by Barbara Dee
I didn’t see Gemma, but I heard zero complaints that she’d been chosen for Juliet; after tryouts on Friday, I guess people just assumed she’d get the part. As for Liam, he acted almost embarrassed about being Romeo. For the rest of that day, boys were making kissy faces at him, and he kept scowling and saying rude things back. But I didn’t feel sorry for him. I refused to.
When the whole cast met in the auditorium after dismissal, Mr. Torres told us he had a prediction: “When you are all ancient citizens contemplating your sadly misspent youths, participating in this production is the only thing you’ll remember about middle school. The only thing. Nothing else: not your soccer practices or your math quizzes or who you sat with at lunch.”
“I’ll remember Tessa’s body odor,” Ajay said.
“I’ll remember your mouth, you carcass fit for hounds,” Tessa said. “Julius Caesar,” she added, like it was a hashtag.
Everyone laughed. Tessa stood up and bowed. Getting to play Mercutio is great for her, but maybe she should watch it with all the Shakespeare insults, I thought.
And where was Gemma? Mr. Torres had already started handing out rehearsal schedules, but she wasn’t sitting anywhere in the auditorium.
“Okay,” Mr. Torres was saying. “Here’s how it works. We open the weekend before Valentine’s Day. So, not counting all the upcoming vacations and holidays, we have about twelve weeks of actual rehearsal—fourteen weeks all together—which is a lot less time than it sounds. Look for the name of your character on the calendar. Unless I let you know otherwise, you need to attend rehearsal only on the days your character has a scene. Of course, you’re encouraged to attend any rehearsal. We’re always grateful for an audience. . . . Ah. Let’s all give a warm welcome to the star of our show, Miss Gemma Braithwaite.” He gestured like a TV emcee.
Gemma came jogging down the aisle. “Sorry I’m late, Mr. Torres.”
“No worries. But let’s not make a habit of it, please.”
“Oh, I won’t. Really very sorry.” She flopped into the seat next to me, panting slightly. Something flowery wafted off her body, a sweet-smelling wave of air. I inhaled. Was it perfume? No, my mom smelled like perfume. This was something else.
“Do you think he’s angry at me?” she whispered.
“Mr. Torres?” I asked stupidly. “No. But he doesn’t like lateness.”
“Too bad for me, then, because I’m always late.”
“You could set your phone to remind you.”
“I could. But then I’d have to remember to set my phone.”
Lucy, two seats away, glanced over at us with raised eyebrows. I pretended not to notice.
“What’s this calendar about?” Gemma was asking.
“Rehearsals,” I whispered. “He just gave it out.”
“And I missed it? Bollocks. Can I look on with you?” She leaned over to read my calendar as Mr. Torres talked about the schedule. The funny thing was that her closeness and her scent made my head all swimmy. Like maybe I was allergic to her shampoo.
“Blimey,” Gemma was murmuring. “I have to come to every rehearsal, don’t I?”
“Well, not every one,” I said. “And you’re the lead, so . . .”
“I suppose. You’re Paris, aren’t you?” She scanned the schedule with her pointer finger. “Ooh, look, Mattie, we have a scene together.”
“Act Four, Scene One,” I said immediately. Then I blushed.
Gemma looked at me and smiled. “Ace memory.”
“Not really. I’m only in five scenes, so it’s really easy to—”
“Girls?” From the stage, Mr. Torres was looking at us questioningly. “Are you confused about something?”
“Not at all.” Gemma smiled at him. “We’re with you, Mr. Torres.”
We’re, I thought. She’d used the first-person plural.
Then Mr. Torres announced that he believed in “diving right in.” So after laying out some ground rules for the next twelve weeks (including No Lateness), he asked the kids who were in Act One, Scene One to come up onstage. “The rest of you can stay,” he said. “In fact, you’re welcome to stay, as I said. But if I were you, I’d go home and get some homework done. When the calendar says it’s your scene, I expect your full attention here. Don’t tell me, Oh, Mr. Torres, I have a French test tomorrow, or Sorry, Mr. Torres, but I need to work on my English essay. For the next fourteen weeks, aside from schoolwork, humans, play practice is your top priority.”
