Siren Spell

by Cidney Swanson

  “In deference to the interest we saw yesterday, I’ve asked two students to present opposing viewpoints regarding the elements of reality and unreality in Midsummer Night’s Dream,” said Mr. Kinsler. “Miss Jones-Rhys? Mr. Chandavarkar?”

  The long and short of it was this: Deepak Chandavarkar declared that all the events in the play were supposed to be “real,” at least for the characters, while Megan Jones-Rhys presented the view that Shakespeare intended the audience to believe the fairies and magic were imaginary: it was all just a dream, hence the title.

  “He didn’t call it A Midsummer Night’s Reality Show, after all,” concluded Megan.

  The discussion quickly devolved into a class-wide argument.

  Slightly less than half the class seemed to be in the “it was a dream” camp, but this group included two very loud members of the class, and in the absence of firm-handed discipline, these few were allowed to use shouting as a means of persuasion. In Giselle’s opinion, it was a lot of fuss over nothing. Why would anyone care if the play was meant to present reality or a dream? The discussion wouldn’t even have been considered relevant in ballet.

  Jordan, on Chandavarkar’s side, gave one last impassioned argument.

  “If it’s all just a dream, what was the point, people? What was the point?”

  What, indeed, wondered Giselle.

  “Shakespeare wrote it, so he obviously thought there was a point,” shot back another student.

  “I hate it when books have these dream sequences and you have to try to figure out if stuff is real or not,” Ophelia murmured to Giselle.

  “Exactly!” replied Jordan. “I think we can all agree we don’t want our audience feeling confused.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Deepak. “There’s something to be said for allowing an audience to interpret a performance in conformity with their own paradigms.”

  “What?” asked two students speaking at the same time.

  A few more giggled and someone added, in an undertone, “This isn’t Calculus, Deep. Plain English.”

  Mr. Kinsler spoke, his voice soft in the silence following the cacophony. “I believe Mr. Chandavarkar has uncovered the heart of the issue before us: do we help our audience interpret Mr. Shakespeare’s text in one way rather than in another, or do we wish to leave things open to interpretation and possible … confusion.”

  “Shakespeare didn’t mean for anyone to believe this shit,” said Nathan.

  Nathan almost never said anything in class. All heads turned his way.

  “Mr. Guinness?” asked Mr. Kinsler.

  “It’s right there in the play,” said Nathan. “At the end. That crap about ‘if we spirits have offended.’ And then, something-something-something, it was all a dream.”

  “Wow,” said Ophelia. “Someone’s been reading his SparkNotes.”

  Rebecca raised a hand—a first for the afternoon—and Mr. Kinsler indicated she could speak.

  If we shadows have offended,

  Think but this, and all is mended:

  That you have but slumbered here,

  While these visions did appear;

  And this weak and idle theme,

  No more yielding but a dream.

  “So, well, yeah. There it is in black and white,” Rebecca concluded.

  “But the entire statement begins with an ‘if’ clause,” said Deepak, shaking his head. “If anyone’s offended by the idea of fairies interfering in the lives of mortals, then they should pretend it was a dream.”

  He was shouted down by the rest of the class, and in the end, only he, Jordan, and Marcus felt the playwright intended the woods-and-fairies scenes to be perceived as real.

  Mr. Kinsler declared the discussion at an end and directed the students to begin vocal warm ups. James slid through a gap in the students to position himself next to Giselle.

  “I know what I’m dreaming,” he whispered to Giselle. “And I hope it will be real.”

  Her stomach did tiny flip-flops as she tried to focus on how much butter Betty Botta bought and how bitter was the butter Betty bought. A few moments later, she tried not to care when James re-positioned himself closer to Caitlyn for the simple squats and stretches that passed for a physical warm up in drama.

  She could actually feel her body softening and weakening, her muscle mass decreasing each day, and she felt a bitter regret for having left dance altogether. Still, she wouldn’t have met James otherwise…. A flutter of anticipation tickled her belly.

