Excerpt from Coast Road by Barbara Delinsky, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The question usually came from his parents and was filled with scorn. But Rachel Keats seemed genuinely interested.

"Homes, for starters," he said. "I come from a two-bit town, one little box after another. I used to pass those little boxes on the way to school and spend my class time doodling them into something finer. Those doodles didn't help my math grade much."

"No. I wouldn't think it." She shot a glance at the text that lay open on his dryer. "Is the book on home designs?"

"Not yet. Right now we're into arches. Do you know how many different kinds of arches there are? There are flat arches, round arches, triangular arches, pointed arches. There are hand arches, back arches, groin arches. There are depressed arches. There are diminished arches. There are horseshoe arches."

She was laughing, the sound as gentle as her eyes. "I don't think I want to know what some of those are." She paused for the briefest time, said almost shyly, "I was a doodler, too."

He liked the shyness. It made him feel safe. "Where?"

"Chicago, then Atlanta, then New York. My childhood was mobile. My dad takes old businesses and turns them around. We move when he sells. How about you?"

"Oregon. You won't have heard of the town. It doesn't make it onto maps. What did you doodle?"

"Oh, people, birds, animals, fish, anything that moves. I like doing what a camera does, capturing an instant."

"Are you still doodling?" he asked in response to her use of the present tense.

She lifted a shoulder, shy, maybe modest. "I like to think it's more. I'm hoping to paint for a living."

"With or without a day job?" Jack asked. The average artist barely earned enough to eat. Unless Rachel was significantly better than average, she would have a tough time paying the bills.

She wrapped her arms around her middle. Quietly, almost sadly, she said, "I'm lucky. Those businesses keep selling. My mom heads one of them now. They think I'm crazy to be here doing this. Art isn't business. They want me back in the city wearing designer dresses with a designer handbag and imported boots." She took a fresh breath. "Do you have siblings?"

"Five brothers and a sister," he said, though it had nothing to do with anything. He rarely talked about family. The people he was with rarely asked.

Not only had Rachel asked, but those wonderful eyes of hers lit up with his answer. "Six? That's great. I don't have any."

"That's why you think it's great. There were seven of us born in ten years, living with two parents in a three-bedroom house. I was the lucky one. Summers, I got the porch."

"What are the others doing now? Are they all over the country? Are any of them out here?"

"They're back home. I'm the only one who made it out."

Her eyes grew. "Really? Why you? How?"

"Scholarship. Work-study. Desperation. I had to leave. I don't get along with my family."

"Why not?" she asked in such an innocent way that he actually answered.

"They're negative. Always criticizing to cover up for what they lack, but the only thing they really lack is ambition. My dad coulda done anything he wanted -- he's a bright guy -- only, he got stuck in a potato processing plant and never got out. My brothers are going to be just like him, different jobs, same wasted potential. I went to college, which makes what they're doing seem smaller. They'll never forgive me for that."

"I'm so sorry."

He smiled. "Not your fault."

"Then you don't go home much?"

"No. And you? Back to New York?"

She crinkled her nose. "I'm not a city person. When I'm there, I'm stuck doing all the things I hate."

Reproduced with the permission of Simon & Schuster.
Copyright © 1998 by Barbara Delinsky.