Gemma leaned into me again. “Is he always such an ogre?” she murmured.
I was about to protest that Mr. Torres wasn’t an ogre at all, he just wanted the show to be good, despite the fact that he’d chosen Liam Harrison for Romeo. But immediately Gemma was surrounded by her friends, who transported her out of the auditorium as if they were pirates and she were stolen treasure.
14
“I will make thee think thy swan a crow.”
—Romeo and Juliet, I.ii.89
Benvolio was in Act One, Scene One, so Lucy stayed to rehearse that first day, and Tessa and I walked home together. She was even more hyper than usual, going on and on about how cool it was to play Mercutio, how he had all the best lines in the play. I let her talk, my brain still swimming from the whispered conversation with Gemma. Not that we’d discussed anything personal or profound. But the way she knew I was playing Paris, the way she leaned over my calendar, as if she knew I wouldn’t mind sharing, the way she’d said we’re—it gave me hope that we could actually be friends. Despite the swarm of pirates who’d spirited her away.
“Well?” Tessa was staring at me.
“Well, what?”
“Mattie, you’re being spacey again,” Tessa complained. “Didn’t you hear my question?”
“Sorry. Guess not.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was just asking what you and Gemma were talking about.”
“Oh. Actually, we were discussing the rehearsal calendar.”
“Really? You two seemed chummier than that.”
I could feel my cheeks heat up. “We aren’t ‘chummy.’ And I only met her at Willow’s house last week.”
“Just be careful,” Tessa said. “Willow can be crazy possessive. I think she’s mad at me because I danced with Liam at her party. Like every girl in the grade wasn’t dancing with him, you know?”
I thought it would be smart to change the subject. “You know, Willow kills you in the play,” I pointed out. “Tybalt kills Mercutio in a sword fight. And then Romeo kills Tybalt for revenge, which is how he gets banished.”
“Poor Romeo; he’s such a screwup,” Tessa said absentmindedly. She went quiet for a full block. Then she blurted: “So does she like him?”
“Does who like who? Does Juliet like Romeo?”
“No, you purple-hued malt-worm. I mean, does Gemma like Liam?”
“How would I know?”
“You talk to her. She talks to you.”
“Hardly ever. And not about Liam.”
“Mattie, come on. I need to know. And who else would I ask? Willow?” She shuddered.
“So you’re saying I should ask Gemma? But I barely know her, Tessa.”
“You know her better than I do! And all my scenes are with Lucy and Liam; I won’t even see her at rehearsals. Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope. Pleeeease?” She did that pleading thing with her hands.
I pretended not to notice. “Tessa, why do you even care who she likes?”
“Why? I’ll tell you why. Because she’s going to have to kiss Liam, right? A lot. And since we all agree Gemma is pretty and nice and talented and English, it would help if she kind of hated Liam’s guts.”
“Fine.” I said it just to shut her up. “I’ll see what I can find out. But I’m not promising anything. And don’t bug me about it, okay?”
“I’ll be quiet as a mouse. Hey, I wonder if that’s a Will.”
I looked at her. “A what?”
“An expression Shakespeare invented. Like mind’s eye or all’s well tha
t ends well. At theater camp we collected Will Expressions, although mostly we were into insults.”
She launched into a speech about how her friend Henry kept lists of Will Expressions, but I didn’t even pretend to listen. All I could think about was Gemma kissing Liam, Liam kissing Gemma—and wondering why that image made my insides knot up.
* * *
The first scene of Romeo and Juliet is long. There’s a street fight, and then all the grown-ups appear, including the Prince, who yells at everybody to stop. Then Romeo’s dad asks Benvolio what’s been going on with Romeo, who’s been acting weird lately. Benvolio says he doesn’t know, Romeo’s dad leaves, and Benvolio runs into Romeo, who says he’s hopelessly in love with some girl (Rosaline, not Juliet). I guess because the scene goes on a while and has so many characters, Mr. Torres spent the first three rehearsals working on it. And since Paris only appears for a minute at the start of Scene Two, I didn’t need to show up until Thursday.
