Chapter Sixteen
If our impromptu coffee date yesterday had softened Elliot’s frustration towards me, I wasn’t seeing it today. “Please stop banging your head against the desk,” I begged him.
“I’m in despair,” he groaned, his voice muffled.
“It was a valid comment.”
He lifted exhausted eyes to mine. “You just called our two leads locking eyes across a scene of violent conflict … a meet-cute.”
“It kind of is one though,” I said.
“Lucie, this is not Bridget Jones’s Diary.” Elliot tutted.
“That’s a little dramatic,” I said. “And, okay, maybe meet-cute isn’t quite appropriate terminology. But it is sort of darkly humorous that Marla and Finn fall in love at first sight amid such violence. And humor forms a big part of the meet-cute trope. Anyway, you’re missing my point.”
He spread his hands defensively. “I really don’t think I am.”
“With any romance, you’re making a contract with the viewer, right?” I said. “You’re promising that these two people will get together, so you have to telegraph that in a hooky, engaging way. Hit audiences over the head with that desire for these two crazy kids to make it.”
“But meet-cutes are like, a mainstay in romantic comedy,” he protested.
“Yeah, which is why I agree this isn’t quite a meet-cute, because this is a romantic drama.”
“Actually, this is art,” he corrected me with an eye-roll.
“Isn’t art subjective?” I challenged.
“God.” He rose to his feet.
“You do not need another sugar hit,” I said. I’d watched in fascination earlier that day as he’d consumed an iced coffee laden with so much chocolate syrup it had made my teeth hurt.
“No, we need a road trip,” he said, then hesitated. “Well, not so much a road trip as a taxi to the Met, but you take my point.”
“The Met?” I repeated. “As in, the museum? With the steps?”
“Yes, the museum with the steps,” Elliot said with a sigh.
“Also the world-class art collection, exclusive touring exhibits and legendary architecture but, yes, also the steps. I believe someone told you that you need to see more of New York – well, consider this an educational expedition to further your understanding of not just art but the city itself.”
“Yeah, because that’s not hugely patronizing,” I chastised him as he squeezed his broad frame through the gap in the door. I followed him through, resisting the urge to curse when my bag strap caught on the door handle. As we waited for the lift, I shot a text off to Bex:
I’m being told I need to further my understanding of art *eye-roll*
Damn, was her almost instant reply, boner rage has really got to Boner Rage
LESS OF THE BONER RAGE FROM YOU
I giggled and Elliot eyed me sharply. “Sorry,” I said, shoving my phone back in my bag. “Just Bex making me laugh.”
“This is the chick you met in college, right?”
Chick? I shook my head in disgust. “Actually, best friend, roommate …” I felt my throat tighten. “Family.”
“You miss her.” It wasn’t a question.
“I’m used to seeing her almost every day.
” We entered the lift. “I’ve known her forever but …
” my voice trailed off. Not for the first time it occurred to me that the time I had left with Bex before the next chapter of her life began was limited and I was spending it thousands of miles away from her.
“But what?”
“She’s getting married,” I said forcing myself to sound positive, if only for Bex. “Moving out. Buying a house in a whole other county.”
“Damn.” Elliot leaned against the side of the elevator. “That’s some serious adult shit.”
“It is,” I agreed. “It’s grown up. And I am so far from being ready or able to enter that stage of life, but the person I’m closest to in the whole world is, like, doing it, and …”
“And?”
She’s leaving me behind. Saying the words to him felt a touch too dramatic, so I pushed them down and just shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Hmm.” The lift doors opened, and we entered the lobby. Elliot took out his phone and called up the Uber app.
“Hmm? What does that mean?” I was immediately irritated. Yet again, I’d shared something deeply personal, and got nothing in return.
“Three minutes … Confirm …” he muttered, then turned to me. “You worry the world is leaving you behind and you haven’t got a chance of catching up.”
Infuriatingly, he’d managed to summarize exactly how I felt inside. I swallowed. “Yeah, maybe.”
“I feel the same sometimes. But as you and I established yesterday, we are miserable bastards, right?”
“I said miserable and loveless, actually,” I corrected him.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “So, let’s be miserable, loveless bastards who get shit done.”
A little while later Elliot and I stood before the Metropolitan Museum of Art, impressive in the spring sunshine.
The famous steps were crowded with all sorts of people soaking up the rays; to our left a gaggle of tourists took a multitude of selfies while two impeccably dressed women shared sushi from the same tray.
