by Barbara Dee
“No one would,” Ajay said. “He’s a sucky Romeo, anyway.”
“Did Liam say why he was dropping out?” Elijah asked. “Because it can’t just be about his arm.”
“I agree,” Willow said. “I think he got psyched out somehow.” She did a funny thing then. She looked at me. As if I were the reason Liam was psyched out.
“You know,” I said, my heart pounding, “I was trying to help him, Willow.”
“Yeah, Mattie. Great job.”
“Seriously, Willow?” Tessa said. “You’re implying that Mattie—”
“Hey, I’m not implying anything. I’m just saying great job helping Liam. You know, because his confidence was really getting boosted.” She rolled her eyes.
“Liam’s confidence doesn’t need boosting,” Elijah said. “He has nothing but confidence. No brains.”
“Wait, that isn’t fair,” I said.
Elijah looked at me in surprise. “You’re sticking up for him?”
“No. I mean yes. Look, you guys, he tried. It’s just a really hard part.”
“Not too hard for you, though, Mattie,” Willow said. “You’ll be an awesome Romeo, I’m sure.”
“Willow, do you have a problem?” Tessa asked loudly. “Is there some reason you’re against Mattie playing Romeo? Because I’m curious to hear it.”
My heart banged. Tessa refused to stop sticking up for me. She was a better friend than I was, really.
“There’s no reason,” Willow muttered. “I just don’t like how this whole thing happened, okay? Where was Mr. Torres? Why didn’t he help Liam himself, instead of making Mattie do it for him?”
“Mr. Torres didn’t make me,” I said. “And he did try to help Liam. Then he asked me.”
“Yeah, because you’re this Shakespeare Nerdgirl, right?” Willow folded her arms across her chest. “Also I’m upset about Liam just giving up.”
“Well, don’t be,” Tessa snapped. “Because he’s happy now. He wanted to get out of the play, and he did. Right?”
Willow narrowed her eyes and shrugged.
I could see how much she hated to admit defeat. So maybe that’s why she was so mad—she’d ordered Liam to play Romeo again, and he’d refused. It was like a Team Willow mutiny, led by her crush. And the worse part? Her crush would be replaced by me, the Evil Party Crasher. Shakespeare Nerdgirl under a Darth Vader helmet.
Who knew the truth about Liam’s crush on Lucy. Although Willow didn’t know about it. And she didn’t know that I knew it.
I figured this gave me a sort of power. Which I’d probably never use, but still.
* * *
That afternoon, Romeo and Juliet got married. It’s a weird scene, because you don’t even get to see the wedding ceremony; it’s just Romeo and Friar Lawrence waiting for Juliet to show up. When she does, Friar Lawrence basically tells them: Okay, you two, since you’re so eager to get married, let’s get this over with. The wedding takes place offstage, so the scene has no “kissing stuff,” no hand touching, barely any words. The scene is so short that Mr. Torres said he wanted to “push on,” blocking the next scene, which was long and full of action.
It was also a scene I’d been dreading. Act Three, Scene One was when Tybalt kills Mercutio (thanks to Romeo’s stepping into the middle of their sword fight), and Romeo kills Tybalt in revenge. Love scenes with Gemma were hard; this scene would be hard in a completely different way, and the truth was, I didn’t feel ready.
Maybe Gemma realized it. Just before she jumped off the stage to take a seat in the front row, she whispered in my ear, “Hey, Romeo. Don’t let Tybalt push you around.”
I looked at her in surprise. Did she mean Willow shouldn’t push me around—or was she talking about the play? It was hard to tell.
But I smiled, bowed, and doffed a pretend hat. “A million thanks, sweetest lady.”
When I stood, I saw Willow watching us. I turned my head away quickly, so that if I started blushing, she wouldn’t see.
“Hey, Mattie,” Tessa shouted from across the stage. “You need something to use as a sword. I’m using a pen.”
“No pens,” Mr. Torres announced. “And no pencils, either, humans. Nothing with a point.”
“Oh, come on, Mr. Torres,” Willow said. “We’re not really going to hurt each other.”
Mr. Torres took a drink out of a water bottle. “The way this play is going, let’s not tempt fate, okay? If you must have a prop, use something with a blunt edge only.”
“Like Elijah’s head,” Ajay suggested.
