Saving Juliet

by Suzanne Selfors

  "I don't get to dress myself either," I commiserated.

  Juliet tapped her foot irritably as an attendant pulled a long white shirt over her head. "That hurts. Stop tugging on my hair. I shall scream if you keep tugging like that." All of a sudden I felt bad for Fernando, recalling all the times I had whined while he had simply done his job. I slipped off my filthy costume and took the shirt handed to me. The servants widened their eyes at the sight of my bra and panties, but said nothing. Juliet was too busy squirming and complaining to notice. "You are all wretched and I hate every one of you," she told them.

  With the shirts in place, we slipped on long underskirts. Then the attendants held up our dresses. Juliet's was green, mine was blue, both with square necklines and ribbons for cinching the waist. "At least Father doesn't make us wear Capulet colors to all parties," Juliet said, grimacing as the cinching proceeded. I let the attendants help with my dress, since it was such a complicated procedure. The sleeves were huge puffy things that had to be attached at the armholes with laces. This took forever and my arms got tired as I held them aloft. Why would my arms get tired in a dream? And why did I feel so hungry? Nagging doubt returned but still, I ignored it. A party awaited, with music and dancing and guys to dance with. I had attended tons of charity events over the years but never unchaperoned. I was going to cut loose tonight, maybe try some wine, maybe even do some slow dancing with that gorgeous Benvolio. In Shakespeare's story, he sneaks into the party with Romeo in tow.

  Oh, that's right. Romeo was going to be there, too. That would definitely complicate things, as we all know. A happy ending was still my goal so I'd just have to do my best to keep Romeo and Juliet apart.

  "How dare they!" Lady Capulet screamed, popping into the room like a champagne cork. Her hair hung loose and her sleeves had not yet been attached. She held a piece of paper in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other, which she shook so vigorously that red petals flew about. "Those monstrous, motley-minded Montagues are at it again." She flapped the paper in the air. "They told Paris that my daughter has a boil on her bottom!"

  Juliet gasped, playing it cool. I, on the other hand, would have crumbled under that woman's interrogation. One gaze from her and I'd give up name, rank, and serial number. "Mother, such unkind words."

  Lady Capulet raised her eyebrows. "You don't, do you? Have a boil, that is."

  "Mother!" Juliet stomped her foot, crunching the fingers of the poor attendant who was trying to tie her shoes. "How would a Montague know what is or what is not on my bottom?"

  "How indeed!" Lady Capulet thrust the paper at me. "Paris sent this. Read it aloud, Mimi. I am too distraught."

  I took the little note card. A capital P sat in the upper corner, embossed in gold. The writing swirled in delicate loops and curlicues. Aroma of rose drifted off the page.

  My dearest Lady Capulet,

  How saddened I am to hear of your daughter's unfortunate condition. Boils can he dreadfully unpleasant, especially if they sprout on such a delicate derriere as I can only imagine your daughter possesses. I would be happy to recommend a skilled surgeon if lancing becomes necessary. In no way does this lessen my esteem for your daughter. Even the most beautiful rose can succumb to a case of black spot now and then.

  I am disappointed that the party is canceled. Please send word as soon as Juliet is recovered so that we can move forward with marriage arrangements. Consider these flowers as a token of my admiration.

  Yours most respectfully, Paris Calchetto IV

  "He thinks my daughter is spotted. Spotted! And that the party is canceled." Lady Capulet tore the note from my hands and crumpled it. "I will send word immediately that the boil is a vicious lie and that the party is not canceled. Damn those malignant Montagues." She threw the bouquet on the table. "Use the rose perfume. Paris prefers roses. And where is the hairdresser? Your hair will ruin us all."

  As soon as her mother had left, Juliet kicked over one of the stools. Then she pushed through the flock of attendants. "Everyone be gone!" A woman handed me a pair of leather booties with wooden heels, then followed the others from the bedroom. "Rose perfume," Juliet complained, throwing the bouquet across the room. "I shall not smell like one of his roses. I shall smell the opposite of a rose." Juliet had clearly bounced back from her panic attack. She didn't seem to suffer from depression, unlike poor Romeo. She had simply freaked out, and who could blame her? Her situation totally stank. But Juliet Capulet was not the kind of person willing to give in to despair. Her spunky nature wouldn't allow it.

