Meant to Be Page 5

  And clearly he’s not, because he pulls me closer and says, “Listen, Rosalind, wanna go upstairs?”

  “Um, no. I’m not Rosalind,” I say, wrenching away from his embrace. “Rosalind is from As You Like It.”

  “I do like it,” he replies, shooting me a lecherous smile. “Let’s go.” He grabs my hand and starts to pull me from the couch, but my nerves have made my hands clammy with sweat. As he leans his body backward to haul me off the couch, his hand slips right out of mine. He stumbles back a few steps, pauses, wobbles, and then stumbles back a few more. One more step, and the back of his knee makes contact with the wide glass coffee table behind him. He is entirely too drunk to catch himself, or even protest. In fact, he seems only awake enough to enjoy the fall. That is, until his butt makes contact with the sheet of glass beneath him.

  The crash is deafening. It can be heard well over DJ Rock the Mic and the din of fifty-plus chatting, laughing partiers. The entire party goes silent as every eye whips toward the pile of glass and the drunken boy in the middle of the room.

  I’m the first to get my wits about me (probably because I’m the soberest one in the crowd), and I quickly jump up to help get him off the ground. He looks miraculously unscathed but is unlikely to stay that way if he starts stumbling around in a pile of glass shards.

  “What in the bloody hell?” screeches a tall blonde, teetering into the study on giant stilettos that make my strappy sandals look like baby booties. From the look of horror on her face, I gather she must be the hostess of this fiesta.

  Shockingly, the first person to speak is Drunky McDrunk, who mumbles from the floor something about Rosalind coming upstairs with him. He points a droopy finger my way.

  “My name’s not—” I say, but I’m quickly cut off.

  “Ugh, whatever,” she says, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him straight up. I’m surprised by her strength in heels, but maybe the adrenaline from an actual party crash is fueling her. Unfortunately, she turns that superhuman strength toward me. “Listen, Rosalind, Gabe’s an arse and I don’t blame you for launching him into inanimate objects. Just remember that there’s a lot of priceless crap around here, so watch where you chuck him, right?”

  She then turns on her heel, her blond hair whipping with such force I nearly duck, and drags Gabe toward the door. I’m left standing amid the glass shards while the party continues around me. Apparently, the show is over, and no one much cares that there’s a shattered table left behind.

  A tall, dark figure who looks like he stepped out of an Armani ad breezes past me. “Hot name,” he says, leaving a trail of some strong-smelling cologne in his wake.

  “I’m not …,” I start again, quieter this time, but there’s no point. Armani is gone.

  That’s when it hits me: I could be Rosalind. I could be anyone. Nobody seems to know the difference between Julia the rule-following, Shakespeare-reading, freestyle record—holding übernerd from Newton, Massachusetts, and Julia the girl who attracts all males of the species, who coolly disposes of boys by shoving them into glass-topped tables. I could be someone cooler, more confident, just for tonight, just for this party. I can be the über-Julia. The Julia who says witty things and drinks and has boys, sober or otherwise, hanging on her every word.

  I’m imagining myself in a circle of guys, a veritable buffet table of sexy hair and accents, when someone stumbles into me.

  “Oh jeez. So sorry. I swear, I’m quite the klutz, falling into lovely girls in the hallway,” says a very handsome sandy-haired Brit. “Though not as klutzy as poor Gabe, apparently. I saw what happened in there. Nice deflection. I’m Avery. Rosalind, was it?”

  “Actually, it’s Julia,” I say. Between Jason, always calling me Book Licker, and Gabe the town drunk, I’ve had enough of people mistaking my name, thankyouverymuch.

  “Ah, Julia, then,” he says, taking a sip of beer. His blond hair is starting to fall over his eyes. He reminds me a little bit of Mark, which sets my mind drifting to Phoebe’s text message, wondering what the “Mark news” could be.

  Avery does one of those casual hair flips that boys do, saying, “That was a pretty crazy scene in there. You didn’t cut yourself, did you?”

  “Oh, I’m fine,” I reply. “No big deal. He just came on a bit too strong is all.”

  “Gabe’s an arse,” he says. “But at least you can defend yourself.”

  “Oh, I’m ready for battle at a moment’s notice.” I flex my bicep, which I realize is shockingly defined from my regimen of laps and push-ups. I let my arm drop awkwardly before he mistakes me for some kind of she-hulk and runs away.

