While I was damning myself for not handling Romeo better, I was heaping a generous dose of curses on his head too. My mother would have told me to look at the guy and imagine how many times he’d been rejected or laughed at by a pretty girl. Even if that didn’t excuse his behavior, I should rise above it. But I couldn’t. I wanted to win this race, drop the conch shell on his lap and guzzle the sweet chaos of his rage.

And I would. One way or another.

I CHANGED BACK into jeans and T-shirt, and had the cab drop me off in a tourist section that looked as if it’d been born in the fifties and untouched since. I stood in front of the Ocean View Resort, the kind of decrepit motel unwitting families book by name alone, only to arrive and discover they could indeed view the ocean-if they stood on the roof with binoculars.

Next door a soda fountain promised “authentic malt sodas.” Having once tried a malt soda, this was not a selling point for me. On the other side was the ubiquitous Florida T-shirt shop. Three shirts for ten dollars. If they didn’t survive the first wash after you got them home, you wouldn’t fly back for a refund.

The address Romeo had given me was across the road. A souvenir shop with painted conch shells in the window. None had the markings he’d described, but the sign promised more designs inside.

This was too easy. I wasn’t waltzing into that store until I’d taken a look around.

HOPE: SUNKEN TREASURES