Patti-Jean’s Twirling Tykes—three dozen tap-dancing, baton-twirling preschoolers, and the El-Shazaam Masonic Lodge’s Shriner Klown Korps, which consisted of ten middle-aged men in white face, baggy pants, and red fright wigs, perched atop souped-up lawn-mower chassis.

Their progress was agonizingly slow. The Tykes’ twirling routines were limited to two songs—playing over and over again—which blared out from a huge boom box mounted on a wagon pulled by Patti-Jean herself, a Sousa march and I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy. Behind him, the Klown Korps guys zigzagged crazily across the pavement, popping wheelies and running a dizzying series of figure eights that left an acrid cloud of gasoline fumes hanging overhead.

The sun was blazing down, and Mason worried that their snail’s pace would cause the Chevelle’s supercharged engine to overheat.

What with the heat and all, he and Tamelah had slain one whole bottle of the Captain and were shaking hands with another, and they still had half a mile to go before they would reach Memorial Park, where the parade ended and a huge citywide picnic and carnival was set up. If his memory served, Tamelah was so trashed that she’d given up her regal, queenly wave, and begun flipping off the good citizens of Passcoe seated on folding chairs along Main Street. Twice, when male admirers ran up alongside the car to snap photos of her, Tamelah had obliged by flashing them her boobs. She and Mason had already discussed a postparade meet-up back at his apartment later that evening.

At some point along the route, he’d glanced to the right and noticed that his wasn’t the only Quixie soft drink unit participating in the parade.

There, pushing a hand cart and handing out complimentary cans of Quixie and fifty-cent coupons, was the company mascot, Dixie, the Quixie Pixie herself.

Somehow, somebody in the company had conned some poor sap into climbing into the pixie costume. Whoever it was, he thought, was probably ready to spontaneously combust in the outfit, which consisted of a long-sleeved green felt tunic, bright red tights, oversized green booties with curled-up toes, and a huge foam-rubber Pixie head, topped off with a pointy green and red elf cap.

Hell, he was roasting in the ninety-five-degree heat, and he was just dressed in shorts, flip flops, and a polo.

He slowed the Chevelle to a roll, waiting until the company mascot was right beside it. “Hey Dixie,” he called over. “How’s it goin’?”

The mascot head turned, and then the pixie made an exaggerated shrug and marched away at an accelerated pace. He studied the pixie’s shape, trying to figure out who might be wearing the costume. The tunic was loose-fitting, but it was short, ending midthigh, and from the looks of the tights, he was pretty sure there was a girl under there. A girl with awesome legs.

“Whoossh that?” Tamelah demanded, whipping her head around to see what Mason was staring at.

“Why darlin’, that’s just our company mascot,” Mason said, grinning.

“Zat a damned leprechaun?” Tamelah asked bleerily.

“Close. It’s a pixie.”

“What z’actly is a damned pixie?”

Mason gave it some thought. “A mischevious elf. Plus, it was the only word my grandmother could think of that rhymed with Quixie.”

“Hmmpph,” Tamelah hmmpphed. “Pass me that flask, will ya?”

Mason handed the flask back to Tamelah and rolled up alongside the pixie again.

“Hey Dixie,” he called. “Wanna ride?”

This time the pixie did not bother to turn around. She tossed three cans of sodas to a trio of cat-calling teenage boys in rapid succession, and then took off again, the brass bells stitched to her curly toes jingling merrily with every step.

Mason chuckled under his breath, and accelerated the Chevelle.

“C’mon,” he called, sliding easily alongside Dixie again. “Who is that under there? We’re almost at the park. You can tell me.”

But now the pixie was very nearly trotting, the cart bumping along on the street’s uneven asphalt pavement, spewing chunks of ice in its wake. She managed to sidestep the baton twirlers, and then, suddenly, she disappeared into the crowd.

“That damned pixie just shut you down, Mason baby,” Tamelah giggled. Mason turned his head, to tell her to pipe down, but he needn’t have bothered, because right about then, Tamelah’s eyelids fluttered, her head slumped to one side, and she rather inelegantly slid down onto the backseat of the Chevelle. Passed out cold. Or hot, in Tamelah’s case, with her spangly dress hiked up nearly to her waist.

Shit. He hoped none of the Twirling Tykes had seen that little performance. Mason turned and yanked the hem of the dress down.

Thank God, he was within half a block of the park. He would have left the parade right then, but he was hemmed in tight.

Fifteen minutes later, he finally pulled the Chevelle into the shade of a towering oak in the parking lot at Memorial Park. He got out of the car and walked around to check on Tamelah. She’d slumped into a prone position on the convertible’s white leatherette bench seat, her rhinestone tiara had fallen to the floor, and she was now snoring in a very unqueenly manner. Mason shrugged, again readjusted the hem of her dress for modesty’s sake, and looked around.