The horizon is calling him. Wind rushes through his hair and fills the sail taut. Everything is crisp, snapping, moving. His little boat slices through the blue, slick, the California coast keeping pace on his starboard side and the Pacific gaping, yawning, teasing port.

He drove an old Volvo up PCH every day, leaving the creaking and sandy streets of Laguna Beach behind. Newport called him, Newport with its mansions built on sand. He imagined sometimes if he listened hard enough he could hear each grain of sand straining against the impossible concrete foundations. And later, sitting on the beach, he held handfuls of that same sand, the weight of the world slipping through his fingers.

There was a new harbor now, closer, but his father wouldn't think of switching. There's also a new high school and a fast-track highway running straight through the heart of the state. The politicians are campaigning on this: curbing development, developing. His English teacher remarked, "Everything will be different in twenty years."

He can tell when his father has been home because the blueprints on the kitchen table change. He is careful that his hands are clean when looking at them, detailed residential developments for the hills, for the space between Dana Point and Laguna. Once he heard his father on the phone, "This is just the beginning." When Sam drives north he memorizes the bare hills, the stretches of beach.

Sam says loudly, "This is just the beginning," and begins to sing. Words swallowed by the wind.

The secret to sailing lies in knowing the waves, how to read the surface like a map, crackling spread open. Stillness up ahead, he leans gently on the rudder, avoiding kelp beds. The sun rolls out thin shadows, his mother must be almost home from her gallery by now, his father still at his desk. He looks north, as if he could see his father, as if he would be able to pick his office out from any other building.

Abruptly Sam turns the boat. The boom swings low and he almost forgets to duck, falling back, his bright red life jacket cushioning the fall. Immediately the sail fills again, the sound of it a sharp crack, and the boat wavers, threatening to splash into the dark Pacific. He pulls hard on the rigging, straining against the wind, the weight of the boat, gravity, the ocean.

His dark hair is in his eyes. He closes them, waits to feel the shift. Waits, and then ­ yes. The boat rights itself, and Sam breathes deep, nothing quite like the ocean air. He heads back, back towards Newport, the shore, the Balboa Bay Yacht Club. He makes notes: pick up milk from Alpha-Beta, don't forget to leave your shoes at the door, check the moorings twice.

The final regatta of the season was last weekend; most of the boats were covered for the winter. And Sam, well, Sam would be heading East when the weather changed, leaving all this behind.