  She opened the chest, took out a coin, then stomped onto the balcony, her wooden heels clacking like castanets. "Boy!" she called. Dusk had come but the air still held summer's warmth. Despite the growing darkness, the boy had returned to his crate. He eagerly leaped to his bare feet.

  "I did what you asked, my lady."

  "Yes, excellent work. Now I want you to go to the market and purchase some onions--the ones with green stems."

  "The market is closed, my lady. But my mother has onions in her garden. How many would you like?"

  "Three. Three should do it." Juliet tossed him the coin and he ran off, just like last time. "Paris may be willing to forgive a boil, but we shall see what he thinks of onion breath." She wrapped her arm around my waist in a conspiratorial hug. I ate up her rebellion like a starving French peasant.

  "Ladies!" a voice sang, startling us both. A man wearing a floppy scarlet hat entered Juliet's bedroom. In fact, his entire outfit blazed scarlet, from his tight-fitting doublet to his even tighter leggings. Two servants followed, carrying a bench. Nurse entered as well, tottering under an enormous basket filled with ribbons and combs.

  "Oh, no," Juliet whispered. "My mother's hairdresser."

  The scarlet man bowed gracefully, swirling his hand through the air like a cook whisking egg whites. He smiled patronizingly. "My dear little poppy. You should not scowl like that. Your scowls make Vincento crazy."

  Juliet scowled harder, thrusting out her bottom lip like a bulldog. Vincento shook his head with disapproval when he sized me up. "Two heads of unruly hair that Vincento must tame. Nurse, fetch some wine. Vincento must arouse his muse."

  Nurse set down the basket and departed with a huff, muttering that if anyone needed wine and arousing, it was she.

  Vincento motioned for Juliet and me to sit on the bench. He grabbed a comb that looked like a barbecue fork. "I shall create my latest invention--the Leaning Tower of Hair."

  Crap! How many hours had I spent having my hair and makeup done? I wondered. What was keeping me from walking down the hall rather than sitting on that bench? Why should I torture myself? I could go anywhere I wanted in this dream. I could pull my hair back with one of those ribbons and say, "See ya later" to Juliet. "I'm outta here."

  But I didn't want to leave her. I had promised I would help. Even if she was just an unconscious vision, I felt connected to her. I'm well aware of how strange that sounds, but it's the truth.

  Nurse came in and slammed a carafe of red wine on the table. "It's half empty," Vincento complained.

  "I know nothing," Nurse said, wiping her mouth with the back of her puffy hand. She hurried from the room. Vincento guzzled the remaining wine, then began to work his magic. Using two wooden structures, odd bits of wig, and our own hair, he combed and braided and wove until tower-like appendages sprouted atop our heads. The weight made me tilt slightly to the left. Vincento complimented himself as he circled us, patting the ridiculous towers as if they were poodles.

  But it didn't end there. Vincento's work continued as dusk turned to darkness and cicadas started harmonizing outside the window. He applied thick white makeup to our faces, necks, and hands. Had he been trained by the circus? When he had finished with me, I went and sat in Nurse's chair.

  I didn't intend to fall asleep but that's what happened while waiting for Juliet. Visions of Troy floated through my head. He didn't pull back from our kiss. He didn't smirk at my virginal lips. In my dream we just kept ki
ssing and kissing and kissing.

  Imagine my confusion when I woke up from the Kissing Dream to find that I was still in the Verona Dream. Like a reflection of a mirror in a mirror in a mirror. I woke up! How could I have just woken up? And that is when the nagging doubt erupted like an aggravated boil. "Hello?" nagging doubt screamed. "Haven't you figured it out yet?"

  I pinched my arm. It hurt. I pinched again, so hard that my fingernail broke the skin. I bled. I felt my pulse. My heart beat wildly.

  I was awake.

