Umm, yeah, no. The sign is nowhere near official, and even if it were, there’s no real crosswalk on the street and this white-haired shirtless dude doesn’t have a board. But no way am I saying that, because (A) I just screamed like a 1950s housewife, and (B) I don’t do confrontation. Especially not with a boy who looks like he’s just inhaled a pipeful of something cooked up in a dirty trailer.
His brown-haired buddy has the decency to be wearing a shirt while jaywalking. On top of that, he’s ridiculously good-looking (ten points) and trying to pull his jerky friend out of the road (twenty points). And as he does, I get a quick view of a nasty, jagged line of dark-pink scars that curves from the sleeve of his weathered T-shirt down to a bright red watch on his wrist, like someone had to Frankenstein his arm back together a long time ago; maybe this isn’t his first time dragging his friend out of the road. He looks as embarrassed as I feel, sitting here with all these cars honking behind us, and while he wrestles his friend back, he holds up a hand to my dad and says, “Sorry, man.”
Dad politely waves and waits until they’re both clear before cautiously stepping on the gas again. Go faster, for the love of slugs. I press my sore tongue against the inside of my teeth, testing the spot where I bit it. And as the drugged-out blond dude continues to scream at us, the boy with the scarred arm stares at me, wind blowing his wild, sun-streaked curls to one side. For a second, I hold my breath and stare back at him, and then he slides out of my view.
Red and blue lights briefly flash in the oncoming lane. Great. Is this kind of thing considered an accident here? Apparently not, because the police car crawls past us. I turn around in my seat to see a female cop with dark purple shades stick her arm out the window and point a warning at the two boys.
“Surfers,” Dad says under his breath like it’s the filthiest swearword in the world. And as the cop and the boys disappear behind us along the golden stretch of sand, I can’t help but worry that Dad might have exaggerated about paradise. 
LUMIèRE FILM FANATICS COMMUNITY
PRIVATE MESSAGES>ALEX>ARCHIVED
@alex: Busy tonight?
@mink: Just homework.
@alex: Wanna do a watch-along of The Big Lebowski? You can stream it.
@mink: blink Who is this? Did some random frat boy take over your account?
@alex: It’s a GOOD MOVIE. It’s classic Coen Brothers, and you loved O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Come on . . . it’ll be fun. Don’t be a movie snob.
@mink: I’m not a movie snob. I’m a FILM snob.
@alex: And yet I still like you. . . . Don’t leave me hanging here, all bored and lonely, while I’m waiting for you to get up the courage to beg your parents for plane tickets to fly out to California so that you can watch North by Northwest on the beach with a lovable fellow film geek. I’m giving you puppy eyes right now.
@mink: Gee, drop hints, much?
@alex: You noticed? grin Come on. Watch it with me. I have to work late tonight.
@mink: You watch movies at work?
@alex: When it’s not busy. Believe me, I’m still doing a better job than my coworker, a.k.a. the human blunt. I don’t think he’s ever NOT been high at work.
@mink: Oh, you deviant Californians. shakes head
@alex: Do we have a date? You can do your homework while we watch. I’ll even help. What other excuses do you have? Let me shoot them down now: you can wash your hair during the opening credits, we can hit play after you eat dinner, and if your boyfriend doesn’t like the idea of you watching a movie with someone online, he’s an idiot, and you should break up with him, pronto. Now, what do you say?
@mink: Well, you’re in luck, if you pick another movie. My hair is clean, I usually eat dinner around eight, and I’m currently single. Not that it matters.
@alex: Huh. Me too. Not that it matters. . . .
“I shut everybody out. Don’t take it personally.”
—Anna Kendrick, Pitch Perfect (2012)
2
* * *
I’d seen my dad’s new digs during our video chats, but it was strange to experience in person. Tucked away on a quiet, shady street that bordered a redwood forest, it was more cabin than house, with a stone fireplace downstairs and two small bedrooms upstairs. It used to be a vacation rental, so luckily I had my own bathroom.
The coolest part about the house was the screened-in back porch, which not only had a hammock, but was also built around a redwood tree that grew in the middle of it, straight through the roof. However, it was what sat outside that porch in the driveway that jangled my nerves every time I looked at it: a bright turquoise, vintage Vespa scooter with a leopard-print seat.
Scooter.
Mine.
Me on a scooter.
Whaaa?
Its small engine and tiny whitewall tires could only get up to forty mph, but its 1960s bones had been fully restored.
“It’s your getaway vehicle,” Dad had said proudly when he brought me out back to show it to me the first time. “I knew you had to have something to get to work this summer. And you can drive yourself to school in the fall. You don’t even need a special license.”
“It’s crazy,” I’d told him. And gorgeous. But crazy. I worried I’d stand out.
“There are hundreds of these things in town,” he argued. “It was either this or a van, but since you won’t need to haul around surfboards, I thought this was better.”
“It’s very Artful Dodger,” I admitted.
“You can pretend you’re Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.”
God, he really knew how to sell me. I’d seen that movie a dozen times, and he knew it. “I do like the retro leopard-print seat.”
And matching helmet. I therefore christened the scooter Baby, as a nod to one of my all-time favorite films, Bringing Up Baby—a 1930s screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn as a mismatched pair who become entangled by a pet leopard, Baby. Once I’d decided on the name, I committed. No going back now. It was mine. Dad taught me how to use it—I rode it up and down his street a million times after dinner—and I would eventually find the nerve to ride it around town, come hell or high water or drugged-out jaywalking surfers.
Dad apologizes for having to work the next day, but I don’t mind. I spend the day unpacking and driving my scooter around between jet-lagged naps on the porch hammock. I message Alex a few times, but keeping up the illusion of what I’m doing with my summer is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Maybe it will be easier once I’ve gotten my sea legs here.