Meant to Be (10 page)

What is going on w/you and JL? Back off already —SF

E
mbarrassment, anger, misery: SF. Sarah Finder. Has to be. It’s hardly a secret that she looks at Jason as though he’s the best thing to happen to the world since fat-free cookies. I feel like my head is going to spin off my shoulders. Thank God she didn’t bother to confront me in person, because I’m certain that would have pushed me over the edge. I would have barfed for sure.

I read the text again. Back off? I can’t believe she thinks I’m
on
. She must have thought our wrestling match was
flirting
(gag). Apparently, she missed the part where I actually wanted to grind Jason into a bloody pulp. I chuck my phone into my bag in disgust.

“Would you please hurry up?” I call back to Jason. The afternoon has gone from bad to worse. First we went the wrong way when we left the Tate; then Jason made fun of me when I pulled out my guidebook, complete with Post-it notes and a flagged foldout map; then I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and nearly tumbled into a group of tourists.

“What is your freakin’ rush?” Jason snaps, trotting up to walk beside
me. “Look around. It’s gorgeous. Can’t you calm down for one hot second?”

He’s right, of course, but I won’t admit it. We’re finally heading the right way, east along the river through Millbank. The buildings all around us are carved stone and rusty brick and copper that’s turned green over hundreds of years of rain. I know from my reading back in Boston that we’re breezing past enough history to fill more than ten volumes. I nearly stop to point out the Chelsea College of Art and Design, which used to be the Royal Army Medical College, where they developed the vaccine for typhoid. But I know any mention of nineteenth-century history and disease will only be met with some epic eye rolling from Jason, so instead, I charge on along our path, shaded by trees and curving with the river.

“I want to get this over with so I can get back to the hotel and swim some laps before dinner,” I reply, gazing over the low stone wall and on to the dark waters of the Thames. The fresh air rushing down is helping my headache, but I still want to dive into the pool and work out some of this tension. The invitational is today, and I can’t help wishing I were there, especially after what happened this morning.

“Laps?” Jason arches one eyebrow.

“You have your hangover cures; I have mine.”

“You any good?” he asks, quickening his pace to walk next to me.

“Excuse me?”

“Swimming. You any good?”

“I’m okay,” I reply, wondering what kind of answer he’s looking for.

“Just okay?” he says incredulously. “Didn’t you win state in the women’s hundred-meter butterfly the last two years in a row?”

“And the hundred-meter freestyle,” I add. Then I stop. “How did you know that?” I whip around on the street so I’m face to face with him. He immediately takes a step back.

“I mean, I think I saw something about it in the paper or whatever.
Don’t get all obsessed with yourself over it,” he says, pushing his hands deep into his jeans pockets, walking past me with his bobbing strut. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“I figured we could hit the National Gallery,” I say, now matching his pace. “It’s easy to get to, and it’ll be easy to find good material for the essay. They have van Gogh’s
Sunflowers
on display, and I would totally love to see that. Van Gogh always makes an interesting essay. Or we could write about a series of Renaissance paintings and their historical context.”

“And by ‘we,’ you mean you,” Jason says, still marching forward, dodging tourists taking photos of the view along and across the Thames.

“No way.” I have to double my pace to keep time with his long, lanky legs, and I have the sudden realization that
I’m
now following
him
. “Our deal was for the reflection papers, which are only three hundred words. Thanks to you, we owe Tennison an extra
thousand
words, so I think you’ll be helping.”

“Actually,
you
jumped
me
. So I think that knocks my liability down to somewhere in the range of two hundred fifty words.” Jason nearly walks into a woman teetering around on platform wedges. He jumps to her right to avoid a full-on takedown. “It takes two to tango … or wrestle on the floor of the Tate, as the case may be.”

“You forced me into it!” I say. “Five hundred words, minimum.” As the words come out of my mouth, I can hardly believe I’m negotiating with him.

“Three hundred twenty-five, and that’s my final offer,” he says over his shoulder.

“Whatever.” I am not interested in starting another fight, and I clearly can’t trust him to do the work, anyway. I’m starting to wish he would go back to ignoring me, as he has always done in the past. “If you could just cooperate with me for the next hour, we could get this essay done
and
actually learn something. I really want to see the Caravaggio!”

“Snooze!” Jason drops onto a bench along the path, tilts his head back, pulls his ball cap over his eyes, and starts loudly snoring. A giant red tour bus is emptying out right in front of us, its passengers already armed with cameras, ready to snap shots of the boats cruising along the Thames. An elderly man actually turns his camera on Jason, snapping a photo as if he’s some kind of performance artist.

“And you have a better suggestion?” I say, trying to suppress my bubbling rage. He springs back to his feet and starts marching down the sidewalk, continuing east along the curved river.

“I do, actually. Follow me.”

Jason gives me a wave and then mimes a dive right into a knot of camera-toting tourists. Americans, if the American-flag T-shirts are to be believed. I’m imagining what might happen if I ditch him and head to the National Gallery on my own when I catch a flash of Jason’s Sox cap bobbing through the crowd. Before I can question the decision, I take off after it.

As we walk, the sun disappears behind a patch of clouds. The day instantly becomes one of those classic cloudy London-fog days. A cool breeze blows off the Thames. The river is dotted with rowers, clad in rugby shirts and Windbreakers, slicing through the water in shiny red boats. The low stone wall gives way to a wrought iron fence spiking up out of the grass. I can see the towers of Westminster Abbey peeking through the trees and buildings ahead. It’s just like a movie. And even though I’m hungover, following Jason to god knows where, I am overcome with love for London. It has yet to let me down. Dad was right. Screw Paris; London is the city for me.

