The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life

by Dani Jansen

  Reasons why Alison is a shitty friend. (List likely to be too long to finish at supper. Don’t want to miss the movie.)

  Things that are more awkward than this supper. (List likely to be too short to even fill the silence while we wait for our food to come.)

  Ways to get revenge on Alison. (List likely to be dangerous to health.)

  The one thing we all have in common: the play.

  Here went nothing. “I think the cast is pretty talented. This might be the best school production in years. Don’t you think?” I kept my tone peppy, as if I didn’t notice the awkward vibe enveloping our booth like a noxious gas. If I wasn’t mistaken, the man at the booth across from us was giving us side-eye. Even our neighbors could sense the awkwardness.

  “I guess so,” Jack said.

  I looked at Becca, and she made a noncommittal huh sound while continuing to stare at her cell phone. It was a starting point, I figured, so I pressed on. “If you’re going to do a Shakespeare play, it may as well be A Midsummer Night’s Dream, right? I mean, all those crazy love triangles have got to keep the audience interested. She loves him, but he loves her, and they all end up in the woods together with some fairies! The story may be weird, but it’s not boring.”

  Our food arrived and Jack and Becca dug in, maybe as a way to avoid having to contribute to my fevered analysis of the play. But I felt like I’d struck on something. Maybe I could use the play to help explain what was happening between us. “You know, Ms. Merriam is always saying Shakespeare’s plays have survived because they’re universal. Maybe she’s on to something. I mean, love triangles still happen to this day. People are always falling in love with the wrong person. Or they don’t notice the right person is right in front of them.” I paused to let my deep words sink in, and I decided to reward my fast thinking with an onion ring. As I chewed my onion ring, I looked at Becca. She was glaring at me again. She obviously did not care for this line of conversation. In fact, she was so displeased that I could swear her right eye was twitching a little. I tried to swallow the onion ring, but I was now so nervous that I had no saliva left in my mouth. I couldn’t swallow my food. The harder I tried, the worse it got. I felt like I might start choking. So I did the only thing I could think of: I stashed the food in my cheeks like a chipmunk. Like a nervous, idiotic chipmunk who thinks it’s been planning for the winter, but it turns out it’s just been lying to itself and its friends, but it’s too late now to do anything about it. Oh, little chipmunk, I really do feel sorry for you.

  I made sure the onion ring mush was carefully stashed in my cheeks and mumbled, “Excuse me. I have to go to the bathroom.” Becca reluctantly let me out of the booth only after I shoved her a couple times.

  I sped to the washroom, knowing that I couldn’t leave Becca and Jack alone together for long. Becca still seemed to be taking the strong and silent approach with Jack. If he got over his funk enough to try to engage in conversation with her, the awkwardness might reach a dangerous level that could threaten any possibility of the two of them ever being in the same room together again.

  As soon as I got into the washroom, I made a beeline for the paper towel dispenser. I did a quick inspection of the room. There seemed to be someone in a stall, but otherwise I was alone. I grabbed a paper towel and spat the onion ring mush into it, pleased that one thing had gone right tonight. No one had caught me spitting out my food like some picky toddler. I threw out the paper towel and went to the sink to wash my hands. I leaned on the counter and looked at my reflection in the mirror. The pale girl I saw looked like she’d just been chased by a rabid dog and hadn’t quite made it out unscathed. I took a steadying breath and tried to turn on the water to wash my hands. The automatic sensor didn’t seem to be working, no matter how close or far away from the tap I moved my hands. I stepped over to the next sink as I heard a toilet flush behind me. The sensor on this one must have been broken as well, because I tried sneaking up on it, then slowly waving my hands back and forth, but nothing worked. With a shake of my head, I moved on to the last sink. Nothing. What were the odds of all the taps in the women’s washroom being broken? I was about to warn the woman who’d just exited the toilet stall when she came up beside me and helpfully Turned. The. Tap. On.

