Chapter 15 Think of It as a Souvenir
Think of It as a Souvenir
The mimes are there when we disembark, holding up signs with our names on them. The show is letting us off easy for the first challenge, I suppose. The one spinning Yumi and Noelle cheers silently the entire time we approach.
“They’re all different,” Yumi remarks under her breath, quiet enough that the three other teams won’t overhear.
I follow her line of sight to the—What do you call a group of mimes?
A pack? A parliament? A murder?—murder of mimes.
Each of them with distinctive black-and-white face paint.
She’s right; this is exactly the type of detail The Adventureverse loves to use in their finale challenge. Which mime was yours?
The right half of our mime’s face is sad-clown, teardrops zigzagging down his cheeks.
The left half is happy, black paint around his mouth upturned in a smile.
An elongated triangle cuts vertically through his left eye.
As Yumi draws a perfect re-creation of his face in her notebook, I take the gold envelope he offers.
He waves goodbye, riding an imaginary escalator to the bottom of a potted plant—a move my dad could only dream of pulling off.
Any exhaustion that crept into my bones after that hellish flight is washed away the moment I tear my first Adventureverse envelope open. I pull the tear strip’s tab, revealing a hefty cardstock note within, as well as two smaller envelopes.
“ ‘FORCE or FINESSE?’ ” I ask loudly and clearly for the camera. “ ‘Note: A team may only switch tasks once per Adventure.’ ”
“FORCE.”
“Yup,” I agree, tearing open the FORCE envelope. It’s the only choice, really. Anything that requires finesse on The Adventureverse also takes a million years to complete.
FORCE: Romantics all across the world are familiar with Paris’s famous Pont des Arts, also formerly known as the love locks bridge.
Couples used to flock to the City of Light to attach a lock to the bridge’s rails as a symbol of their affection.
However, the structural strain caused by the weight of those locks eventually resulted in the partial collapse of the Pont des Arts in 2014.
Teams, make your way to this iconic landmark at the heart of the city and find the Bridgemaster. Once you have removed twenty padlocks, he will present you with your next clue.
I glance at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that line the concourse. The rain shows no sign of stopping.
Yumi follows my gaze, frowning. “Well, at least we brought raincoats?”
Imagine you are in a house that is burning down. Everything is aflame, hopeless and beyond saving. You see a candle tipped over on its side, rush to it, pick it up, and blow it out, but the house is still burning. That is what wearing a raincoat is like right now.
I uselessly wipe at the goggles they’ve given us, but they remain fogged up, impossible to see through.
I adjust my work gloves. They’re drenched and heavy, but without them, my hands just slip right off the bolt cutters.
I grit my teeth and try to push the handles together, steel biting through steel painfully slowly.
“This sucks,” I say out loud, though nobody could possibly hear me over the downpour.
Even Yumi, who stands right beside me, could barely hear earlier when I asked if we should switch tasks.
After a few moments of yelling, we decided to stick with this challenge.
No, we reasoned. Switching tasks is always a bad idea.
And this won’t be too bad once we get the hang of it.
That was an hour ago. We’ve cut six locks since then.
Six and a half if you count the one that’s currently kicking my ass.
On the plus side, the noise has also drowned out the Ball-and-Chain team, who seem intent on putting on a Tony Award–winning performance of Domestic Dysfunction: The Musical.
“Who are you doing this for?” he’d warbled. “Whoever it is, you’re letting them down.”
“Shut up, Clyde. You wanna sleep on the hotel floor tonight?”
Masterful.
I already hated this archetype. For me, a big part of the appeal of watching The Adventureverse is the joy, the wonder, the fun, and couples like this are joy-eaters.
But being with them in person has given me a whole new perspective, a better vantage point to hate them from.
Why do these people get to succeed? Why do they get to be together, bitter and flat-out horrible, when my parents got so little time?
It’s not fair. I’m much happier drowning than listening to them.
But that isn’t to say I’m happy drowning. It’s just better. It’s not good.
We work without talking for a bit, the occasional car throwing up a wall of water.
It’s not like it makes us wetter, but it is slightly more humiliating.
I nearly bite through my tongue the next time my bolt cutters snap a lock.
Only thirteen left, I think miserably, wiggling the lock free of the fence and tossing it into our basket.
I am water-worn, like a stone at the bottom of a babbling brook, all my fight and sharpness eroded away—and then I hear Him.
“Off the left here,” the man says, his Southern US accent echoing through one of those microphone/megaphone things you can only get in a game of White Elephant, “you can see the beautiful scaffolding of the cathedral. Many people are upset when they get to Paris and see the scaffolding, but how lucky you are! For hundreds of years, people have seen the normal cathedral—come back in ten years and you’ll see it yourself.
But only you, you lucky ducks, get to witness the restoration.