I’m taken out of my reverie, though, as Jason leads us off the paved path and down an embankment, where we crunch along a narrow gravel path closer to the river’s edge. The path is dotted with broken glass and bits of trash, and it’s clear that this is not meant to be traveled by tourists.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“We’re almost there,” he says, charging ahead as if he isn’t leading us somewhere creepy or potentially dangerous.

“That is
not
the answer to the question I asked,” I reply. He slows a little so that I can fall into step next to him.

“Are you always this intense?”

“Yes,” I reply, because I know that saying no would only be the start of another argument.

“Well, at least you’re honest. Intense and honest,” he says, trudging toward the base of a bridge ahead.

“Again, where are we—” I start, but Jason interrupts me.

“We’re here.” He points to the scenery before us.

“Here” is a kind of concrete cave bounded overhead by a bridge rumbling with car traffic. Underneath the bridge, the concrete curves alongside the hill leading up to the street, forming not only a perfect canvas for street artists, but an ideal half-pipe for the band of dirty skate punks risking their lives (without helmets!) zipping up and down it. Skaters are flipping and twisting off a few scattered ramps. We’d be in almost total darkness were it not for the swirling intensity of the spray paint covering every available surface, the bright colors giving the illusion of light. From any vantage point on the path or the bridge, the entire park would be completely hidden.

“What is this place?” I ask.

“Underground skate park!” he replies over his shoulder. He starts jogging around the space, vaulting off various ramps. “Cool, huh?”

“But what are we
doing
here?” I’m still feeling disoriented: the swirl of motion and colors is dizzying, and the space echoes with the sounds of kids shouting to each other. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’re supposed to be writing an essay about art and culture.”

“Are you kidding? There’s plenty of art and culture here,” Jason says, heading back toward a concrete barrier covered in colorful graffiti
on the far side of the park. “Maybe even more than at the crusty old National Gallery.”

I decide to let the comment about the National Gallery being “crusty” and “old” slide (especially since 187 years is practically a baby when you’re talking about a city that was settled by Romans in AD 43) and instead follow him to the wall. Jason runs his hand over the concrete, chipped and cracked, but covered with some pretty impressive graffiti tags. There’s no discernible shape or pattern, just swirls and explosions of paint. The color is so vibrant it looks like it’s about to burst off the wall. It kind of reminds me of the Mondrian we saw earlier at the Tate.

“It’s cool, right?” Jason asks, running his fingers over the wall. With his bright red hair, he looks almost like he could step right into the painting.

“Yeah,” I admit, moving away from the wall toward a huge boulder closer to the river’s edge. It’s painted to look like a psychedelic Easter egg.

“Thank you,” Jason says, taking a slight bow. “Better than the National Gallery?”

“I still want to see the
Sunflowers
,” I reply, unable and unwilling to let him win so easily, “but this is pretty great.”

“I’ll take that,” he says with a smile like that of a little boy who got an A on his very first test. He ambles off in the opposite direction, toward another concrete wall with a series of spray-painted stencils. They’re not Banksy tags like the ones I’ve seen online, but they’re good approximations. A series of spray-painted black rats depicts the evolution of man. There are also a number of poorly painted anarchist symbols, but most of the images are impressively detailed. In the middle of the wall, there’s what appears to be a giant hole in the concrete, through which you can see a busy street scene. I actually have to step closer to realize it’s all a spray-painted illusion.

In the corner of the park, a grungy-looking skater boy in skinny
jeans and an even skinnier (and, I assume, ironic) Justin Bieber T-shirt picks up an acoustic guitar covered with an array of battered, peeling stickers. As he positions the leather strap over his shoulder, I half expect to hear a crushing rendition of the latest emo punk single. But instead, he begins gently plucking the opening notes to one of my all-time favorite Beatles songs, “Here, There, and Everywhere.” I’m shocked by how talented he is: his version is beautiful and slow, with some small riffs on the melody. I close my eyes to listen, and for a minute, my hangover disappears. The Beatles played live on the banks of the Thames: a perfect London moment.

“You okay?” Jason asks, putting his hand on my shoulder.

“Yeah, I just completely love this song,” I reply, leaning my head back to take in the sky and sucking in a deep breath. Mom walked down the aisle to this song, and my parents had a tradition of dancing to it every year on their anniversary, even if their dance was only a two-minute twirl around the living room.

“Yeah. The Beatles. Pretty good,” he replies.

I snap my head around so fast I risk nerve damage, turning to stare directly at him.

“Pretty good?”
I say incredulously. “Let me be clear: the Beatles are the best band ever to walk the face of the earth, and if you can’t recognize their genius, I hardly understand how you have enough sense to dress yourself in the morning!” It’s the exact speech my dad gave to my grandfather when he had the gall to question the Beatles’ greatness. Of course, that was before I was born, but Mom still repeats the story from time to time, laughing about how Dad was so puffed up that Grandpa couldn’t even formulate a response.

“Down, girl!” Jason says, holding up his hands. “I’m a fan.”

He wanders away, I assume in an attempt to escape my insanity, and I turn back to some of the paintings around me. There’s a spot where many layers of spray paint in a rainbow of colors have started to peel
away. An industrious artist has taken some tool or another to carve out the lyrics to Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls.” It’s somehow beautiful.

“Hey, Jason,” I say, waving over my shoulder to show it to him, but when I turn, he’s gone. I scan the park and see that he’s wandered over to the street musician, who is adjusting the tuning on his guitar. Jason takes out his wallet and passes the guy some cash, which the guy takes, and in exchange he hands over his guitar.

Oh God. What is he doing?