You know that weird feeling you get when the train next to you is moving, but yours is standing still? That's Aisley Sullivan's entire life. When Aisley ventures down to the "forbidden" railroad trestle on her fifteenth birthday, she chances upon a teenage runaway. Aisley falls fast as they spend the summer together - swimming in the creek, talking by firelight, jumping a train, and even getting picked up by the cops - until one day he disappears without a word, leaving her heartbroken with no way to find him. Fifteen years later, a family tragedy draws her back to her hometown where a memento from their summer together inspires a railroad expedition across the country in search of her "roving vagabond." Resorting to hypnotism and an amateur private investigator, Aisley is determined to find her first love and, hopefully, happiness at last. But sometimes life goes off the rails. And what she discovers about herself along the way may change her whole perspective. Bouncing seamlessly from flashbacks to present time, Kathrine Grey blends the modern brilliance of Alice Sebold with the literary feminism of Kate Chopin, as she examines what happens when reality falls short of expectations.