  Mr. Kinsler divided the students again, indicating the “lovers” would use the flats today. The blocking for Act Three, Scene Two was complicated by more entrances and exits than a building on fire. The four lovers chased, fought, and tangled in nearly endless permutations. Possibly, Deepak could have turned the scene into a math problem set.

  The flats, wooden “walls” made from four by eight pieces of plywood painted to look “woodsy,” provided both scenery and a place for the actors to disappear for their moments offstage while they were presumably wandering in the woods. Though the flats were easily moveable, they were not entirely stable, and during one of Marcus’s entrances, his shoulder caught against the edge of one flat, causing it to teeter. Marcus, realizing the problem immediately, turned and caught the flat, preventing it from crushing Giselle.

  “Thanks,” muttered Giselle.

  “She speaks,” replied Marcus, eyebrows raised in surprise.

  Giselle flushed.

  “I said thank you,” she muttered, but Marcus was already gone, re-setting the flat into position with James’s help.

  “Everything okay?” asked their instructor.

  “We’re good,” replied Marcus, overlapping with Giselle’s, “It was nothing.”

  Marcus grinned at her.

  “Let’s take it from the top of the scene,” said Mr. Kinsler, having shifted his attention from the mechanicals to the lovers. “Remember, people, physicalize the scene. Match your words with tangible actions.”

  The scene began once again with Oberon, king of the fairies, laughing with Puck over how they’d forced Queen Titania to fall in love with a donkey-headed mortal. While the fairy king and hobgoblin Puck recounted the tale, the four “lovers” had to crouch behind two separate flats, ready to dash onstage. Marcus waited with Cait, and James waited with Giselle.

  Once Puck departed, Demetrius and Hermia entered first, giving Giselle a moment alone with James. He kissed her warmly behind the ear, but there was no time for more; Hermia was exiting already, commanding Demetrius,

  See me no more!

  From behind his flat with Giselle, James gave Caitlyn a thumbs-up as she crouched behind the opposite flat. Giselle realized this meant one of the flats was crooked. Yesterday, it had been impossible for those hiding behind one flat to see the others hiding behind the opposite flat. James and Marcus must have placed the flat wrong when they re-set it.

  Onstage, Demetrius slept while Oberon’s servant placed magical fairy flower juice in his eyes. Glancing through her lines, Giselle was pleased to see how many she knew by heart. She rose and joined Marcus’s character Demetrius onstage.

  His eyes full of fairy juice, he addressed her:

  O Helen! Goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!

  To what, my love, shall I compare thy eyne?

  Giselle appreciated the irony of this moment, but what she really loved was her next line:

  O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent

  To set against me in your merriment!

  Her lines continued in that vein for a while. She was enjoying it, she realized. The situation absurdly reversed the play’s opening when Lysander and Demetrius had both chased Hermia, Helena’s best friend. She’d never quite caught the humor when watching the ballet version, but the play was both comic and witty.

  Mr. Kinsler encouraged them to draw from personal experience when conveying a strong emotion, which meant that thinking of Marcus as an evil part-stealer was helpful for the scene they were working on. It
was too bad her character had to end up with Demetrius instead of James’s character, Lysander. Still, if she could only have James in one “reality,” she preferred having him in life over having him in the fairy play.

  As these thoughts emerged, Giselle had been dashing onstage and off, again and again. Now all four lovers remained offstage while King Oberon berated Puck for a job badly done.

  Panting, Giselle crouched behind one flat with Marcus, who mouthed, “Great work!” to her. She looked away, slightly irritated to note Marcus’s green eyes were remarkably kind eyes. If she were being fair, she would have to admit he was a nice enough person in spite of his having ruined the casting of Giselle.

  Onstage, Puck was throwing a “black fog” upon the woods. Giselle hopped up for one more dash across the stage after which she had an extended break behind one of the flats alone. Flushing, she thought ahead to the rest of her evening with James, warm in his car. She turned to smile at him; James would be in view behind the now-crooked flat, waiting with Hermia. What she saw, however, wiped away all trace of smile.