“Aw, shut up, Ajay, you rat-catcher,” Tessa said. I knew she was ecstatic that in this scene, Mercutio gets to call Tybalt “rat-catcher.” I didn’t know what it meant, exactly (Was it bad to catch rats?), but it was still a great insult. In fact, it almost made up for the fact that Tybalt was about to kill Mercutio.
“Psst, Mattie.” Gemma was at the lip of the stage, motioning me over. When I got there, she handed me a straw still in its paper. “Use this,” she said. “Remember our sword fight?”
Now I did blush. Of course I remembered: straw versus lightsaber. How she’d vanquished Darth Vader.
“Thank you,” I said.
Gemma beamed at me.
“Gems, you have any more of those?” Willow asked.
“Not on me,” Gemma replied. “But I got it in the cafeteria at lunch. Shall I go steal some more?”
“Not a bad idea,” Mr. Torres said. “All right, then, Benvolio and Mercutio, you’re entering the town square. Benvolio is worried that Mercutio is itching for a fight with the Capulets, especially with Tybalt. Let’s do this, humans.”
Lucy and Tessa walked out onstage together. Tessa was swinging her arms in a looking-for-danger sort of way, but when Lucy begged her to go home instead of looking for a “brawl,” Tessa said: “Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat.” It was such a great line that Tessa started to laugh.
“This isn’t a funny scene, Tessa,” Charlotte informed her. “People are about to get killed, you know.”
“I’m about to get killed, you ‘foul undigested lump,’ but it’s still hilarious.”
“Tessa,” Mr. Torres warned. “Watch the mouth, please.”
“Sorry.” She zipped her lip.
“Okay, now Tybalt enters. If Mercutio is itching for a fight, Tybalt has the chicken pox. Especially for Romeo, who crashed his uncle’s party.”
“Yeah,” Tessa said. “And Tybalt tries to make himself sound all macho and official when he accuses Mercutio of ‘consorting’ with Romeo. So then Mercutio makes fun of him for using the word ‘consort.’ Because it’s obvious that Tybalt’s a jerk.”
“It is?” Willow growled. “How is Tybalt a jerk?”
“Oh, come on. The way he struts around like he’s so great, like he’s in charge of everybody, but he isn’t. That’s why Mercutio calls him ‘king of cats.’ And then ‘rat-catcher.’ ”
“And why Tybalt is sick of all of Mercutio’s talking. Because Mercutio never shuts up!”
“Willow, ‘were I like thee, I’d throw away myself,’ ” Tessa quoted.
I burst out laughing; I couldn’t help it.
“Timon of Athens,” Tessa informed me.
“Hey, you guys,” Lucy said loudly. “Can we please get back to this play?”
“Thank you, Lucy,” Mr. Torres said. He was starting to look tired and sweaty, I thought.
Just then Gemma burst into the auditorium waving a fistful of straws. “Success!” she shouted, passing out straws to everyone, even Charlotte, who was Lady Capulet.
And then, of course, everyone started straw-fighting everybody else, running and chasing each other all over the stage, and up and down the aisles of the auditorium.
It was hilarious.
Once, I poked Gemma in the shoulder. Once, Tessa poked me, calling me a “herd of boils and plagues.” So I called her “scurvy knave” and plastic-strawed her in the butt.
We went on like this for about fiftee
n minutes.
Mr. Torres let us, because truthfully, he had no choice.
28
“It was the lark, the herald of the morn;
No nightingale.”
—Romeo and Juliet, III.v.6–7
The next day, Liam came back to school with his arm in a cast. I don’t know if he expected banners with LIAM, WE BESEECH THEE, PLEASE BE ROMEO AGAIN written in glitter glue. Or possibly he expected people to yell at him. But from what I could see, nobody even mentioned anything about bailing on the play. And by the end of that Friday, Liam was walking around doing the Smile fulltime. I was even glad for him, actually. He wasn’t a bad person; he just wasn’t tough enough for Shakespeare.
The pre-homeroom rehearsals with Gemma and Mr. Torres went on for a couple more weeks. I guess because it was too early in the morning to fool around, these sessions were pretty much all business. We’d started using the stage in the auditorium, so Mr. Torres could work with me on blocking.
