Fireworks Over Toccoa - Hardcover

Stepakoff, Jeffrey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312581580 ISBN 13: 9780312581589

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, 2010

Synopsis

Every so often that story comes along that reminds us of what it’s like to experience love for the first time—against the odds, when you least expect it, and with such passion that it completely changes you forever.

An unexpected discovery takes eighty-four-year-old Lily Davis Woodward to 1945, and the five days that forever changed her life.  Married for only a week before her husband was sent to fight in WWII, Lily is anxious for his return, and the chance to begin their life together.  In honor of the soldiers' homecoming, the small Georgia town of Toccoa plans a big celebration.  And Jake Russo, a handsome Italian immigrant, also back from war, is responsible for the elaborate fireworks display the town commissioned.   But after a chance encounter in a star-lit field, he steals Lily's heart and soul--and fulfills her in ways her socially-minded, upper-class family cannot.  Now, torn by duty to society and her husband--and the poor, passionate man who might be her only true love--Lily must choose between a commitment she's already made and a love she’s never known before.

Fireworks Over Toccoa takes us to a moment in time that will resonate with readers long after the book’s unforgettable conclusion.  A devastating and poignant story, this debut novel will resonate with anyone who believes in love.

About this title

About the Author:

JEFFREY STEPAKOFF has been writing professionally since receiving his MFA in Playwriting from Carnegie Mellon in 1988.  His credits include the Emmy-winning The Wonder Years, Sisters, Major Dad, Disney's Tarzan, and Dawson's Creek (as co-executive producer).  This is his debut novel.  He lives with his family north of Atlanta, Georgia.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

IREWORKS OVER TOCCOA

Jeffrey Stepakoff
 

There are no ordinary lives.
- Ken Burns

A moment in the sky, forever in the heart.
- Ernesto Russo

 

DISCOVERY

Toccoa, Georgia, 2007
 
 The two boys road their mountain bikes along the soft uncovered lakebed between the Bartam’s Field subdivision and the old Holly Hills property.
 In 1955, the Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Savannah River, creating Lake Hartwell and flooding nearly 56,000 acres, pretty much everything for miles along the Georgia-South Carolina border.  There were stories of people refusing to give up their land – some reportedly met work crews with shotguns – but in the end, the government won out.  The low-lying pine forests were cut down and any outbuildings in the floodplains hastily bulldozed.  Where creeks once rambled through quiet woods to the northeast of Toccoa, gated golfing communities now rimmed the wide fingers of the massive artificial reservoir. 
 This history was lost on the two boys.  To them the lake was simply a backyard, a place for waterskiing and motorboating, a selling point for the area’s multitudinous new developments spiraling out from the waterfront.  But the record drought which had plagued Georgia since mid-2006 now made watersports, and even swimming in some areas, potentially hazardous.  Rotting sorrel stumps jutted through the water.  Mud-covered rocks lay exposed. 
 So on this day, because playing in the water was not an option, the two ten year-olds rode their bikes along the dirt of the lakebed which had just a few months ago been submerged.  It was sludgy and uneven and though their knobby tires were designed for such things, riding was difficult.  The muddy moonscape was peppered with granites and decayed roots and the occasional beer can oxidized through with rust. 
 As they were navigating and trying to maintain enough speed to stay upright, something caught their eyes.  A glint of metal.  A shiny sparkle off glass. 
 They fishtailed their bikes to a stop.  Both looking intently, they saw sunlight reflecting off something wedged under a stack of large smooth riverstones.  The low waterline lapped at the stones, the sort the boys had seen imbedded in chimneys in multimillion dollar faux-rustic cabins.
 They dismounted their bikes, dropped them and headed towards the riverstone pile, following the glistening light which shone off something that looked very much out of place here.  It was something that no one had seen for over six decades – something that, if not for this record drought, may never had been seen again, as the cabin and its bulldozed riverstone chimney had been underwater since the summer of 1955.