  "Magnificent," Vincento said, bowing to Juliet. "You are ready. Go to the party and let everyone bask in your beauty. Tomorrow, Vincento's Leaning Tower will be all the rage."

  As soon as he and his servants had left, Juliet stood over me. "Are you ill?" she asked, puzzled by my queasy expression.

  I didn't move. Juliet's pupils dilated. A pulse beat at the side of her neck. If I pricked her, she would also bleed. Juliet Capulet in the flesh. My God. I was awake! I had been awake the entire time. The upside-down ride on the guard's shoulder had hurt because it had really happened. The nurse had smelled bad because she actually smelled bad. The pee had felt warm because pee comes out that way. Holy cow! I was awake.

  How amazing is that?

  Juliet rushed to her mirror. While I thought we looked like drag queens, she had a sixteenth-century reaction. "Oh no!" she cried. "We are irresistible." She rushed to the balcony, her tower swaying with each footstep. "Boy!" she called, reaching her hands into the darkness. An onion flew through the air, then a second and a third. She caught each one, then tore off the green stalks and tucked them under her dress sash. She cupped the bulbs in her hands. "Like precious pearls, plucked from an oyster," she whispered. "Mother will kill me if she finds out."

  And my mother would kill me if I missed my performance.

  Which is what I was doing since I was ... AWAKE!

  Forget her. Forget the theater. Forget everything. Certainly I could have returned to Nurse's chair to fret about the how, where, and why of my situation. Forget that. Something magical had happened to me.

  I stood, trying to keep my balance with the stupid hairdo. Happiness flowed through my body. What an adventure. What a fabulous, amazing thing to actually be standing next to Juliet Capulet, no matter how weird we looked. And I was about to go to a party where no one would know my real name.

  Juliet stood so close that our towers knocked together.

  She started to giggle, a sound that fed my euphoria. Juliet Capulet, famous love-struck heroine, was about to eat a handful of raw onions so a man would find her disgusting. I felt more mischievous than I ever had, like we were about to pull a Halloween prank. But what we were really about to do was to mess up some parental plans.

  Now why hadn't Mr. Shakespeare thought of that?

  "Come on," I said, tucking the bulbs beneath my sash. "Let's go make a man fall out of love."

  Twelve

  ***

  "O' she doth teach the torches to burn bright!"

  Equipped with a hunger for rebellion, green onion stalks, and three onion bulbs, we made our way to the party hall. It probably won't surprise you to learn that things didn't go as planned. I'm eager to tell you what happened, but I'd like to set the stage first because the Capulets' hall deserves attention.

  It lay in the center of Capulet House, fed at one end by a corridor from which a constant stream of white-frocked servants flowed. At the other end, two immense doors opened to an inner courtyard that was ornamented with Greco-Roman columns and marble nudes. A huge tapestry, bearing the Capulet crest, hung on the western wall. A quartet of musicians played beneath, wearing brown hats that looked like overturned soup bowls. I recognized their instruments because we used them in the Wallingford production--a flute, a mandolin, a drum, and a clavichord. A balcony jutted from the eastern wall, from which Lord and Lady Capulet surveyed the festivities like chaperones at a school dance. The arched ceiling held dozens of chandeliers, their candles twinkling like the night sky.

  I peeked over the shoulder of a woman nestled beneath a peacock-feathered hat. Servants squeezed between mingling party guests, offering treats from silver platters. Guests wearing black masks like Renaissance supetheroes danced in the center of the hall.

  A servant handed us our masks and we tied them on, careful not to topple the Leaning Towers. Laughter and conversation drifted around the edges of the hall as did a courtyard breeze, stirring up the fog of hot, perfumed bodies.

  How far away New York City seemed. How far away my troubles seemed as I plucked a stuffed egg from a passing tray. I gobbled up the creamy treat, rich with soft cheese and yolk, flavors not found in those paper containers of low-fat meals back home in our refrigerator. I plucked a marzipan-covered apricot from another tray and tapped my feet in time to the lively music. This was going to be fun.