  “So you’re single, then?” he asks, his dark brown eyes looking at me expectantly.

  “What?” I shift in my heels, trying to dislodge one of the leather straps from my pinkie toe while I attempt to untangle the rather abrupt change of conversational direction.

  “I mean, if you don’t need defending,” he says, a little bit of red creeping into his cheeks, but on him it only gives that ruddy, athletic look of a rugby player. “I mean, er, well, I meant you don’t have someone to defend you. I guess. Well, that made very little sense. I was trying to be sly and find out if you had a boyfriend, but that was the opposite of sly, eh?”

  My mind is experiencing a thousand mini explosions. I have an Abercrombie ad standing in front of me, and he’s nervous. Talking to me. I try to be calm, but my hands flutter from my hair to my skirt to my purse. I take a deep breath, rest my hand on my hip, and get control of myself.

  “No worries,” I reply coolly. (Coolly?) “I do have a boyfriend, actually, but he’s back in the States. Hence the self-defense.” The lie comes effortlessly. I’ll have to thank Phoebe for dragging me to that week of drama camp at the community rec center.

  Shockingly, he looks disappointed. But he continues with questions. “So you’re from America, then?”

  “You couldn’t tell from the accent?”

  “First impressions often lie,” he says. (Oh, if only he knew …) “Where in the States?”

  “Boston,” I reply, which sounds much more cosmopolitan than Newton, a suburb of Boston that is basically the most boring place you can live and still see the skyline. But somehow even Boston doesn’t seem to fit, so I go on. “But I’m living in Manhattan right now.”

  “Wow,” he says, taking another sip of his beer. “I’ve always wanted to go to New York. What do you do there?”

  For a second my mind goes blank; I’m not sure which is more distracting: his gorgeous accent or his chiseled jawline. Then I remember the giraffe-like girls at the baggage claim, their coffee and their rolling bags and their shiny sedans. I remember the beauty Jason was chatting up at the curb. “Modeling,” I blurt out, rising up on my four-inch heels in hopes that he won’t notice that I’m more suited to join the Lollipop Guild than the cast of America’s Next Top Model. He appears to be buzzed enough to buy it, so I go on. “I’ve got a place downtown. I live with some of the other girls.”

  “That’s awesome,” he says, his eyes growing wide. I see him clutch his glass tighter. “Is that why you’re in London?”

  “Oh yeah,” I say, studying my nails. “I’m here for fashion week and doing a little print work.” Print work? Where the hell did I come up with that one? The lies have rolled off my tongue effortlessly, and I can already picture Mark in the role of my handsome American boyfriend who is oh so supportive of my modeling career but still misses me desperately when I travel. Avery hands me a heavy beer bottle, which makes my storytelling even more vivid. I’m talking about a Vogue spread when he pulls out his phone and asks me for my number. Old Julia screams in my head, This isn’t an emergency! But über-Julia knows better. What could it hurt, really? He hardly seems like a sex offender, what with the stumbling and mumbling. Plus he’s deliciously cute, and I’m not actually planning to answer his calls—if he calls at all. So I tell dorky Book Licker to shut it while über-Julia takes his iPhone out of his hand and taps my school-issued cell nu
mber into the shiny screen. Dad’s jersey number. Shakespeare’s birthday. My GPA. Done and done. I hand the phone back to him, letting my fingers linger on his palm for just a second.

  “I look forward to hearing from you,” I say before flashing him a smile, turning on my heel, and heading out of the room. I’m not quite sure where I’m going, but leaving seems like the cool thing to do. And I don’t even teeter on my borrowed heels as I go.

  Wait, wa? Mark has publiclyyy. // announced his luv 4 me??

  Haaaa a girl cn dreem. Too trd will skype toMorrr. —J

  I’m definitely teetering on my heels a couple of hours later, when Jason finally appears at my side in the living room. I was chatting with a handsome bloke wearing Bob Marley’s face on his ratty T-shirt, but he left to get me another drink. I was standing near the fireplace, using the mantel to support my weight. It seemed as good a time as any to respond to Phoebe’s text.

