Meant to Be Page 3

  My parents met as teenagers attending rival high schools. Mom had watched Dad across the football field for two seasons, always wanting to talk to him. One day she twisted her ankle while out on a run, and Dad’s was the first car to come by. He picked her up and drove her to the emergency room, and they were together all the way until he died. My mom has always said that it was fate, and I know she’s right. It could have been any old Good Samaritan who picked her up, but fate brought her my dad.

  Most people I know have parents who are separated or divorced or somewhere in between. But in all my memories of my parents together, they’re always laughing or dancing around the kitchen or holding hands. They had more bliss in the decade they were married than most people get in a lifetime.

  Fate worked for them, and it’ll work for me.

  That’s why Mark Bixford is the guy. I know it. I’ve only been in love with him since we were five, when he was my next-door neighbor. We did all the usual kindergarten-neighbor stuff: running through the sprinkler, riding bikes, trying to swing so high we’d flip over the bar. We’d pretend we were spies, war heroes, teachers, royalty, the president.… We even had a pretend wedding once. Mark went home to put on his black T-shirt (the closest approximation a five-year-old has to a tuxedo), I threw a pillowcase over my head for a veil, and an old stuffed lion I named Growly presided over the blessed event under the willow tree in my backyard. The wedding ended with my very first kiss, and I’ve been smitten with Mark Bixford ever since. On my sixth birthday, he presented me with a gallon-sized Ziploc bag filled with only the lemon Starbursts, my absolute favorite flavor. (They sort of remind me of lemon Pledge, and my favorite chore as a kid was helping my mom dust all the antiques in our house.) Mark had saved up his allowance to buy a case of Starbursts, then picked out the yellow ones for me.

  You see why I love him?

  But the next year his dad got transferred to Pittsburgh, and I thought he was gone forever. I resolved to find a new crush, but over the years I kept thinking about Mark, wondering if maybe our “wedding” might have been a sign, or a premonition.

  Now Mark’s back. As of August 19, exactly 232 days ago today. And I haven’t even looked at a single other guy since.

  Unfortunately, Mark has hardly looked at me at all. Phoebe once said he’s probably silenced by the force of his love for me, but I suspect he’s long since lost the memories of our backyard vows, of how we each took a turn snipping off a small tuft of Growly’s ratty old mane to symbolize our eternal bond. The slightly shorn lion still sits on the top shelf of my closet, looking a little lumpy and sad.

  So for the past 232 days, I’ve loved him quietly and from afar, waiting for the serendipitous event that will bring us together. It’s not that I’m too chicken to talk to him (okay, maybe a little bit). I simply think that if he’s the one (and he totally is), it’ll eventually happen naturally. I know it defies all logic and reasoning, but that’s how fate works.

  I’ve seen it.

  Surrounded by London’s tiny cars and cabs, our bus seems monstrous, like an elephant lumbering through a field of kittens. The only things even close to our size are the double-decker buses, which are everywhere. I keep having little moments of panic during which I think our bus driver has gotten drunk and is about to career into an oncoming car, only to remind myself that here in England they drive on the other side of the road.

  We pass signs for the London Underground, which look like the T-shirts I’ve seen at Urban Outfitters. The buildings around us curve with the roads. It’s exactly like I imagined, and yet still somehow better. And so far I’ve only seen it through the foggy window of a motor coach.

  When we escape the snarled traffic of Piccadilly Circus, we turn onto a street so narrow I’m sure our bus is going to get wedged between a pair of buildings. It’s a bit cloudy now, and with the height of the buildings around us, it’s hard to make out the area from my window seat.

  Finally, the bus rolls to a stop in front of our hotel. I stifle a gasp. The Soho Sennett Hotel is located in the trendy district populated by theaters, clubs, and record stores. The hotel itself looks like something out of a fairy tale. As I step off the bus onto a plush red carpet, I can tell I’m not going to have any problem with this. No problem whatsoever.