  I rubbed my soapy hands in the stream of lukewarm water and tilted my head up to look at my savior in the mirror. I wanted to thank her and laugh off my space cadet moment, but the smile froze on my face when I saw just who had witnessed my inability to work a simple faucet. Charlotte was grinning at me as she washed her hands, her eyes crinkled in amusement, her long lashes partly obscuring the blue of her irises. I opened my mouth to say something, but my saliva had dried up again. I couldn’t talk. I just stood there gaping at her like a fish out of water.

  Charlotte finished washing her hands, grabbed a paper towel, and winked at me as she headed out. I banged my forehead against the mirror and thought this must be some kind of karmic retribution for dragging my best friend along to be a third wheel on my date with her crush. Yup, being humiliated in front of my own crush seemed fair. I turned off the faucet, dried my hands, and followed Charlotte out the door. She was nowhere to be seen as I made my way back to the booth. I scanned every part of the diner, but it was so crowded that it was possible I had missed her. Surely my overwrought mind hadn’t just made her up?

  I was so caught up in my worries about Charlotte that I didn’t notice that the booth was half empty until I walked by it. “Where do you think you’re going?” Becca asked in a low voice.

  I turned around. Becca was seated exactly where I’d left her, her club sandwich only half-eaten. Jack’s seat was empty, a mostly unfinished burger congealing on his plate. “Where’s Jack?” Becca didn’t move to let me into the booth, so I sat down on Jack’s side to let a busy server get by me.

  “He left.”

  “What do you mean, he left?”

  “What the hell do you think I mean, Al? He made up some excuse about not feeling well and left.” She practically spat the words at me as she shredded her paper napkin.

  “Oh.”

  “Oh? Is that all you have to say? Oh?” Becca was almost shouting as she dug through her purse to find her wallet. She threw a twenty-dollar bill on the table and stood up. “I’m leaving too. I would have left already, but I couldn’t leave my so-called best friend to hang like that, even if she deserves to have to walk the four miles home.”

  I’d never seen Becca so angry. I hung my head, too embarrassed to look her in the eye. “Sorry.”

  “Damn right you should be sorry! What the hell gives you the right to toy with people like that? Jack looked fucking heartbroken. And I felt like such a fucking idiot!” I chanced a glance at Becca but had to look away again as I caught her swiping at a tear. I couldn’t handle seeing my best friend so vulnerable and angry. I couldn’t bear the weight of knowing it was all my fault she felt this way.

  “Becca, I—”

  “Don’t! Don’t you dare say a thing to me right now. You can’t handle your own love life, so you think you get to interfere with mine?” Becca took a breath and turned away from me. When she turned back, she seemed calmer but sadder. “I’m going to wait in Harvey. Pay your bill, and I’ll drop you home.” I nodded to tell her I understood, glad that my downcast eyes would hide the tears that were threatening to spill over.

  I signaled our server and handed her Becca’s cash and my debit card. As she handed me back the change, she said, “Honey, things are never as bad as they seem.”

  “Sometimes they are,” I told her as I pushed myself up from the booth.

  We drove home in silence.

  CHAPTER 15

  I couldn’t sleep Friday night. I wrote and rewrote texts to Becca, but none of them seemed right. I deleted at least two dozen, delighting in the speed with which I could make the useless words disappear, but then feeling that anxious emptiness again when the screen
was blank. In the end, I settled on texting something simple but true: I’m so very sorry.

  I didn’t hear from Becca Saturday, and by Sunday I was so tired of cleaning my already spotless room that I decided to tackle the family room in the basement. My mother popped down once or twice in her weekend-wear designer jeans to see if I needed help, but we both knew the offer was just a gesture. I didn’t want help, and she didn’t want to spend what little free time she had scrubbing an already clean room. I was happy to pull all the DVDs and Blu-rays down from their shelves and then dust. Well, I wasn’t exactly happy, but the work kept me distracted from the guilt that kept me from sleeping at night.

  When my father came down, I knew my parents were really worried. My father liked to spend as much of his weekends outside as he could. He would go for a long run in the morning, then putter around his garden, and “read” (aka nap) in his hammock in the afternoon. Hanging out in the dark basement was about as far away from his weekend routine as he could get. I appreciated both his effort and what I was sure was my mother’s gentle prodding to get him to check in on me.

