Rose ended that. When I learned my dad was dating a woman ten years younger, I had my doubts about his sincerity. I figured he was turning forty and having a midlife crisis, dating a pretty blonde who made him “feel young.” He was a cliché.
Then I took one look at the two of them, and I finally understood what I didn’t in two years witnessing my parents’ crumbling marriage. He wasn’t going through a midlife crisis. He wasn’t chafing at the institution of marriage—he just wasn’t in love with my mom. I saw the smile my dad gave Rose the day I met her, a smile I’d never remembered seeing on him, and I knew he could never really regret the divorce.
Because he’d fallen in love with Rose. It wasn’t about her age, or about anything but the two of them together. He had become a cliché—only not the one I’d expected. He’d found his soulmate.
“Hey,” Dad says from the stove, pointing a spatula at Rose. “I told you not to get up for anything.” He glances back at her, his same adoring smile looking like a love-struck teenager’s.
Rose also happens to be seven months pregnant.
She rolls her eyes but lays a hand on her stomach, her expression warming as she sits back down.
I should hate Rose. I should hate the very idea of her. Sometimes I even wish I did, but the truth is, I never have. It’s not her fault my parents’ relationship wasn’t forever like I imagined. I don’t blame her for my dad loving her in a way he never could my mom. Still, despite my inability to hate her, she and I are more like somewhat-awkward roommates than two people with the same last name.
Dad drops the spatula, wincing when Erin lets out a particularly shrill yell, and races to hand Erin her favorite stuffed elephant.
I give myself one more moment. I love Erin, and I don’t dislike Rose, but it’s hard sometimes. This is my senior year. I should be studying on weeknights and going to parties on Saturdays. Instead, I’m struggling to concentrate through my earplugs and babysitting. I should be figuring out my future and finding myself—instead, I’m figuring out a relationship with a new stepmother and finding baby food on my books.
It’s not only that, though. What’s hardest is watching my dad build a new life that I’m less a part of every day. Especially with Erin and the baby on the way, it’s like they’re just letting me live here for the year before I go to college. Before they have the family they want.
THREE
FRIAR LAWRENCE: These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume.
II.vi.9–11
I RECOGNIZE HIS HAIR FROM A BLOCK behind him. Black, pushed in one direction like he’s recently run his right hand through it a bunch. Which he probably has—I remember the way he fidgeted constantly in the Verona booth. As if when he’s not writing in his notebook, his hands search incessantly for something to do.
Owen Okita walks by himself up to a corner, where a giant puddle’s overtaken the curb, a remnant of yesterday’s rainstorm. I spent the day watching and re-watching Olivia Hussey’s performance in Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet for preparation, which only tightened the knots in my stomach. Today is Monday, the day of our first rehearsal.
I reach the stop sign and roll down my window in time to catch Owen crossing the street.
“Hey,” I call. “You want a ride?” I’d welcome the conversation to keep my mind off the rehearsal.
He looks up, searching for the source of my voice. When he finds me, his eyes a little surprised, he says, “I’m good. Thanks, though.”
I wrinkle the corner of my mouth, putting on an offended pout. “I did shower, you know. I don’t smell.”
“That’s not—” He shakes his head, cutting himself off. His eyebrows twitch in feigned inquisitiveness. “Do people often refuse rides with you because you smell?”
I can’t help myself—I feel my eyes flit a little wider.
Owen looks satisfied when I have no reply. “I just like to walk,” he explains. “It gives me time to think.”
I shrug, recovering. “Your loss. For your information, I even used my coconut shower gel today. I smell exceptional.” I drive past him, catching in the rearview mirror how he blinks once or twice, then takes a step forward directly into the puddle. He glances down sharply as if he’s just remembered it’s there.
* * *
Madeleine’s waiting for me in the parking lot when I pull in ten minutes later.
