When the World Tips Over

Miles meets Felix Rivera as he is leaving the hospital. Felix says Miles glows.

Miles and Sandro the dog telepathically discuss their desire to see Cassidy again. Miles feels unable to look at Wynton or hug his mother and, since his dean contacted his mother, he feels that he is no longer Perfect Miles. Outside the hospital, Miles encounters Madison, who was there the night Miles woke up in a dumpster. Madison reveals that Miles was driving the truck and smashed into the statue of Alonso Fall, and Wynton took the blame for him. Miles has arranged to meet a man he found online, Rod, but Felix pulls Miles out of Rod’s truck. They walk into the forest, and Miles thinks about being able to wake up Wynton.

Alonso is 12 when he sees a boy reading under a tree. The boy is floating in the air but puts rocks in his pockets to hold him to earth. Alonso and the boy, Sebastian, become best friends, but Alonso also knows he is in love with Sebastian. Alonso’s brother Hector is so jealous that he begins eating the house he shares with Alonso, and he grows enormous. Their mother, Sofia, reveals that Alonso’s father was a poet, Esteban. Alonso and Sebastian kiss. Alonso wonders, “If there are family curses that drop through time, mustn’t there also be family blessings that do the same?” (241).

Sandro, who goes with Miles and Felix on their hike in the woods, describes Felix as a rapturous human being. Miles is attracted to Felix for his looks as well as the way he marvels at everything around him. Miles feels, “he’s somehow walked out of his life and into a new one, a much better one” (246). Felix talks about his interest in culinary school but won’t say why he left Colorado. He is bisexual but tells Miles he is unavailable. Miles is disappointed.

Cassidy resumes her story to Wynton about the second betrayal. In the story, she and her mother arrive in Paradise Springs and realize it is The Town. At first sight, it appears to be floating in the air.

Cassidy and her mother park in front of Dave Caputo’s house. Cassidy feels hopeful and excited at the first sight of him; “this is a moment of tumbling joy for me” (254) and at first she thinks they are Dave’s rescuers, too. Then a woman with two children appears. Dave explains that he is married. He pretended not to be because he wanted the life of freedom that Marigold and Cassidy have; he says he “[f]elt more at home in your life than I ever have in mine” (258). After leaving the campsite and returning home, he told his wife that he wanted to end their marriage, but she asked him to stay for just a few days, and soon his month with Marigold and Cassidy started to feel like make-believe. Cassidy, feeling dirty and smelly and crushed, runs away.

Cassidy ends up in a meadow, where she sees a boy playing a violin. His playing sounds exactly like how Cassidy feels, and she feels lit up by him. Wynton says he can hear his absent father playing trumpet often, and he follows the sound. Cassidy shares that her dad is dead. Wynton says his mother’s soufflés make people fall in love. He takes her to The Town, and Cassidy runs back to her mother: “Because she, and she alone, is my destiny. No one else” (267). Dizzy delivers a soufflé. She tells Cassidy that she and her brothers are named after their father’s favorite trumpet players. As Cassidy eats it, she sees Wynton sitting on the roof of a nearby building. The moment is magical, and she’s certain she loves him.

Wynton thinks about what playing violin meant to him, and what it will mean if he never plays again. He thinks he “played an instrument that could do anything, make a rose bloom in someone’s hand, a bomb detonate in their heart, a staircase reach all the way to a star” (271).

Felix is driving Miles and Sancho north to the town with hot springs where Felix met Cassidy. They hope to find her, as Miles believes she can wake Wynton. Miles is intensely attracted to Felix, who reminds him of the romance hero Jericho Blane. Miles listens as Felix relates the stories Cassidy told him about the Fall family. Bernadette’s note to Miles reveals her understanding that, while he is beautiful, he is also lost.

The truck runs out of gas, and Felix and Miles stop by the side of the road. Miles tells Felix about his recent struggles and how, after the night with Wynton, it was “like everything in me powered down” (283), but with Felix, he feels he is coming alive again. He describes how his father left them and his mother, who says he is her beshert, a Yiddish word which means “both destiny and your destiny in a person” (287), like a soul mate. Miles and Felix confide in one another about their past crushes. They discover that Dizzy is in the truck bed.

Diego wants Alonso to marry Maria Guerrero, though neither Alonso nor Maria wants to marry. Alonso plans to escape to California with Sebastian and Maria. At the last moment, Sebastian says he can’t go, so Alonso sails away with Maria and six of her father’s grape vines.

Dizzy stowed away because she believes Cassidy is an Energy Being who can help Wynton. She brought gumbo, and the three of them feed one another, then lie down to sleep in the truck bed. Dizzy is happy to be close to Miles and says he smells the color of a California poppy. Miles wonders if it is somewhat his fault that he isn’t close with his siblings. Felix asks Miles to describe what is around them, and Miles, once again, feels that “he was somehow talking a new person into existence, and that new person was himself, the real deep-down him” (311). In the morning, he spots a nearby farm, and Felix continues the tale Cassidy told him.

Alonso and Maria settle in a valley north of San Francisco and plant the vines. They live together like brother and sister and are happy, naming the place Paradise. They build a white house and bottle their wine, which becomes famous. Maria says she would like a baby, so she and Alonso have Bazzy. Sebastian arrives, and Alonso is overjoyed at their reunion, at which they both float into the air, kissing. Sebastian establishes a bakery in town.

Miles feels as if he has moved into the story of Alonso and Sebastian. He calls his mother and tells her some of the story. Dizzy is sure Alonso and Sebastian are the kissing ghosts she sees in the vineyard. Miles tells Dizzy he is gay and feels “like his heart was expanding in his chest in fast motion” (329).

Bazzy is 16 when Hector arrives at the vineyard with Victor, his son. Hector shoots Alonso. Sebastian shoots Hector, then dies of grief. Victor vows he will kill Bazzy to avenge his father, since he cannot kill his father’s killer, Sebastian, who is already dead. Bazzy enlists in the army, marries a woman named Ingrid, and returns home with a son, Theo. Victor moves into the house, marries a woman named Eva, and has a son, Clive. The ghosts of Alonso and Sebastian witness Victor’s murder of Bazzy when he is 24. Victor inherits the vineyard. Maria flies around the vineyard before she dies. Eva raises Theo as Clive’s brother. An illustration shows the Fall family tree concluding with Theo and Clive.

Wynton identifies with Hector. He realizes something that makes his heart stop.

Miles and Dizzy are upset to hear that Wynton had to be resuscitated. Miles wants to be a brother to Wynton, and a person again. They reach the town with the hot springs. Cassidy isn’t there, but they get directions to her house on Dandelion Road. They knock on the door, and Miles and Dizzy’s father opens it. Bernadette writes of a dream of losing her teeth.

Dizzy is euphoric at seeing her father and thinks “this was the best end of a treasure hunt in the history of treasure hunts” (343). She realizes she has seen her father outside the family vineyard. Sandro leaps into Theo’s arms. Dizzy clings to her father’s hand and feels that “[g]race has crashed into all of them” (345).