Groups of young people – presumably students – sat drinking coffee and ogling their phones.
There was even one gentleman stretched out enjoying a vape and the New York Times.
Elliot waited – not patiently – as I took numerous photos.
“Okay, I’m done,” I said eventually. “Aside from enhancing my Insta grid, what are we here to see?”
“Wait and see,” he said.
I started to head up the steps to the huge main doors, but Elliot grabbed my arm. “Where are you going?”
Confused, I pointed. “The entrance?”
He pulled a face. “What, you want to queue for hours? You think we have all day?”
“I … no?”
“And here I thought you were Miss Practical. This way.” Elliot loped off down to the left of the steps, following the line of the building until we arrived at an unassuming red awning on Eighty-First Street.
We headed through, arriving in a small lobby milling with people but no queue at the ticket desk.
The airy, cool space was surprisingly hushed and after Elliot paid admission, he led me with confidence into the heart of the museum, me practically throwing my neck out trying to take in all the art that I could see mere glimpses of.
We took a left at Medieval art, then hit some stairs to the second floor.
“Can we slow down for a minute?” I wheezed as we powered down another corridor, dodging yawning schoolchildren and their harassed teachers.
“Come on, you miserable bastard,” Elliot said, earning stern glares from a passing couple intently perusing their museum guide. They were even more confused when I laughed.
Moments later, we arrived at a special exhibit titled Controversies of the Italian Romantics.
It was a small space tucked away in the corner of the museum and Elliot wasted no time dragging me straight to one picture in particular.
It was portrait style, about a meter high and elegantly lit with small spotlights.
It was simple; a woman in a blue dress took center scene, leaning in to what looked like a dreamy kiss with a man in a red cape and feathered hat.
There was no denying it was a beautiful picture, but I was still no clearer about why Elliot was insisting I look at it.
“Il Bacio by Francesco Hayez,” Elliot announced. “It’s a rare chance to see it in person as, luckily, it’s on loan from the Milan collection.”
“It’s lovely,” I said politely. I could feel Elliot’s eyes drilling a hole in the side of my face and I felt compelled to say more. “Her dress is … shiny.”
“Her dress … ?” Elliot spluttered. “That’s your reaction?”
“What do you want me to say?” I shot back.
“You want my reaction, that was the first one; how did the painter make the dress shiny? Sorry.” I could hear my voice rising so I took a breath.
I’d shamefully not spent a lot of time in art galleries, despite living in a city full of them.
Bex was heavily into art, though she’d long given up on trying to engage me in discussion on it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate paintings, I just didn’t know how I was meant to interact with them.
Like, how was anyone meant to know what was good?
Was it just because someone told you one piece was better than another?
“You don’t need to apologize,” Elliot said, after a long pause. “I just find it odd that someone who loves movies can’t look at other forms of art in the same way.”
That gave me pause. “I don’t know,” I said after coming up blank. “I mean, some paintings are just splatters and cubes and a whole mess of oil paint. I suppose I like things to be clear, you know? Tell me something true.”
“Ah, but what is truth?” Elliot said archly.
“Oh do fuck off,” I said with a groan.
“Why do you have to be—” He took a breath.
“All I’m saying is that sometimes the best stories, the most …
beautiful stories can be found in symbols and metaphors that take time to unpack and analyze.
The journey to truth can be as enlightening as the truth itself.
” He mistook my thoughtful silence for disbelief and tutted.
“Or, we can do things the Lucie way and be super literal, super simple—”
“I wish I’d never told you about Independence Day,” I interrupted. “I’m not saying I can’t appreciate subtlety; I’m just saying art and beauty doesn’t have to be inaccessible to the masses! RJ agrees with me.”
“Excuse me?” A bespectacled gentleman popped his head in between us. “If you’ve quite finished, my wife and I would like to look at—”
“Hold up a moment,” Elliot asked. “My friend here hasn’t quite appreciated this painting enough yet.”
The tourist withdrew with a warning glare.
“Please tell me where I’m going wrong in my appreciation,” I asked Elliot acidly, knowing he would foist that information on me anyway.
“I was struggling for so long with the relationship between Marla and Finn,” he said. “I was researching war and conflict and love for weeks straight, and then I stumbled across an image of this online.”
I peered at the image. “What’s it got to do with war?”