  “Right this way, miss.” A man in a heavily brocaded burgundy jacket gestures toward the double doors, which are already open and ready for us. A red-and-gold sign reading WELCOME, FRIENDS AND FAMILY sits on an antique brass stand.

  The hotel is owned by Mrs. Tennison’s husband’s brother (or Mrs. Tennison’s brother’s husband—I forget which). His company bought it last year, when it was only a row of town houses, and they recently finished a full gut renovation. Thanks to Mrs. T’s connection (and a rumored need to make up for some kind of family snub), my classmates and I are going to be some of the hotel’s first guests. We’re here to give the new staff a good trial run. Because really, if a hotel staff can survive twenty American teenagers, they can survive anything.

  It’s kind of unbelievable, really. Last year’s class stayed in a hostel, and Jenny Davis’s mattress had an infestation of bedbugs. She came home looking like she had chicken pox, and no one would go near her for a week.

  As soon as we’re in the door, Jason drops his bag on the floor and strolls over to the check-in desk, where a pretty redhead in a low-cut black wrap dress is tapping away at her computer. He folds his long torso over the marble counter and peers down at her screen. Before I can even wonder what he’s up to, the clerk is giggling and grinning and tossing her hair. I look away. I mean, really, I’m going to be watching this very same scene over and over again all week. No point in spoiling the disgusting film with a gross preview.

  Mrs. Tennison weaves through the group, pressing key cards into our palms and checking things off on her clipboard. Once I have mine, I drag my duffel to the grand staircase. On the third floor, I stop to roll my stiff shoulders, feeling completely sore and exhausted from the long flight. I make my way down the narrow hall, papered with a rich royal-purple-and-gold pattern. At the end of the hall, I arrive at a heavy mahogany door with a loopy number 315 stamped on a brass plate. After two tries with the electronic key card, the door swings open and my jaw hits the floor.

  The room is unbelievably small, maybe the size of a large walk-in closet, but it’s hard to care about that, given what’s inside. A queen-size bed dominates the room, anchored to the wall by a floor-to-ceiling distressed brown leather headboard with oversized brass buttons, which create a quilting pattern. A mountain of fluffy bright white pillows breaks up the color scheme, and a thick bronze-and-burgundy comforter shines across the top of the bed. Mahogany end tables flank the bed, and a matching armoire is sandwiched in the corner; its door is slightly ajar, revealing a sleek flat-screen TV and entertainment system.

  At the foot of the bed, on a raised bamboo platform nestled in the bay window, where one might normally find a window seat or a wingback chair, stands a lacquered bright white claw-foot bathtub. A beautiful, glistening, perfectly me-sized bathtub.

  I almost do a happy dance right there. (Okay, maybe I do actually do a small happy dance.)

  Two sets of roman shades cover the window, a white set for privacy and light and a burgundy set for sleeping. A recessed light overhead shines a spotlight down on the whole tableau. Outside, I can hear my classmates shouting down the halls. I hear the words “down comforter” and “Wii,” but all I can focus on is how desperately I want to climb into the tub and never leave.

  Something tells me there won’t be any bedbugs here.

  But before I can submerge my aching feet in the bath, I need to get unpacked. I cannot live out of a suitcase for ten days (okay, technically nine, since today is Friday and we leave next Saturday). I can practically feel my clothes wrinkling. Plus I think some of that iced coffee may have seeped through my duffel. I heave my duffel onto the luggage rack and then open it to get things unpacked and organized.

  I’ve st
arted separating my socks and underwear into different drawers in the armoire when I come across a pair of heels buried underneath my favorite Harvard hoodie. Phoebe insisted I bring them. She came over to my house the day before I left for the trip to help me pack, toting a few “necessities” (according to her) in her bag.

  “You must take these!” she said, holding up a pair of four-inch black leather gladiator heels with brass detailing.

  I scrunched up my nose. “Um, Phoebs? Aren’t those your prom shoes?”

