Dance Away with Me(49)

“Some of them maybe. But not this one.”

“So what dire things happened to you when you fell in love?”

“I told you I’m a solitary creature. I stopped working. Prepare yourself for more mockery.”

“Because . . . ?”

He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Because my work is who I am. Melodramatic, I know, but there it is. I live a life of dedicated selfishness.”

“Not a fun way to live.”

“Maybe not to you, but great street art isn’t like other art forms. It’s rooted in anger, and it’s larger than the person creating it.”

“I’m not sure what distinguishes great street art from random gang tags.”

“You know it when you see it. Great street art isn’t about thugs spraying their initials on any surface they can find. There’s no thought behind that. Remember the guys in the California garage—Jobs and Wozniak?”

“The beginning of Apple.”

He nodded. “Power to the people. That was their motto, and it’s ours, too. We bring art to people who’ve never stepped in a museum. Art to entertain. Art with a social message. Art that exists only to be beautiful.”

“That’s what you do.”

“It sure didn’t start out that way. When I was a kid, every time I hit the nozzle on a can of Krylon it was a ‘fuck you’ to my father. That was therapy. The real art came later. Good street art should make you feel something—anger, curiosity, laughter, recognition.”

She pulled out another dangling hairpin. “A giant rat on the side of a building?”

“You’re talking about Banksy. What’s that rat feeding on? Why is it there? Is it the last survivor? Does it represent us or what we’ve lost? And how do you feel about having that giant rat looming over you?”

Any desire she’d had to mock him faded as she thought of her own all-consuming grief. “But how do you live life without those big emotions?”

“You just do.”

“By making sure you never care too much about anyone else?”

“You’re a widow, Tess. As much as you try to hide it, I know you’ve suffered. So tell me . . . How well did love serve you?”

He didn’t say it bitterly or unkindly. Instead, he spoke with a thoughtfulness that made her feel as if he really wanted to understand.

“You didn’t know him,” she said.

“So tell me.”

She’d never imagined talking about Trav to Ian. And yet . . . “We met in kindergarten. Trav deliberately broke my crayons—for no reason. Yet I was the one who had to go to the principal.”

“How’s come?”

“I might have punched him.”

“Love at first sight.”

“When I came back to the classroom from the principal’s office, he stuck his tongue out at me behind Miss Rawling’s back.”

He smiled. “It still stings.”

She smiled back. “We turned that classroom into a battlefield. I’d draw something, and Trav would tear it up. He’d build a LEGO car, and I’d smash it.”

“Mortal combat.”

“His mother made the school separate us for first grade.”

“Wise mother.”

“But we’d find each other at recess. He’d chase me, and I’d go after him with a stick. He’d call me names, and I’d call him worse ones. One day he blocked the slide so I couldn’t get up, so I waited until he got on the monkey bars and pulled him off.”

“Never underestimate the power of a pissed-off woman.”

“I broke his tooth. Fortunately, it was a starter tooth.”

“Small mercies.”

“Don’t laugh. It was serious stuff.”

He grinned. “I’m not laughing. I’m counting my blessings that I didn’t know you then. So when did the warfare end?”

“Not until we were twelve.”

“It’s a miracle you both survived that long. What was the magic turnaround?”

“I broke his leg.”

“Tooth. Leg. No wonder you went into medicine.”

“It was an accident, but my mother made me go to his house and apologize.” Her Mary Poppins bun had come undone. She pulled out the last of the pins and the hair tie. “He was in bed, and he looked so sad. The sixth-grade camping trip was that weekend. It was all any of us had been talking about, and now he was going to miss it. He yelled at me, but all the time he was trying not to cry, and I felt so bad that I told him I wouldn’t go either.”

“Your brutal heart melted.”

“Not exactly. The school had already banned me from the trip because of the leg incident.”

“But you didn’t tell him that.”

“Eventually.” She slipped the hair tie over her wrist. “We ended up spending the camping weekend watching Jim Carrey movies in his bedroom. After that, we were best friends. He even fought a boy in eighth grade who snapped my bra strap.”

“I’m guessing you could have taken care of him by yourself, but still—valiant on his part.”

“I made him break up with Lorrie Wilkins. Between us, she was only using him to make Charlie Dobbs jealous.”