In class, though, we were zooming along with the play, talking about the scene in Act One when Romeo and Juliet first meet at the costume party.
“Yeah, about that,” Ajay said, not even bothering to raise his hand. “Isn’t Romeo kind of a jerk for dumping Rosaline the second he meets Juliet?”
“He’s not a jerk,” I said. “He really did think he was in love with Rosaline. But he doesn’t realize it’s only a crush until he meets Juliet.”
“What’s so great about Juliet?” Ajay challenged me.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It can’t just be that Romeo thinks she’s pretty, because she’s probably wearing a mask, right? And if she were really that amazing-looking, everybody in the play would be mentioning it all the time. And they don’t. I think Romeo and Juliet just have a special connection.”
“A special connection?” Ajay repeated, snorting.
“Because that’s what love is,” I said. “It doesn’t need to make sense. It’s like a chemical reaction. It just happens.”
The class was staring at me. My face grew hot.
“What Mattie means,” Tessa said loudly, “is that love is mysterious. Who knows why anyone falls in love. With anybody.” She pointed her chin at Elijah.
Mr. Torres nodded. “Good point, humans. We shouldn’t decide that just because Romeo instantly switches from Rosaline to Juliet at the costume party, his love for Juliet isn’t real.”
“But what’s it based on?” Elijah demanded. “One conversation at a party?”
Ajay smirked. “Yeah, when Romeo first talks to Juliet, he just says he wants to kiss her. He doesn’t say anything about love.”
“Hmm.” Mr. Torres smiled. “Interesting. When does it become love?”
“When they kiss?” Keisha guessed.
Willow raised her hand. “Mr. Torres, after they kiss, Juliet tells Romeo, ‘You kiss by the book.’ Does that mean she thinks he’s a bad kisser? You know, like he’s just following an instruction manual?”
“They had an instruction manual for how to kiss?” Liam joked. “Elijah, you should read it, bro.”
Some boys sniggered. Elijah blushed.
I raised my hand again. “I think when Juliet tells Romeo he kisses ‘by the book,’ she just means he’s good at it. But I don’t think it’s why she falls in love. I think she kisses him because she’s in love.”
“Okay, so here’s what I don’t get,” Elijah said. He actually turned to face me for the first time since Willow’s party. “Romeo walks into the party, he sees Juliet, she sees him, and boom, now they’re supposedly in love? I know it’s Shakespeare, but that’s pretty lame.”
“Ah,” Mr. Torres said. “I see we have a skeptic in the room. You don’t believe in romantic love, Elijah?”
“I don’t know about that,” Elijah said. “I just don’t believe that Romeo and Juliet are in love. Not the way they think they are. Or the way they talk about it.”
“Then you’re missing the point of the whole play,” I exploded. “Love is talking about love! Romeo and Juliet fall in love by talking!”
“Whoa, Shakespeare Nerdgirl,” Ajay said.
“Both of you,” Mr. Torres said, raising his eyebrows. “You know that’s not how we communicate in this classroom.”
“Sorry,” Ajay and I muttered.
But I wasn’t sorry. Not at all. Because if Elijah couldn’t get this concept, then we had nothing in common, after all.
And therefore, ping. This was the moment I was officially out of crush.
If I was ever actually in crush to begin with.
15
“Madam, your mother craves
a word with you.”
—Romeo and Juliet, I.v.113
At dismissal on Friday, Lucy asked if I wanted to get fro-yo. She’d had rehearsals every afternoon since Monday, and this was the first time we could hang out together all week. Tessa had left straight from school to spend the weekend with her dad, so it would be just the two of us—which sometimes felt more relaxing, to be honest.
“Sure,” I said right away. I wasn’t even nervous about being welcome at Verona’s if Tessa wasn’t coming. “But maybe we could stay and watch rehearsal first? Just for a bit?”
“What for?” Lucy asked.
“Well, it’s Friday, so there’s no homework or anything. And I wanted to see Gemma’s first scene.”
“Yeah, okay,” she said, although without too much enthusiasm. “Although you didn’t stick around to see my first scene.”
“You wanted me to? I thought you always hate it when people watch your dance rehearsals.”
