ike a mad swarm of Starburst-colored killer bees, they flitter past Stearns Wharf, zip up State Street and buzz toward the breathtaking Courthouse, drawing quizzical looks and giggles from pedestrians and sidewalk diners along the way.
          They are the Vesparados, a local gang of Vespa scooter owners who have invited Delia and her Honda Metropolitan to join them on their weekly joy ride.
          It's the most fun she's had since that warm night last August when she and Rodrigo stood in front of the Mission's low floodlights - fully sober, mind you - and snorted with laughter as they cast spooky, 40-foot shadows across the building's wide, rosy face.
          Delia is delighted to find she fits in comfortably among these wacky bikers. Some are girls in polka-dot thrift store ensembles who have assigned their scooters names like "Sweet Pea" and "Scarlet." Some are guys with cartoonish flames painted on their fenders and ska bumper stickers plastered across their mod half-helmets.
          There is one boy in particular that revs Delia's single-cylinder four-stroke. His name is Simon, and he's a lanky software engineer who wears all black and rides his pumpkin-orange Vespa with a cloves cigarette dangling from his lips.
          "Delia, are you up for some soul food after this?" he asks when they stop next to each other at a light.
          "Santa Barbara has soul food?" she replies, stunned.
          "Well, no, first it would have to have soul," says Rose, a friendly graphic designer on a mint-green scooter. "That's Simon's way of inviting you for a hard-core ride down to Hollywood tonight for Roscoe's Chicken 'n' Waffles. Don't do it. It's endless hours of vibrating butt just so you can watch him mop the grease from his 5-o'clock shadow. And he doesn't put out."
          Delia could easily learn to love this oddball crew. But she won't get the chance tonight.
          As they whiz past the Courthouse, the building's majestic tower scrapes threateningly against the low, dark clouds overhead.
          "Shall we call it a night?" the guy in front says.
          "No way!" Delia responds before anyone else can, loathe to relinquish this unusual sense of belonging. "Let's motor! Who wants to race to Milpas?"
          Just then, the sky splits open, hurling gumball-sized raindrops at the earth and sending Vesparados zooming off in all directions for cover.
          "Wait, you guys, come back!" Delia hollers, whining engines and hissing rainfall drowning out her gravelly shout. "It's just a light shower, it'll clear up any minute! Simon, are we still on for soul food? Simon?"
          But they're all gone. Alone again and quickly becoming soaked, she reluctantly twists the throttle and begins sputtering back to her lonely cottage, slipping all over her vinyl seat as she rides.
          There is a steady stream of water running off her nose when she pulls up at the estate gates and punches in the new security code. The gates don't respond.
          "Oh, no," she says, unwilling to believe the Beachwoods would change the code again without telling her.
          But when they don't answer the courtesy phone, she begins scaling the fence, tearing an ugly gash in her now sponge-like sweater and re-spraining her ankle as she lands on the other side.
          Like some sort of ill-tempered lagoon monster, she hobbles hurriedly to the main house's back door with mascara oozing down her cheeks and phrases like "just a little common courtesy" and "the decency to let me know" forming in her hot head.
          She raps with gusto on the Dutch door, then raps again, but no one appears to be home. She puts her face against the glass and peers in to make sure they're not hiding from her - or worse, watching her through the window and laughing their warm, dry fannies off at her soggy frustration.
          Through the service porch, she can see into the magazine-perfect kitchen. Industrial stove, check. KitchenAid mixer in custom grape, check. Dozens of tiny baggies of pure white powder on butcher block island, check.
          Hold it, Delia thinks.
          She stares at the bags and is flooded with both shock and relief.
          My god, she says to herself, that explains everything.
          They're selling drugs.

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