  As we crossed the great hall, all eyes turned our way. With this particular entrance I felt no stage fright--only anticipation. Would Benvolio be here? Just thinking about him set a blush across my powdered cheeks.

  Teetering under the weight of our hairdos like two Weebles, Juliet and I squeezed through the crowd. As ridiculous as I looked, it didn't take long for me to realize that ridiculous was in. Women had coiled their hair like horns and men wore absurdly huge codpieces shaped like all sorts of creatures. A codpiece, by the way, was a fashionable item in those days, worn over a man's privates like a fancy athletic cup. In the same way that modern women try to make their breasts look bigger with padded bras ... well, you get the picture.

  Juliet ignored all questions about her new hairdo as she led me through a maze of bodies. Our destination, I realized, was the balcony where her parents stood, dressed in matching outfits like those couples who square-dance together. His golden cape, her golden dress, his ruby doublet, her ruby gloves. But a man stepped forward and purposefully blocked our path. His golden codpiece was shaped like a cobra, arched and poised to strike. "Whom do we have here?" he asked curtly.

  Juliet rolled her eyes then tried to push past him, but he wouldn't budge. "Tybalt, I don't have time for your games."

  Now here's an interesting character from Shakespeare's play. Tybalt is Juliet's cousin, nephew to Lady Capulet. Actors love this role because he is the quintessential bad guy--serious, hot-tempered, and deadly. Toward the end of the play, Romeo kills him in a sword fight.

  Tybalt held himself as stiffly as a military officer and narrowed his eyes at me. "I'm Mimi," I told him. "Juliet's cousin. Yours as well, I suppose."

  "My aunt told me of the robbery. Describe the Montagues who robbed you and I shall personally chop them into pieces and feed them to my bulldog. I live for the moment when I can slice Montague flesh." He spoke matter-of-factly about slicing flesh. A real sociopath. He stepped around Juliet and pressed his codpiece against my leg. "Dance with me."

  "Uh, sorry. Juliet and I are busy."

  "Busy?" he said, curling his upper lip. "You refuse me?" He poked me again with his gold-covered wiener. How totally rude. I hoped that Romeo would kill him right away so he would stop bothering me.

  Thankfully, another woman called out Tybalt's name and Juliet and I made our escape. "I detest him," Juliet told me as we started up the balcony stairs. "He tried to kiss me once. Forced himself on me." She stopped halfway up the stairs. "There's Paris," she whispered, pulling the onion stalks from her sash.

  A gangly man stood between Juliet's parents. He wasn't attractive at all. Sort of soft in the features and basically chinless. And way too skinny. His long neck poked out of his collar like a Popsicle stick.

  Juliet ducked behind my skirt to hide from the Capulets' prying eyes. She shoved some green stalks into her mouth and started chewing as fast as she could. "Juliet," her father called. She swallowed, shoved in more greens, and pointed at my sash. I pulled out the onion bulbs.

  "Juliet," her mother insistently sang.

  She couldn't chew any faster or she'd choke. I pressed my fingernail into one of the onions, f
reeing some of its juice. "I'll dab this behind your ears," I told her. She smiled and nodded. Even with her cheeks inflated like a chipmunk's she managed to shove in an onion bulb.

  "Do my neck, too," she mumbled.

  "Juliet!" Lady Capulet squawked.

  With her mother about to swoop, Juliet devoured the second onion but one still remained. I looked around frantically, then shoved it into my tower of hair. "Let us see how he likes this flower's stench," she said before stepping onto the balcony.

  "My dearest lady," Paris greeted. "I am honored that we should finally meet." He kissed the palm of her hand. His tongue darted over his lips, tasting the onion, no doubt.

  "You are enchanting this evening," Lord Capulet told his daughter, rapidly blinking tiny eyes that looked like finger pricks in risen dough. He sniffed the air curiously. "How strange a smell."

  Before he could detect the source, I stepped forward. "Hello. I'm Mimi, of the Manhattan Capulets. Thanks so much for inviting me to your party. I've never tasted such delicious stuffed eggs before. And those must be the finest musicians in all of Italy."