” Holding a large black umbrella, the man walks backward, leading a tour group of equally enormous umbrellas (presumably with people beneath them) across the bridge.
I glance at Yumi, who is taking a break to look absolutely distraught. She rests her forearm on the fence, and her forehead on her forearm. She needs this to be over, and so do I.
In Season 13, the oft-mocked Celebrity Adventureverse, the contestants were regularly recognized during challenges.
One of the teams, a pair of twins who were DJs, used that to their advantage.
They befriended a local seeking an autograph and turned him into a tour guide and challenge assistant.
While not technically illegal, it did piss the superfans off to see already rich and famous people use their fame to get even more rich.
But I’m not rich or famous, I am just a poor girl suffering in the rain.
So, hopefully the fans will not judge me too harshly.
Yumi calls after me as I walk away, but I just wave her off.
“Take your pictures,” the man proclaims. “Show your friends and family how incredible the French are at using construction vehicles!”
The tourists laugh but wander off to take pictures anyway, and I take this opportunity to sidle up to the man. He looks down at me as I step under his umbrella, amused but watchful.
“If you’re a pickpocket, you’re not a very good one,” he says quietly. It’s easier to hear, shielded from the rain. His Southern accent disappears as he notices Bo and Petter following me at a distance. “What’s this about?”
“I’m in a competition for a million dollars?” I respond, posing the classic Adventureverse dog whistle like a riddle he might know the answer to.
His eyes light up. “For TV?”
I nod.
“Oh, sick. Is it that show? Adventure World or something?”
“Or something,” I say. “How would your tourists like to help with a special, unique Parisian activity?” I feel like a used car salesman, half-skeevy, half-genius.
His eyes flick to the other teams. “You’re competing with them?”
I glance at Bo, who I know can hear our mics in his ear. He nods. “We are,” I confirm.
“Are you winning?”
I purse my lips. “We aren’t.”
“Perfect!” He pushes his hood back, revealing a head of curly brown hair. “Love an underdog. Tourists live for this sort of thing. Huge tip potential. Can we keep the locks?”
“I have to double-check with the production team, but that’s fine with me.”
He extends a hand. “I’m Shea. Ignore the Southern accent.
They love it,” he whispers. “Friends!” He theatrically (and Southernly) intones into his megaphone, summoning the group taking pictures of the same scaffolding we have in the US.
“Wonderful news! My colleague here has offered us the opportunity to help with a unique Parisian experience, free of charge!”
I lead them back to Yumi, who watches me with undisguised awe. “Good, right?” I ask, bumping a hip into hers. It’s not exactly contact, given the several layers of thick, waterproof fabric between us, but it’s something.
With the rain finally slowing enough to hear over, she’s able to answer me without screaming. “Better than good.” She shakes her head. “Incredible, Noe. Thank you.”
I flush, ducking my head. “It had to be done. I was on the verge of jumping off the bridge.”
“Hey, that’s cheating,” Clyde of Team Ball-and-Chain complains, rapping his bolt cutters against the balustrades of the bridge until a producer finally pays attention to him.
“No, it isn’t. Please don’t attack the bridge,” Aliona pipes up from the safety of the production tent, but it does nothing to stop the man’s tirade.
“You’re telling me we can just make other people do it for us? Well, what the hell? Why have I been doing it myself this whole time?”
His wife stays surprisingly silent, considering she’s been the one operating the bolt cutters while Clyde supervises hatefully. He attempts to coerce passersby, shaking his bolt cutters at them menacingly as they speed-walk out of his vicinity.
In complete contrast, Shea is doing his best carnival barker impression, inviting people from his group to step right up.
He tells them to choose their lock carefully, stressing that this is an unmissable opportunity to cut ties with a toxic ex or send a sign to the universe that your buddy’s girlfriend is “horrible and wrong for him, Isabella.” He says this last part directly into the camera, and I know the Adventureverse production team is already in love with this guy.
If they don’t offer him a spot next season, I’ll be shocked.
“Think of it,” he says in his terrible fake Southern accent, “as a souvenir.”
With each lock removed, Shea plucks it from the tourist’s hand and announces, “Rip to K.B. and S.P.! Another gift for the garbage gods!” before handing the lock back.
One by one, members of his group take their turn, all of them grinning through sweat as metal finally slices metal.
Each one of them radiates with pride as they hang busted locks off fanny packs and belt loops.
As the last lock falls away, Shea raises his arms triumphantly, declaring, “And just like that, love is dead!”
We’re already geared up to go, but Yumi takes an extra second with Shea. “Thank you.” Yumi grabs his hand in both of hers and squeezes. “Really, thank you.”
“It was their pleasure,” he says, gesturing at the gaggle of chattering tourists. “And listen, if you end up spending your winnings on a trip to the City of Light and you need a tour guide to blow money on, you know who to call.”