Even though she’s beloved by everyone and could have her pick of best friends, from the cheer captain to the future valedictorian, Madeleine’s chosen me. For whatever reason. I wouldn’t even call her popular, except in the dictionary sense of the word. I’m liked well enough, but mostly people know me because they know her.
It’s part of the reason I don’t mind being known as the school flirt. Because then I’m something. Something other than just the girl who’s friends with Madeleine.
When I reach her by the bike racks, she greets me with a gushing recap of her weekend. She spent Saturday running a bake sale for charity and Sunday indoors while it rained, building card houses and drinking hot chocolate with her sister and Tyler. Tyler never hung out with my family while we were together—not that Erin’s fun unless you enjoy wiping runny noses and repeatedly cleaning everything within reach of her admittedly adorable arms. But Tyler and Madeleine’s relationship is different. I guess when you have a relationship like that it turns even the boring things beautiful.
We walk into the locker hall, and I’m distracted immediately by Wyatt Rhodes, who’s admiring his hair in a mirror he’s hung up in his locker. It’s the vainest thing I’ve ever seen.
But I can’t blame him. I’m admiring him, too, and it’s really unfair he needs a mirror to enjoy the view the rest of us have.
“Megan.” Madeleine’s voice breaks my concentration. From her gently stern expression, I know I’m caught.
“What if he’s a great guy on the inside? We need to give people a chance,” I implore weakly.
Madeleine grabs my elbow with her perfect peach nails. “Number two. On the list,” she admonishes. She steers me past Wyatt. I don’t restrain myself from stealing a final look over my shoulder. When we’ve rounded a corner, leaving Wyatt and his arms behind, Madeleine plants us in the middle of the hall. She pulls me by the shoulders to face her.
“We’re going to the football game this week,” she says with finality.
“What? Why?” I have zero interest whatsoever in organized sports, especially in the high-school context. Unless the uniform’s a Speedo.
“Because then I’ll know you’re nowhere near Wyatt Rhodes on Friday night.”
I grimace. “You’re worse than my mom. What’s wrong with a hookup, even when it’s . . . you know, Wyatt?”
A group of junior girls I’m sure Madeleine’s hardly ever spoken to wave enthusiastically. She smiles back before her eyes return to me. “Nothing’s wrong with a hookup with Wyatt,” she replies with accusatory innocence. “What you want isn’t a hookup, Megan. It never is. You want a boyfriend, and you’re looking in desperate places because you’ve been single longer than usual. But Wyatt Rhodes wouldn’t make you happy. You know that.”
I fall silent, unable to argue. Of course she’s right. She’s Madeleine.
“I won’t go for Wyatt,” I grudgingly promise. “But I’m not going to the football game,” I declare. Madeleine gives me a wry smile.
“We’ll talk,” she says, tipping her head forward in a this-conversation’s-not-over gesture. She turns down the hallway to her first-period class.
Heading for the doorway to mine, I catch a glimpse of Owen down the hall. His sweater’s askew, probably because he had to rush to get to school on time. He’s putting a pile of papers into his locker. One falls to the floor, and I recognize an issue of the school newspaper. He must have two or three copies. I
t occurs to me he’s probably sending them to Jordan, figuring he might like to have a copy.
It must be hard, having your closest friend move to a different state in your senior year. Even though Madeleine gives annoyingly perfect advice, I can’t imagine how adrift I’d feel if she moved away one day and left me here. I have a feeling Owen didn’t just join drama because he’s really into Romeo and Juliet. He’s probably trying to find new friends. I make a mental note to invite him to sit with the drama kids at lunch.
He hurriedly grabs his things from his locker and races to a classroom door, only to pause right outside. As if he can’t control himself, he pulls out his notebook and jots down a quick—I don’t know what. Observation? Idea? Reminder? The Fibonacci sequence? For the flash of a moment, I wish I knew.