“I’m teasing, Mattie. Sure, we can watch for a few minutes. I bet Keisha would appreciate an audience.”
Lucy and I walked into the auditorium and took seats in the second-to-last row. Right away, Lucy started texting somebody—Tessa, most likely—while I sat mesmerized by the scene. I’d forgotten that it was all about me: my character, Paris, had asked Lord Capulet for Juliet’s hand (even though she was only thirteen). So in this scene, Juliet’s mom was telling her about Paris’s proposal, while the Nurse won’t shut up about how cute Juliet was as a baby.
“What I don’t understand,” Gemma was telling Mr. Torres, “is why Juliet doesn’t tell her mum to just sod off. She doesn’t even know this Paris bloke. And she barely says a word in the whole scene.”
“True, Juliet is being very quiet here,” Mr. Torres said. “But look at what she does say to Lady Capulet: ‘It is an honor that I dream not of.’ That’s not exactly Yippee, I’m getting hitched.”
“Yes, but then at the end of the scene she says she’ll have a look at this Paris: ‘But no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent gives strength to make it fly.’ What’s she saying—I’ll check him out, but I won’t do anything without your permission, Mummy? She’s being kind of wimpy about it, isn’t she?”
“But she’s just a kid,” Keisha argued. “And in Shakespeare’s time, what choice did she have? If your parents told you to marry someone, you did, right?” She looked at Mr. Torres.
“I’m afraid that is right,” Mr. Torres said. “Juliet really was in no position to refuse. Or to rebel.”
“Although she does rebel,” Gemma insisted. “By falling in love with Romeo. But maybe in this scene she doesn’t know yet that she has it in her.”
“That she has what in her?” Mr. Torres asked, smiling.
“Bravery,” Gemma said. “Not caring what anyone else thinks about her love.”
“That’s true,” I murmured. “Gemma’s really smart.”
“Mm-hmm,” Lucy said.
“Who’s playing Paris again?” Charlotte was asking.
“Mattie,” Keisha said.
“Well, at least Paris is pretty, then,” Gemma said, laughing. “But I still hate Juliet’s parents. They’re treating their daughter as if she’s a piece of property. All they care about is that this Paris bloke is rich.”
Lucy poked me. “Let’s go. I’m starving.”
But I couldn’t leav
e. Not if they were still discussing my character. And Gemma had just called me PRETTY.
“Five more minutes, okay?” I whispered, barely breathing.
Lucy sighed and twisted her hair.
But then Mr. Torres started working with Keisha on the Nurse’s lines, while Gemma and Charlotte chatted together.
There was nothing to watch. So Lucy and I left the auditorium for fro-yo.
* * *
With Tessa gone for the weekend, Tessa’s mom was probably bored, so on Saturday afternoon she called my mom to nag her about volunteering for some kind of PTA thing. Tessa’s mom was the kind of person who wouldn’t stop talking until you finally surrendered, and I knew Mom wasn’t a big fan of her usual ranting. But I could hear Mom being polite to her on the phone, saying “yep,” and “uh-huh,” while she cleaned the kitchen counter.
When she finally hung up, Mom crossed her eyes. “So,” she said. “Congratulate me. You’re looking at the next eighth-grade Valentine’s Dance committee chairperson.”
“What’s that?” I asked as I finished my tuna sandwich.
“The PTA needs a parent volunteer to organize things. And apparently I’ve just been recruited.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, have fun with that.”
“You sound as if you don’t care one way or the other.”
“I don’t, honestly. I haven’t even thought about the Valentine’s Dance.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a million years from now! I’m much more focused on the play.”
“I know you are, Mattie, and that’s great,” Mom said. “But the dance isn’t a million years away; it’s actually just a week after the play. And I know things didn’t work out with that boy you liked—”
“Who?” I stared at her.
“That boy Lucy was talking about in the car, after the Halloween party. But as Grandma used to say, there are plenty of other fish in the sea.”
Erg. “Mom, I’m totally over Elijah.”
“Well, good.” She tilted her head and smiled coyly. “Is there someone else you’d maybe like to go with?”