  James had his entire arm up the front of Cait’s tight tee shirt, leaving little to the imagination, and he was licking Cait’s face.

  19

  SWAG-BELLIED CODPIECE

  Giselle felt a wave of nausea. She looked over to James and Caitlyn again, hoping she hadn’t really seen what she’d seen. Immediately, she knew she shouldn’t have looked twice. This would be one of those images she couldn’t shake.

  Loss, anger, and jealousy competed inside her for top billing. Gulping for air, she turned away. Her stomach felt like ice. She had ten seconds to recover her wits before she had to return back onstage and pass out from exhaustion on the forest floor.

  Behind the flat, Caitlyn was making tiny noises like she was trying to suppress giggles. Or possibly moans. Giselle felt hot, angry tears stinging the backs of her eyes. She blinked them away, but her mind kept replaying the image of James groping Caitlyn, hand up her shirt, tongue on her face.

  She’d thought James liked her. She’d thought she mattered to him.

  She’d been an idiot.

  She wouldn’t let herself feel the hurt right now. She couldn’t. Not here. Not in public. Not in drama of all places. She took a deep breath. Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. She stood and dashed back onstage as Helena.

  As she threw herself to the ground, feigning exhaustion, she tried to remember the worst Shakespearean insult she’d heard earlier so she could deliver it to James. Vile, hell-hated miscreant might do. Or the one about toads and boiled fat….

  She shifted on the ground, pretending to be asleep. In the past, James had always managed to position his body on the ground so that he could mouth words to her if she opened her eyes a tiny fraction. Today, she kept her eyes closed tight.

  But then she began to wonder if he was looking at her with those hazel eyes full of longing or regret or an apology. Against her express orders, one eyelid opened a fraction of an inch.

  “Nice cleavage,” James mouthed to her, waggling his eyebrows and looking, Giselle thought, as absurd as it was possible for a boy to look.

  Which made it so much easier to focus on hating him.

  She risked a quick glance at her chest, wondering what James was able to see, exactly. She didn’t have cleavage. But as she inspected herself, she realized that by lying on her side, she had created the illusion of cleavage. It made her feel frumpy and sad. For a ballerina—even a former one—the hint of boobs signaled a betrayal on her body’s part as surely as James’s hand up Cait’s shirt signaled a betrayal on his part.

  Once the scene ended, Mr. Kinsler had them repeat their work twice more while he attended to the mechanicals’ comedy of errors. Giselle avoided looking behind the flat where James and Caitlyn hid, but she knew what they were up to, and she ached at this new loss. James had been the one good thing in her life.

  Emphasis on one.

  No, she thought, locking her teeth together, emphasis on had been.

  Her belly, hollow, filled with fresh pain; James’s lazy smiles, his kisses, his murmured words of adoration—all of it had been a sham. He’d never cared for her. Never valued her. The rejection was painful. As crippling in its own way as losing the role of Giselle. She’d thought someone cared….

  But she’d been a fool. Twice.

  Slowly, she inhaled. She wouldn’t let herself feel this newest ache. She would fill the hollowed space at her center with ice. And she would have some measure of revenge. She would figure out what might result in the maximum amount of discomfort and shame for the venomed malefactor.

  By the time rehearsal drew to a close, she had a plan. A rather clever one, she thought.

  Caitlyn departed among friends without so much as a farewell smile to James.

  For a moment, she felt pity for Caitlyn. James must have given Caitlyn the same “we need to keep this secret” speech. But as James sauntered over, her feelings of pity were replaced by white-hot anger. The arrogant fraud. The toad. The … swag-bellied codpiece!

  She turned to keep James from seeing all of this in her expression. If she exposed her anger, her clever plan would be ruined. She locked her jaw and breathed deeply. Had she learned anything in acting or hadn’t she? Giselle smoothed her face and prepared to face James.

  He rested the palm of his hand on the small of her back like it belonged there. In response, she swung her heavy bag over her shoulder, pretending surprise when the bag struck James and he yelped, removing his hand.