  I was swiping at cobwebs with a broom as he pretended to look for a book. He cleared his throat a few times before managing to say, “Alison, you know you can talk to us about anything. If there’s something bothering you, we want to help.”

  I rested the broom on the floor, my back to my father. I thought about turning around and telling him the story of my stupid plan, but I was too embarrassed. I didn’t want my father to know how much I’d screwed up. I’d never before done something that I felt too ashamed to tell my parents about. I’d even confessed to them when I cheated off of Billy Simcoe on a Grade 3 spelling test. They helped me tell my teacher and apologize to Billy. They helped me clear my conscience. But I couldn’t see how they could help me out of this mess. My conscience wouldn’t be so easy to clear this time.

  “I know, Dad. I’m just stress-cleaning. The play and all my schoolwork are getting to me. I’ll be fine.” I raised the broom again at the invisible cobwebs, hoping my father wouldn’t hear the hitch in my voice.

  “Okay, but if you change your mind about talking, you know you can come find me.” I was a little disappointed when I heard the wood stairs creak as he left the basement. I knew my father couldn’t fix this problem for me, but that didn’t keep me from irrationally hoping he would anyway.

  I sat on the couch and checked my phone again for messages. Nothing. I flicked through old photos. Looking at all the happy pictures of me and Becca felt like penance. This is what you’ve ruined, Alison. This is what you get for being a coward. I stopped at a photo from the year before. We were holding miniature golf clubs and laughing at a windmill missing three of its five blades. I was grinning like an idiot, but my eyes were still red and puffy from crying. The day before, I’d seen my first real crush, Jessica, kissing another girl. The jealousy and hurt I’d felt had finally spurred me to admit to myself that I was gay. The next morning, I went to Becca’s house and came out to her, then cried on her shoulder about the girl I liked kissing someone else. Becca didn’t ask a lot of stupid questions. Instead, she fed me chocolate and then insisted we go play mini putt. We drove to the next town over because she knew how much I’d appreciate the ramshackle course with its crooked paths and cracked concrete. Harvey didn’t like highways, but Becca had chanced going almost sixty miles an hour just to cheer me up. She didn’t pressure me to talk to Jessica about my feelings. She didn’t try to create awkward opportunities for us to be together. She didn’t judge me for keeping my feelings secret. Unlike me, she was supportive without being pushy. Basically, she was just a better friend.

  I swiped at the tears now coursing down my cheeks. What right did I have to be sad? I had brought this on myself.

  Obviously, cleaning the family room wasn’t going to help me fix anything. I needed a plan, so I packed away the cleaning supplies and returned to my room. I paced back and forth, considering possible scenarios. I could call or text Becca again to apologize for the massive blunder, but I didn’t feel like I had the right words to help her understand. I wasn’t even sure I could explain it to myself.

  What had I been thinking? Did I think I could make two people fall in love just by shoving them at each other? Becca was right. I was trying to avoid my own crap. Last year I had been too afraid of my feelings to even admit to myself I had a crush on Jessica. I only came to terms with my feelings when she was no longer available. And now, instead of pursuing Charlotte, I was trying to set Becca up with Jack. I was technically out, but I wasn’t ready to be open about my feelings. So where did that leave me?

  I stopped pacing and spotted the Red Binder on my desk. It was always there, reminding me of the thousand impossible things I had to do. I rushed at my desk, grabbed the Red Binder, and threw it at the wall. I enjoyed seeing the rings pop open and the pages spill out. It felt satisfying, like watching an explosion at the end of a car chase. But the satisfaction was temporary. I couldn’t just leave the binder lying there; it would give my parents the evidence they needed to confirm something was wrong. Clenching my jaw, I bent down to pick up the pages. I didn’t bother putting them in order as I had a month ago when I’d first been burdened with the damn thing. Instead, I shoved the pages in willy-nilly and nipped a finger as I forced the rings shut. I sucked on the injured finger and glared at the Red Binder; it knew how to retaliate. I slid it across the floor and under my bed. My oversized navy quilt hid it nicely. Out of sight, out of mind. At least for now.

