Lifeguard Jeon

° T W O °

There won't be any thing for her to do in the summer," Appa yelled to Eomma when they were having one of the fights they somehow assume I couldn't hear. I sat in my room helpless. "She's in her third year of college, not doing anything with her life. What is she going to do all day?"

Eomma wasn't concerned about doing. She wasn't a structure freak or an ex-Marine like my appa. "Irene lives at the beach," she said in a weary voice, like that should've explained everything.

What she wanted most was to have me live freely and doing what ever makes me happy, and to be away from their fights. The beach was a good alternative and probably their only one. Without asking, I knew they wouldn't have money anymore to send me to those college camps to help you find your major.

"Why can't I just stay home with you?" I asked Eomma.

"It's hot here," she replied. "I want you to have a real summer."

A second later I was gone.

° ° ° ° °

Irene seems okay with having me, although I can't imagine why. Maybe to her I'm some new specimen - the teenager loser artifact - to study like a butterfly trapped in a jar. Still, she's the relax type, independent. Totally not uptight. She's six years older than me and she lives by her own rules, which is why she's happy on her own in a creaky beach house with unmatched furniture and weird specimens everywhere - from cacti from the desert to exotic seashells, masks, and necklaces of animals' teeth.

I guess Cousin Irene has so much life around her that she doesn't need a husband and kids, or maybe doesn't want them. I don't know because I never ask her.

"You don't ask unmarried people why they're not married because it's an embarrassing question, like why didn't you get asked to prom," Eomma once told me, so I remembered that.

I'm relieved that Irene isn't married. If she were I'd have to deal with two people wondering what I'm thinking all day. The truth is I often try not to think, escaping to art or zoning to a safe place in my head where it doesn't even matter if my parents are together or not.

"How do you split up someone's life?" I asked IU before I left. "Will my dad take my things from birth to twelve, and my mom from twelve to twenty?" I was only half joking. "Will the rest be dumped into garbage bags like clothes from a dead person and hauled off to the thrift store?"

"You'll still be you," she said. "That's what counts. You won't change, you know?"

I didn't.

I didn't know anything. My brain was on mute along with my life. I'd walk into a room to get something and then forget what it was. I'd stare into my closet unable to come up with a basis for picking one outfit over another, as if it actually mattered anyway. And when I opened the fridge or went to the store, there was food everywhere, but noting I wanted.

So why not move to a different city.

At least I'm in a house with a real animal. I fell for Joy at first sight. She's sad and have bright eyes. But even though I'm dog-crazy, I'm almost glad we don't have a dog back home because of a story I once heard. A married couple who had a dog they both loved desperately was splitting up. They were so angry with each other though that neither of them wanted to give the other the satisfaction of getting the dog.

The one who suffered most was the dog.

He ended up abandoned at a shelter.

° ° ° ° °

Maybe Irene knows things like that happen. Maybe that's why she never got married. Anyway, she seems to have this sixth sense about making people feel better, because before I arrived she bought me a present.

"Close your eyes," she says. When I open them a wooden easel is in front of me.

"I love it," I say. I really do. It is the perfect gift. It feels like someone just crowned me a world famous artist. I'd never had an easel before and just looking at it makes me feel important. I think she found it at a garage sale or something because it has little splatters of paint on it from the person who owned it before. Based on nothing, my imagination decided that the previous owner was an extraordinary painter who transferred mythical powers to the easel, and now it is my responsibility to uphold that artist legacy. Of course, if I told anyone something like that they'd just look at me and say, "You know, Suzy, you live in a total fantasy world."

And they'd be right.

Before I even unpack my bag, I set up the easel near the window. I had never done any sea pictures before. I'll watch the water in different lights and changing weather to know it and learn to draw it. I could do it, I decide, if I tried hard enough. All it will take is will power.

° ° ° ° °

What I didn't know then was that my entire summer at the ocean would be knowing new worlds. Things would happen that weren't supposed to. Miracles would come true. And for the first time in my life, I would find out what it means to fall completely in love. Only it would happen in a way even I could never imagined.

But let me start at the beginning.