  “I decided to go with the silver dress, so these don’t match.” Phoebe has great style, the kind you can’t find on the pages of Teen Vogue or Seventeen. Her wardrobe is a mess, an explosion of neon and distressed denim, pieces spanning numerous decades and as many styles. But get an outfit on her and step back? She always looks effortlessly cool. Of course, the designer mafia at school doesn’t recognize her genius. Marc Jacobs? Yes. Vintage? In theory. But Phoebe’s blend of Goodwill and DIY? They won’t have it. Her outfit that day consisted of a Rolling Stones logo tee that had been refashioned into a pencil skirt, and a pencil skirt refashioned into a vest. A little bit insane, but on her, it worked.

  “Don’t you want to return them?”

  “Hell no! They’re cute, and I’ll definitely wear them at some point,” she replied, dangling them in front of my face and wriggling her sparkly teal fingernails at me. Her aluminum bangles smacked together like an army marching a two-step. “And until that point comes, I definitely think that you, oh best friend of mine, should break them in.”

  “Those aren’t exactly ideal sightseeing footwear.”

  “It’s London! Adventure happens.” Phoebe doesn’t quite believe in fate the way I do. She says you have to chase your destiny, and she always expects life to be like a romantic comedy: all you have to do is dress the part of the heroine, and pretty soon you’ll be kissing some hottie while fountains spew and music swells in the background. Unfortunately, my life is more often like one of those cable-access channels with the grandmotherly woman who tells you how to make pies.

  “Not on a class trip,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and firmly shaking my head. “And not to me. Besides, they won’t fit in my suitcase.”

  “Maybe if you leave a couple of these behind,” she said, rolling her eyes as she pulled out a stack of books. “Dude, seriously, you can borrow my Kindle.”

  I made a face. I have my own e-reader, but I hardly ever use it. I need to fold down pages and flag passages with sticky notes. I need to experience books, not just read them. I never go anywhere without a book in my bag, and to travel across the ocean, I’d packed more than my fair share. “No thanks,” I said. I leaned over the bed toward her, but she danced to the other side of the room with my books. “I need book smell to drown out stale-airplane smell.”

  “You are such a grandma sometimes,” Phoebe said. I leaped over the bed and ran to grab them, but she held the stack high over her head, and I had to jump a little to try to reach them.

  “I need them!” I protested, reaching for the stack, which she quickly tugged away.

  “You don’t,” Phoebe replied, putting them back on my bookshelf. “You’re going to London, not Uganda. Even if you manage to finish your stash, they do have these things called bookstores there. I’ve heard tell that if you give them money, they let you leave with a book.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” She tossed the shoes into my suitcase, in the spot where my books had been.

  Now, with an ocean between us, I pull out the heels and line them up next to my flip-flops and my sensible sneakers in the closet. At least they’ll remind me of Phoebe. I pull out the five guidebooks I brought, flagged with approximately 212 Post-it notes, wipe the travel dust off their glossy covers, and stack them neatly on the nightstand. I step back to admire my handiwork. My end table looks like a page out of a travel magazine.

  Reaching back into my suitcase, I pull a small yellowed photograph from one of its interior pockets and smooth the edges, which are soft and curled from age. It’s my favorite picture of my parents, from their wedding day. My mom is wearing a simple white linen dress with an Empire waist and lace sleeves. Dad in his marine dress blues is behind her, his chin resting on her head. They’re both laughing hard at some off-camera joke, Mom starting to double over from whatever it was.

  As I tuck the photo into the frame of the mirror hanging over the vanity, I start to feel a knot forming in the pit of my stomach, tears welling up in my eyes. I deal with this the only way I know how: by dropping to the floor for a few quick push-ups. I will not cry on my first day in London. When I’ve cranked out a solid twenty push-ups, the tears are gone and the knot has loosened. Now for that hot bath.