  As I lean away from the mantel to drop my phone back into my bag, I realize I’m wobbling. I’m not sure what all went from the various glasses and bottles into my body, but it seems to have done a number on my equilibrium. That’s a good word. Equilibrium. Equillllibriummmm …

  “What are you mumbling about?”

  “What?” I snap toward Jason’s voice.

  His freckled face and bemused grin sway into focus. “You keep saying ‘equilibrium.’ ”

  Oops, was that out loud? “Nothing, never mind.”

  “Having fun?” he asks, raising his reddish-brown eyebrows at me. I notice they look like little sunburned caterpillars, which causes me to break into a fit of giggles and hiccups so epic all I can do is nod in response. Jason pretends not to notice that I’ve come completely undone.

  “Great, let’s get out of here then, shall we?” He puts his hand on my lower back to steer me.

  “What’s the rush?” I ask, though it sounds more like “watsha russssssss.” I’m following him toward the door, using his shoulder to steady me and desperately trying to resist the urge to pet his soft cashmere sweater.

  “What do you mean?” Jason says, not even stopping in his pursuit of the exit. “I practically had to drag you kicking and screaming to this party, and now you want to stay?”

  “No, I’m fine to go,” I say—er, maybe slur. “But I do not need to be dragged around by you. Wait, that was bad shentensh shtructure.”

  “Great, a grammar lesson from a drunken Book Licker,” he mumbles, nudging someone out of his way as we barrel toward the door.

  “I’m not a Book Licker! I’m not a prude! I’m a PARTY GIRL!” I shout, and then let out one of those party girl “Woooooo!”s that I find so annoying when I’m sober. But they’re really fun to do. Really fun. I totally get what’s going on with the woo. Fun! “Wooooooo!”

  “All right, party girl,” he says, grasping me firmly by the hand. “But it’s time for the party to end.”

  “Why are your pantsh suddenly so on fire to get out of here?”

  “No reason,” he replies as we burst out onto the stoop, but not before a deep voice booms from within the house.

  “Hey, you little American shit. You assaulted my girlfriend.”

  Jason and I wheel around and come face to face with a very large, very drunk, and very mean-looking Brit with skunk-like neon streaks in his spiky bleached-blond hair. Even in my own drunken state I know immediately who his girlfriend must be: the girl Jason was talking to in the kitchen, the one with the emo-streak hair.

  “I absolutely did not,” Jason replies with way more courage than he should have when talking to this human mountain.

  “Jason, this is not the time to stand up for your”—hiccup—“character,” I whisper, finding a little clarity in my intoxication.

  “My mate said you were talking to her,” the guy says, challenging him. His eyes are angry and shot with red.

  “Well, sure, we had a chat,” Jason says with a shrug. “Mostly we talked about her wretchedly possessive and terribly unattractive boyfriend, which I take it is you.” I grab Jason’s arm, hoping to get him to stop talking. He rolls his eyes. “But I never touched her.”

  “Like hell you didn’t,” the human wall growls. “I’ll make you sorry.”

  “You don’t want to do that, friend,” Jason says, snarkily placing a hand on his shoulder.

  “And just why is that?”

  “Because my dad is a lawyer, and he’ll ruin your life if you lay a single fat finger on me.” It occurs to me right then that Jason is a little drunk, too, which can be the only reason he’s baiting this giant hunk of man.

  “Piss off,” the guy says, clenching his fists.

  “You know, I’m not particularly familiar with that British expression. Does that mean ‘Have a lovely night’?”

  “Jason!” I hiss, willing him to cool it so we can leave. I’m becoming more and more aware of my own intoxication, and the realization that I snuck out to go to a party on a class trip to get this way is really starting to freak me out. The thought I don’t want to be drunk anymore, I don’t want to be drunk anymore runs on a continuous loop through my head as I grasp on to the railing on the stoop, trying to stay upright.

  The British guy sneers at Jason. “It means I’m going to beat you into a bloody pulp and they’ll have to mail you back to your mum in a lunch box,” he says, rearing back a meaty fist. This makes me giggle a little, because it’s funny to hear a British meathead use the phrase “lunch box.”