I reach for the door to my class, weighing Madeleine’s words. She wasn’t wrong—not only about Wyatt. I have been single for a while. I do want a boyfriend. If I survive today, I’m going to put real thought into finding someone I could care about and who could care about me.
* * *
Hours before the first Romeo and Juliet rehearsal, I want to vomit. Or disappear. Or both.
Instead, I try to pretend nothing’s bothering me as I sit down in one of the circles of drama kids decamped on the hill outside the drama room for lunch. Everyone’s here except Anthony, who without fail uses lunch to get ahead in his classes. I once tried hanging out with him until the librarian ejected me for complaining too loudly and too often about how boring geometry is.
I usually enjoy sitting with the rest of the drama kids, running lines and planning cast parties. Not today. I don’t like the way everyone’s eyes turn to me when I sit down.
“You must be, like, totally excited,” Jenna Cho says, beaming at me from across the circle. Her enthusiasm’s as infectious as a headache, and no less uncomfortable.
“I’m . . . Yeah, definitely excited,” I halfheartedly reply. Ugh. If my acting’s this stiff in rehearsal, this play is screwed.
I notice Alyssa eyeing me. “You know, I played Juliet in a summer production at the community theater downtown. I’d be happy to sit down with you and show you my notes.” She forces a saccharine smile.
I smile back at her, just as insincere. “Thanks, but I’ve got it, Alyssa.”
Jenna reaches forward to hand me the plate of cookies they’ve been passing around. “I mean, it shouldn’t be challenging playing opposite Tyler.” Her grin widens.
“It wouldn’t be the first time sparks fly between a Romeo and a Juliet,” Cate Dawson chimes in, eyebrows raised. “You two even have a history.”
Of course that’s the moment Madeleine happens to walk up, arm in arm with Tyler. I see her smile fade, and I know she heard Cate’s comment. Even worse, I’m not oblivious enough to figure she’s not already worried about it.
I have to defuse. “I’m the last person who could have sparks with Tyler. Been there, done that, right?”
The girls laugh, and Madeleine gives me a grateful smile.
“Yeah, creating chemistry with Megan,” Tyler starts, looking around the circle like he’s on stage. “This will be the truest test of my acting prowess yet.” He flashes the crowd his most charming grin, and I remember Hamlet—“one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”
Just because I’m over Tyler doesn’t mean his insults don’t hurt.
* * *
The sting of Tyler’s words hasn’t faded by the end of the day. But when I get to drama, Owen’s sitting outside the classroom, writing in his notebook. Again. Everyone else has gone inside, and I decide to enjoy a couple more Tyler-less minutes.
I stop in front of his feet. “Ready to sell some drugs to underage girls?”
Owen looks up, his dark eyes going wide. “What?”
“You know”—I nudge his shoe with my boot—“Friar Lawrence?”
He pauses, then asks with feigned seriousness, “You ready to pursue an inappropriate relationship with an overemotional teenager that’ll end terribly for everyone involved?” His features harden into an inquisitive challenge, underwritten with humor.
“Sounds like a typical Monday,” I reply.
Now he smiles, and it’s the same smile from Verona, the one that brightens his entire face. He gets up and holds the door open for me.
Where on an ordinary day the drama room’s just chaos—improv games breaking out in the front of the room while the choir crossovers belt show tunes by the piano—today there’s order to the commotion. Most of the Romeo and Juliet cast sits in a circle of chairs in the middle of the room. The senior girls have gathered around Alyssa, who’s reading from Juliet’s death scene. Anthony paces in the back of the room, doing vocal warm-ups. I’m hit with a new rush of nausea, remembering what he said on Friday, how much this means to him.
Jody comes in a second after I sit down with Owen. “We’re doing a read-through of the scene where Romeo and Juliet meet,” she announces, and shoves a stack of scripts into Anthony’s hands.
I notice Tyler, seated opposite me in the circle, smirking when he finds his place in the scene. Once Anthony’s handed out all the scripts, Tyler stands up and starts right in. “O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!”
