I turn to him and smile, wanting to believe he might be right. And then his head whips toward the windshield and we screech to a stop.
My seat belt feels like a metal rod slapping across my chest as I jerk forward and brace my hands on the dash. Brief pain shoots through my mouth and I taste copper. ?e high-pitched squeal that comes out of me, I realize, is entirely too loud and dramatic; apart from my biting my own tongue, no one’s hurt, not even the car.
“You okay?” Dad asks.
More embarrassed than anything else, I nod before turning my attention to the cause of our near wreck: two teen boys in the middle of the street. ?ey both look like walking advertisements for coconut tanning oil—tousled sun-lightened hair, board shorts, and lean muscles. One dark, one light. But the towheaded one is mad as hell and pounds the hood of the car with his sts.
“Watch where you’re going, dickwad,” he shouts, pointing to a colorful hand-painted wooden sign of a line of surfers marching their boards through an Abbey Road–looking crosswalk. ?e top says: WELCOME TO CORONADO COVE. ?e bottom reads: BE KIND—GIVE SURFERS RIGHT-OF-WAY.
Umm, yeah, no. ?e 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 rst 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 brie y ash 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 lthiest 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 replace downstairs and two small bedrooms upstairs. It used to be a vacation rental, so luckily I had my own bathroom.
?e 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?