  Luckily, Jason ducks in time for drunken prep school Gabe to walk by and receive the full force of the punch. Poor kid can’t catch a break, but I suspect he’s so drunk he’s not feeling much of anything at this point. Blazer and tie flapping out like wings, his body goes flying down the stoop and into the street, where a group of Arsenal fans are heading en masse to the closest tube station from a pub. They’ve clearly had a few postgame drinks themselves and are none too happy to be taken off their feet by a couple of teenagers.

  “Bloody hell! What do you think you’re doing?” shouts one of the men, grabbing drunken Gabe by the collar and shoving him back up the stoop and into the angry boyfriend, no easy feat. I’ve been completely rooted to the ground in shock, but as Gabe sails past me, I step back to avoid being taken out. I nearly topple off the stoop and into an ornately pruned rosebush in the process.

  “Piss off!” the boyfriend shouts, clearly lacking a deep repertoire of comebacks. A crowd is starting to form as teenagers push their way out of the house to get a peek at the action. Angry Boyfriend grabs a beer bottle from one of the spectators and launches it at the middle-aged men now crowded on the sidewalk.

  “You little pink-haired bastard!” shouts one as they rush up the steps to grab Angry Boyfriend.

  “Get the little punk!”

  “Piss off!”

  “You’ll wish ya had!”

  “Arsenal sucks!”

  “You suck!”

  “Kick his ass!”

  Before I can even blink, a full-on street brawl erupts on the sidewalk, middle-aged football fans tangling with drunken teenagers. Fists fly, insults are shouted, and I feel a pain in my shoulder as someone grabs my faux-leather hobo and the handle snaps clean off. The contents of my bag scatter across the stoop and underfoot of the madness.

  “Dammit!” I yell, dropping to my knees on the rough stone stoop in an attempt to gather what I can. I spot my phone perched on the edge of the top step, but as I reach out to grab it, I’m shoved violently from behind. I tumble down two steps and land in a pile of arms and legs at the bottom.

  “Nice panties,” I hear, and look up to see Jason offering me his hand. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “My phone!” I shout, pulling myself to my feet. “It was right there.” I point to the top step, but the phone is gone.

  “I’ve got it,” Jason replies, holding up a shiny silver cell phone. “Let’s go. Now.”

  He grasps my hand, and we take off down the sidewalk at a full sprint. House after house whizzes by,
and at the end of the block he hangs a sharp left. I have absolutely no idea where we are or where we’re going, and I have no idea if Jason does, either, but I manage to fall into a good stride, keeping pace right with him in four-inch heels. The shouts of the fight fade far into the distance as we run block after block away from the party. I try not to think of the many ways these shoes are ripping my feet to shreds right now or the rest of my belongings, scattered clear across a street that is now surely half a mile away. The purse is cheap, easily replaceable with twenty dollars and a trip to H&M, and I have plenty of extra pencils and tubes of lip gloss. I even have a spare calculator in my suitcase. But my heart sinks into my insensible shoes as I think of my dog-eared, note-filled pocket Shakespeare, probably resting in a puddle underneath that stupid rosebush.

  U ok? No public pronouncements of love but Mark has def been acting weird. Talk soon! —P

  BEEP BEEP … BEEP BEEP … BEEP BEEP …

  My eyes flutter open to the rhythm of a foreign sound emanating from somewhere in my room. It takes me a moment to remember that I’m not in my bedroom in Newton. I’m not even in the United States. I’m thousands of miles across the ocean in London. With my classmates. And the new fuzzy friend that seems to have grown on my tongue overnight.

  “Ugh,” I groan, peeling my eyes open from the deep sleep that’s encrusting them. I don’t feel disgusting. I am disgusting. The pure embodiment of grossness.

  BEEP BEEP … BEEP BEEP …

  My head starts to thud in time with the beeping, and I fling my arm over the mahogany nightstand, giving my travel alarm clock a hard thwack. The sliver of light peeking out from the sliver of space where the roman shades don’t quite meet the floor is cutting straight into my eyeballs like a laser beam.

  BEEP BEEP … BEEP BEEP …

  Well, it’s not my travel alarm clock, since that’s now in a pile of plastic parts on the floor. What is happening to me? My head pounds even harder, bringing back the memory of the thudding bass from last night. My memories start flowing as if rapped by DJ Rock the Mic himself. The house party. The short skirt. Jason. The beer. The embassy geek. Gabe. Rosalind. The broken glass. The bass. Oh God, the bass. Avery.