I poorly restrain an eye-roll. In every read-through I’ve been to, the actors didn’t get out of their seats. Tyler’s just grandstanding. But even I have to concede he’s delivering it perfectly. If this is the truest test of his acting prowess, he’s acing it.
“Forswear it, sight, for I ne’er saw true beauty till this night,” Tyler continues, his eyes burning into me.
“Either he is good,” Owen mutters beside me, “or he means it.”
“He’s acting. Definitely acting,” I whisper, crossing my arms and sinking into my seat. I’m dimly aware of the scene progressing for the next couple minutes, but all I can think about is my impending first line.
Like he knows he’s screwing with me, Tyler saunters from his seat to mine and stops in front of me. “If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this.” He reaches for my hand, and I snatch it away on instinct.
Tyler’s eyes narrow. Whatever Juliet’s supposed to do in this moment, it’s not that. I feel the whole class staring at me. Tyler repeats the line, reaching for my hand once more. I force myself to let him take it. But when he leans down to brush his lips across my knuckles, I flinch and rip my hand from his. I hear Anthony groan.
“Megan,” Tyler whispers in a sigh of frustration.
I look at Jody. “It’s a read-through, not a rehearsal. Can’t we just read from our chairs?” I nod pointedly at Tyler’s, which is empty.
“Don’t be difficult,” Jody says, hardly glancing up from her script.
“Fine,” I murmur, even though it’s not. “Um, could you go again?” I ask Tyler.
He takes a deep breath and delivers the line, impeccably concealing his irritation. I close my eyes as he takes my hand, but I know I’m not covering my grimace when I feel his breath on my skin. He’s leaning down. I should bite my tongue, push myself to be Juliet.
But I can’t. I jerk back for the third time, and Tyler’s jaw tightens.
Wait, I realize, this could work.
“Good pilgrim,” I begin, heaping sarcasm on the line before he can restart the scene. Tyler looks startled to hear me actually reading my part, and I hear the room holding its breath. “You do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this”—I transform Juliet’s lines from demure and cautious to combative and superior—“for saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss.”
Jody’s gone still, pen pressed to her lips. But Tyler steps into the new dynamic without missing a beat. His delivers his lines flawlessly, making Romeo work twice as hard to impress my unimpressed Juliet.
“Saints do not move, thoug
h grant for prayers’ sake,” I say, sneering.
“Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.” Tyler leans forward, lips puckered, and I dramatically turn my head to offer him my cheek.
I hear snickers around me, and Tyler and I banter the next couple lines. When I apply an extra dose of sarcasm to Juliet’s final remark—“You kiss by th’ book”—everyone laughs.
I feel my shoulders straighten. Everyone’s eyes are still on me, but for the first time I don’t feel the need to step out of the spotlight or deflect with a joke. Tyler bounds off to exchange lines with Jenna, the Nurse, and I’m left reflecting. If there was one thing I wasn’t expecting from this rehearsal, it was to not hate every second of it.
The door opens in the middle of the scene, and a stagehand walks in holding a box of props. I’m following along with the dialogue when something tumbles from the box and loudly hits the floor. I glance up at the moment the stagehand bends down, and suddenly it’s not just a stagehand picking up what he dropped.
It’s a veritable hipster Adonis. I recognize his face, I just don’t remember it being this, well—hot. It takes me a second to connect this stunning figure to Billy Caine, the scrawny stage manager I talked to a couple of times when I directed Twelfth Night last year. He’s changed his hair to a slicked-back undercut, and from the way his black V-neck stretches across his chest, he looks like he went to the gym once or twice over the summer.
I realize the room’s gone silent. Owen clears his throat next to me, and I remember—Juliet has more lines. I glance down at the page, but my brain won’t form words out of the letters.
I splutter what I remember of Juliet’s next line, “What is yond gentleman?” What indeed?
Always Never Yours Page 3