  As I sat on the floor feeling sorry for myself, I could swear I heard a thumping coming from under my bed. I flashed back to reading Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart at the beginning of the year. It was the sound of a hideous heart! I had tried to hide from my guilty conscience, but it was no good. My own heart beat faster, and I broke out in a cold sweat. Which is when my sister poked her head around the corner of my doorframe. She was out of breath and annoyed. “Didn’t you hear me dragging my amp up the stairs? You couldn’t lend me a hand?” I was so relieved that I wasn’t going crazy, that the thumping had been perfectly ordinary and not at all supernatural, that I started to giggle. The giggle turned into a guffaw as the absurdity of it hit me. Annie rolled her eyes as I tried to catch my breath. It was the kind of laughing that got worse the more I tried to stop it. After Annie left, exasperated at me as usual, and once my laughing fit finally subsided, I felt lighter. I still had no clue how I was going to fix things with Becca, but at least I felt like it might be possible.

  CHAPTER 16

  “You keep saying you’ve learned your lesson, but I don’t think you have,” Annie said, trotting to keep up with my determined stride. The quiet after-school hallways made it easy to build up a good head of steam. Maybe I couldn’t fix things with Becca yet, but I could fix another one of my problems.

  “I have learned my lesson—from the fake date! I’m not going to act as an intermediary anymore. I’m going to get Jenny and Mr. Evans in the same room so they can talk to each other. No more getting in the middle!” I felt good for the first time since Friday. The beginning of a new week meant a chance to turn things around. I took a deep breath, and the stale institutional air felt like clean mountain air in my lungs.

  Annie grabbed my arm to stop me. “Isn’t there something else you should have learned from the fake date?”

  I was genuinely puzzled. “That I have trouble eating when I’m nervous?”

  Annie sighed. “No, dummy. You shouldn’t trick people into spending time together! Sheesh.” Annie let go of my arm, apparently convinced that I wasn’t going to run away.

  “This is different.” I stood before her, sure of my plan.

  “Oh yeah? How?”

  I ticked a finger on my right hand. “Well, first, I’m only tricking one of them, not both of them.”

  “Now that you put it that way, I’m totally convinced,” Annie retorted.

  I didn’t let Annie�
�s sarcasm stop me. I ticked off a second finger. “Also, the ruse is temporary. I’m coming clean once they’re both in the same room.”

  Annie threw up her hands. “Fine. Whatever. But I am not getting involved.”

  It was my turn to grab Annie’s arm as she turned to walk away. She shook me off but waited to hear me out. “I need you to get Jenny for me.”

  “Why?” Annie faced me, hands on hips.

  I needed her help, so I tried my best to keep my tone even. “Because I’m not exactly her favorite person right now.”

  “And why’s that?” She made exaggerated eye contact with me and spoke slowly, like I needed things spelled out for me.

  “Because she thinks I’m a liar.”

  “And you’re solving that problem by…” Annie was not going to make this easy for me.

  “Telling a little white lie.”

  “Fine. You are completely delusional, and I think this is a terrible idea, but I’ll do it. And you’re doing the dishes for a month!” I nodded my agreement, and Annie went on, “Tell me what you want me to say.”

  I thought about hugging my sister but changed my mind very quickly. It would only embarrass both of us. We weren’t huggers. “Thank you, Annie! Just tell Jenny that the vice principal sent you to get her, then take her to the drama room.”

  “When this blows up in your face, I reserve the right to say ‘I told you so.’” Annie pointed a finger at me, then started walking in the direction of the art room, her graffitied canvas sneakers squeaking on the linoleum floor.

  “Won’t be necessary,” I called after her before continuing to the drama room. My sister’s warnings had shortened my stride just a little. The air seemed less mountain-fresh and more Clorox-clean, but I was still breathing deep. The knot in my chest wasn’t as tight as it had been all weekend. This still felt like a good idea. Maybe not a perfect idea, but definitely better than the fake-date fiasco.