  “Oh! Sorry,” she said. She even managed to look as if she meant it.

  “No worries.” His full lips pulled into a smile. “I can’t wait for tonight,” he whispered, looking as though he meant it.

  Giselle chewed the insides of her cheeks to keep from giving herself away. Some small part of her must have been hoping James had a … better self, one that would apologize to her softly, declaring he was back with Caitlyn, and how sorry he was, and how he hoped he hadn’t hurt her, and how horribly bad he would feel if he had.

  But that wasn’t who James was. No, he was an actor, playing two roles for two different girls. Although, Giselle thought wryly, he probably wasn’t acting about how he couldn’t wait to grope her at the statue garden.

  Never mind. She had her revenge in hand.

  “I’m looking forward to tonight, too,” she said.

  “Sure you don’t want me to pick you up?” he asked.

  She tried to look disappointed as she turned down his offer.

  “Okay,” he said. “See you in two hours.”

  The lazy grin. The hazel eyes turned down at the corners. Giselle tasted bile as she swallowed.

  “I think I could get there earlier,” she said, sticking to her plan. “Maybe 7:00?”

  The toad hearted, two-timing minnow grinned.

  “Great. I can do 7:00.” He leaned to within an inch of her ear and whispered. “With you, more is definitely better.”

  The warmth of his breath on her neck recalled to her the way she’d melted into his kisses. How she’d allowed herself to crave the promise of those lies. But she didn’t need James. She didn’t want James. His whispers would never again make her heart beat faster. The anticipation of her small revenge, on the other hand, set her pulse tripping.

  Gathering all her self control, Giselle smiled sweetly at James. “Actually, 7:00 doesn’t leave any time for dinner. Maybe 7:30 or 8:00 would be better.”

  “Giselle,” he said, lowering his eyes so that his long eyelashes showed to advantage. Giselle suspected he’d practiced this with the assistance of a camera. She curled her fingers tightly around her books to stop herself from popping him one on that self-satisfied chin. He looked up again, meeting her eyes. “I bet we can figure out a few things that are nicer than dinner, don’t you think?”

  “Actually, I can think of a few things,” she whispered.

  And she could. Things that involved James sitting alone in his car, wondering where she was. Smiling, she
reached to push his hair out of his eyes. “See you at 8:00, then.”

  “7:00,” he said.

  “Oh. Right. 7:00.” She smiled. The smile was genuine. She would have her little bit of revenge, and if it was petty of her, well, James was quite petty, so it all balanced nicely.

  “Until then, fair Helen,” he said, making an overblown bow.

  No self-respecting dancer would bow like that. She felt superior to James in every way as he left.

  20

  LIKE I MATTERED

  She might feel superior to James, but as Giselle walked back home, she also felt very … alone. James, pale-hearted horn-beast that he was, had made her feel like she belonged. No matter that it had been an illusion; now she was back to not belonging anywhere.

  She tried to comfort herself musing on how well her plan had worked. The sky overhead was clear and would soon be dusted with stars. It would be a cold night. An unseasonably cold night. James would get cold, waiting in his car. Very cold. Although … now that she was alone with her disappointment, her revenge seemed a little pathetic. Maybe she should have made a scene in class.

  But dancers, even former ones, didn’t make scenes in class.

  Well, her pathetic little game was in play, now. James would arrive at 7:00 and she was guessing he would stay a full hour, and maybe a bit more, before giving up on her. The thought of James bored, chilled, and puzzled as he stared at the cold bronze of the Little Mermaid put Giselle in a better frame of mind as she stepped inside her warm house.

  Katya informed Giselle their mother and grandmother were shopping, which gave Giselle the opportunity to tell Katya everything as they sat together in the deepening dusk.

  “The snake!” gasped Katya when Giselle had finished her tale. “Of course, from what my friend Megan said, it was just a matter of time. Oh, Giselle, please tell me he didn’t break your heart.”