  I jump up and set about lining up all my toiletries on the counter from tallest to shortest. I step out of my clothes, depositing them into the hotel-provided laundry bag, and slip into the white heavy-but-soft terry cloth robe bearing the monogram of the Soho Sennett Hotel. It’s clearly been designed for the supermodel who will probably have this room when I’m gone, and I have to pick up the front like a ball gown to make my way around the room. The sash is so long that I tug it off and hang it back on the hook. I drape a towel over the edge of the tub and crank the silver faucet to hot. As the tub fills with steamy water, I grab my tube of spot cream, this amazing organic zit stuff my mom picked up in Boston. The herbs in it give off an incredibly relaxing scent, but they also turn the cream an unfortunate shade of green. I start dabbing, and when I’m done, it looks like I’ve decorated my face with split pea soup. I drop my robe and put one foot into the hot water when I hear a knock at the door.

  “Who is it?” I call through the door, hoping it’s housekeeping and I can tell them to save it for tomorrow.

  “It’s Jason.”

  It takes me a full minute to realize that it’s Jason Lippincott standing outside my door and not some bellboy named Jason or the hockey mask—wearing psycho killer from the movies (who, honestly, is a more likely candidate to be standing outside my door than Jason Lippincott). I turn off the water and grab my robe. I can’t imagine what he wants, which means I have to open the door to find out. I tug my robe closed around my naked body, suddenly missing the sash, as I frantically try to shake some soapsuds off my right foot and hop toward the door.

  “What’s up?” I ask as I swing the door open, trying to act casual despite my state of undress. But I instantly forget that I’m (for all intents and purposes) naked when I see that he’s standing on the other side in perfectly distressed jeans and what looks to be a deep blue cashmere V-neck over a plain white tee. The sweater intensifies his blue eyes, and for the first time I understand why he won “Best Eyes” in last year’s yearbook superlatives. The faint smell of cologne wafts through the doorway, and I notice he’s added some kind of product to his hair to make it look like he walked out of a wind tunnel. This was not what he looked like during our bus ride through the city, when he had on a North Face fleece and a ratty Sox cap over his mop of rusty-red hair. The only thing that’s the same is the big wad of purple gum he’s smacking away at.

  As I’m standing there, taking in his suspiciously groomed physique, he fishes a pen out of his pocket, uncaps it, and steps toward me with the tip aimed straight at my face.

  “What are you doing?” I shriek, swatting his hand away.

  “Connecting the dots,” he says matter-of-factly. My hand flies to my face and comes away with a palm full of chartreuse speckles. “Good look, by the way. Very avant-garde,” he calls out as I rush to the sink to scrub the green goop from my face.

  Instead of responding, I march back to the door and give it a good hard swing, not really caring if it catches his pen, or one or two of his fingers. He’s too quick, though, and throws a hand up to stop it.

  “Wanna hit up a party?” he asks, stepping into my room as though I didn’t attempt to slam my door on him.

  “A what?” I adjust the robe. Clearly I hav
en’t heard him right.

  “A party,” he repeats, a wide grin spreading across his freckled face. “A lively gathering, typically involving music and drinking …”

  Too many questions are spinning around in my head to even land on one to ask. We’ve only been in the city about three hours, and most of that was spent on a tour bus with twenty of our classmates and one very frazzled English teacher. How did he get invited to a party? Where is this party taking place? And why on earth is Jason Lippincott standing at my door asking me to go with him? But I can’t ask all of these at once, so I settle on the simplest question that comes to mind.

  “What party?”

  “Well, I was downstairs in the bar, talking to this guy—”

  “You were in the bar?”

  “Chill out, officer, I was having a Coke,” he says, holding up his hands. “Anyway, there was a soccer game on TV—”

  “Football,” I say, correcting him. I have no idea why.

  “Whatever. Anyway, he’s got this girlfriend, and her parents are in Czechoslovakia—”

  “I think you mean the Czech Republic,” I say, correcting him again. I realize I sound like a shrew, but I’m kind of a stickler for history. And geography. And …

  Oh my God, I suddenly understand why people call me Book Licker.

  “What?” he asks, crinkling his nose in confusion. Of course, I can’t just let it go.

  “The Czech Republic. Czechoslovakia hasn’t existed for almost twenty years. So unless her parents are visiting 1992, they’re in the Czech Republic.”