 
A PERFECT HOUSE
 
Buckhead district of Atlanta, Six Months Later

 “And I think we should get pregnant right away,” Drew Candler said, turning off of Peachtree onto a tree-lined side street.
 “We?”  Colleen turned in the leather bucket passenger seat and playfully raised an eyebrow at him.
 “Well, I’m a participant in this process too.”
 “So you’ll be carrying a bowling ball in your belly?
 “I’ll be rubbing your back.”
 “Will you be changing diapers?”
 “Every chance I get.”
 “Midnight feedings?”
 “Wouldn’t miss ‘em.”
 “And what happens when you’re on call?”
 “Nannies.”
 She couldn’t help but laugh.  He always had the right answer to everything.  “See, this is why my friends’ husbands hate you.”
 “Because I’m the sensitive type.”
 “You’re raising the bar too high for these poor guys.”
 He feigned a worried expression.  “Oh man, you didn’t tell anyone about the little love notes, did you?”
 “Well...
 “I’m gonna get whacked,” he joked.  “They’re gonna invite me out for a beer and beat me.  I can see this coming.”
 Drew drove up to the front gates of an elegant new housing development, punched a code into the callbox, and drove in as the gates opened.
 “Hey I’ve told them about your affinity for lying around all Sunday in your boxers watching football and eating nachos, but I get no sympathy.”
 “I can be more of a jerk.  Really, I know I can.” 
 “I know, my dear.  You can do anything you set your mind to.  That’s one of the things I love about you.  But I’m good with the football and the nachos.” 
 He broke into a broad smile and turned his eyes towards Colleen for a moment, taking her in as he had from the first day he saw her.  She was so beautiful, he thought, as he always thought.  Even with her black hair pulled back in a casual ponytail away from her dark eyes as she had it today.  How could anyone look at her and not think the same thing?  Somehow this notion was reassuring to him.
 They pulled up in front of an expansive new house, a little too big for its lot, but stunning nonetheless.  Where once a single ranch-style home sat on two wooded acres, there were now nine estate homes.  Hundreds of containers of azaleas and dogwoods and Cherokee roses, ubiquitous in these kinds of North Atlanta communities, were lined up along the curb, ready to be planted in the modest yards.
 “What do you think?”
 “Wow.”  She just stared at the residence, at a loss to articulate any kind of detailed response.
 “Wow is right.  Come on.”
 Drew hopped out, jogged over to Colleen’s side of the newly leased luxury sedan, and opened the door for her.  With a boyish glee that belied his tall build, he grabbed her arm, marched her up the front walkway and into the open front door.  They were hit with the intoxicating scent of fresh paint, new appliances and sawdust. 
 He watched as she took in the house. 
 “Five bedrooms up.  One below.  And the master suite is off the main, around that way,” he said, pointing.  “Oh, and just off the kitchen, over there, they call it a family studio.”
 Colleen peered into a large room with washer-dryer hookups, a worktable, a message center desk with cellphone docks, and three built-in childsize lockers with coathangers and space for boots and books.
 “There’s room for more than three lockers.  You know, just in case one ever wanted to expand.”  Drew couldn’t be happier. 
 Colleen continued looking around at the house for a long time.  It was as though Drew had extrapolated everything she had ever mentioned in passing about the future and what he had seen on the dogeared pages of the house and style magazines she’d recently been perusing and what he heard discussed at dinner parties and golf outings and silent auction cocktail events by those who had their names on wings of buildings vital to the community and then put it all together and came up with this house.  Her friends would most likely describe this house in the same terms they talked about Drew.  It was an ideal house.
 However, to stand awake in the middle of such a thing, to hear the wraithlike echoes of children to be born and days to be lived and nights to be pondered among these planked halls was to stand in the future, to see it and know it plainly.  No more hazy morning daydreams about what life might be.  No more giddy talk over lattes or margaritas.  This was it. 
 It was a gorgeously plated meal that was ordered for her, one she was reluctant to disturb with immutable matters rendered by the fork, but even more loath to send back untouched.  What Drew happily took for overwhelming excitement was in fact apprehension over the sudden reality set before her.
 She hadn’t known him for very long, but what she did know seemed very right.  Whatever doubts or questions she might have had about the future and what she wanted out of it were always allayed by his certainty.  He was always so sure about everything, about a life that would be very much like that of the most senior partners in his practice, and about how she fit seamlessly into that.  Along with his other attributes, Drew possessed a kind of confidence that could sweep a girl off her feet.  But there was something about standing here in this house that made her realize how quickly the future was happening, and just how little thought, of her own, she’d really given it.
 His blackberry rang and involuntarily he snapped it off his belt and answered it.  “Yes.  How many centimeters?  Yes, that’s fine, page the anesthesiologist.  I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”  He hung up and snapped the phone back on its belt cradle.
 “I have to get to Northside.  I’ll drop you on the way.”
 “You go ahead.  I’ll call the office and have someone pick me up.  I want to stay here for a little while.”
 “You know, it might be time to give them your notice.
 “We’ll talk about that.”
 “Whatever you want.  I just hate seeing you working at a job you don’t need or love.” 
 He gave her a kiss. 
 “When I saw this place and thought about us here,” he said.  “I felt like all the pieces are just snapping into place.  So what do you think?”
 “What do I thin...

About this edition

• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0312581580
• ISBN 13: 9780312581589
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272