Almost V

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I'd seen my dad's new house during our video calls, but it was strange to experience it in person. Tucked away on a quiet, shady street that bordered a forest, it was more cabin-like than a 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 it had a hammock, but also a built around a tree that grew in the middle of it, straight through the roof. However, it was what sat outside that porch in the driveway that makes my nerves tingle every time I looked at it: a light pink Vespa scooter with a polka-dot print seat.

Scooter.

Mine.

Me on a scooter.

What?

Its small engine and tiny tires could only get up to forty mph, but its vintage looks had been fully restored.

"It's your getaway vehicle," Appa said proudly when he brought me out 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 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 the city," he argued. "It was either this or a van, but since you don't need to haul around surfboards, I thought this was better."

"It's very cliche," I admitted.

"And yet, you'll look stunning driving this in your fashionista's outfits."

Man, he really does know how to sell me. "I do like the polka dots, very cute."

And a matching helmet. I therefore named the scooter Eggie, as a reference to being the maknae/baby of the family. once I'd decided on the name, I committed. No going back now. It was mine. Appa 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 the city, come hell or high water or drugged-out jaywalking surfers.

Appa apologizes for having to work the next day, but I don't ming. I spent the day unpacking and drving my scooter around between jet-lagged naps on the hammock. I messaged V 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.

After my day of rest and a night with Appa playing our favorite board game, I'm forced to put my new-found independence to the test. Finding a summer job was one of my reasons for coming out here, but Appa pulled some strings. That sounded fine enough when I was back in Seoul. Now that I'm here, I'm sort of regretting that I agreed to it. Too late to back out, though. "The summer tourist season waits for no one," Appa cheerfully says when I complain.

Appa wakes me up super early when he goes to work, but I accidentally fall back asleep. When I wake up again, I'm running late, so I get dressed in a flash and run out the door. One thing I didn't expect when I loved out here is all the morning coastal fog. It keep things cool until midmorning, when the sun burns it away. Sure, the fog has a certain quiet allure, but now that I have to drives a scooter through appa's neighborhood, where it's occasionally hanging low and reaching through branches like fingers, it's not my favorite thing in the world.

Armed with a map and a knot in my stomach, I face the fog and drive Eggie into the city. Appa alreayd showed the way through his car, but I still repeat the directions in my head over and over at every stop sign. It isn't even 9 a.m. yet, so most of the streets are clear until I got to Big Hit Avenue. Where I'm going is only a few blocks away on this road, but I have to drive past the boardwalk (Ferris wheel, music blasting), watch out for tourists crossing the road to get to the beach after hanging at the IHOP for breakfast - which smells AMAZING, by the way - and OMO, where did all these skaters come from?