And even though there was barely any time to chat with Gemma, I loved meeting with her to practice our parts in semi-private. She was so smart about everything. If I had trouble pronouncing a word, or knowing where to take a breath, she’d make a suggestion that always helped. If I got tangled up in one of Romeo’s speeches, she’d say it to me—not to correct me, but to show how easy it was to understand. If Romeo said something funny, she laughed. If he was being mopey or ecstatic or angry or passionate, I saw it reflected on her face. And that made me believe I could communicate emotions—that if I felt something that Romeo felt, I could make someone else feel it too.
But every morning Gemma was arriving a few minutes later, and I remembered how she’d said that she wasn’t a morning person, and how hard it was for her to be on time. Plus, it was mid-December, and the weather was getting worse. I didn’t want to force her to keep waking up early, in the icy darkness, coming to school just to help me practice.
One morning a few days before winter break, Gemma was ten minutes later than usual. As we were waiting for her, I told Mr. Torres that I was getting pretty comfortable with playing Romeo, and didn’t think we still needed these extra early rehearsals.
“Your call, Mattie,” he said. “I’m glad you’re feeling more confident.” He studied my face for a few long seconds. “So here’s a question for you, then. Does this mean Romeo is ready to deal with the kissing stuff?”
“What?” I didn’t see the logic: Dropping early rehearsals meant kissing Gemma Braithwaite? Onstage? In front of people? “You mean now?”
“We can wait a bit,” he said. “If you need a little more time, no problem. But I think that the longer we put it off, the more awkward it’ll be for both of you. Will you give it some thought over winter break?”
I nodded. Some thought. Yeah, I could give it plenty of that.
“And how’s it going with the memorizing?”
Just fine, I told him. Memorizing was not an issue for me. In fact, it was one of the best things about being in the play: branding Shakespeare’s words on my brain forever. I’d even started memorizing some of Juliet’s lines, although not on purpose.
Just then Gemma ran into the auditorium. “Sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly, pulling off her blue wool scarf and mittens. “Call from Mummy. She doesn’t believe in time zones.”
“That’s okay,” Mr. Torres said, glancing at me. “Mattie was just saying she’s ready to end these morning rehearsals, anyway.”
Gemma looked startled. “Oh,” she said. “Really?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I think I’m doing okay now. As Romeo, I mean.”
“All right, then,” she said.
She didn’t smile. She didn’t even look relieved. And I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Maybe it was: Mattie, I can’t believe you think you don’t need extra rehearsal time. Because truthfully, you’re still a hopeless Romeo.
Although I doubted that. She’d been so encouraging lately, and so had Mr. Torres. I mean, even I could hear how much better I’d been sounding.
But how come she didn’t seem happy? I’d canceled rehearsals for her sake, really.
* * *
At lunch, Tessa was retaking a math quiz, so I just told Lucy about Gemma’s funny reaction.
“Maybe Gemma liked the extra rehearsals,” Lucy said, smiling. “And maybe she liked them because she likes you.”
“Meaning what?” I muttered, checking around our table to make sure no one was eavesdropping.
“Meaning maybe she likes you back.”
“I really don’t think so.”
“How do you know that, Mattie? Did you ask her?”
“What? Of course not.”
“You could, you know.” Lucy carefully peeled a banana. “Remember how crazy you made yourself over Elijah? Wouldn’t it be better to know where you stand with Gemma?”
I couldn’t believe this. Lucy had never even had a boyfriend, and here she was, giving me advice about a girlfriend. What could she possibly know about this subject, anyway?
And what if I did ask Gemma? Chances were good that she’d answer something like, Actually, um, I don’t like you BACK, I just like you as a FRIEND—which would turn everything all awkward and sticky between us. Exactly at the moment when I needed to deal with—or get ready to deal with—the onstage-kissing stuff.
And if she gave me the Actually, um answer, what would I have to look forward to every day? I wouldn’t stop liking her even if she said that; I’d be like Romeo moping for Rosaline. Back to how it felt when I thought I liked Elijah—except knowing that Gemma was the opposite of dirtbag.
Plus, what if Gemma told someone about my question—someone like Willow? I could say, Here’s a question for you, Gemma, but you have to promise to keep it just between us. Although what would stop Gemma from blabbing even if she promised?
And, okay, maybe she wouldn’t talk about it, maybe she would keep a promise—but what if she started acting weird and awkward around me once she gave the Actually, um answer? People with crush detectors might figure out what was going on, the way Lucy had. Then play rehearsals would become absolute torture, with everyone staring and giggling whenever we had a love scene, which was ALL THE TIME.
BECAUSE I WAS ROMEO, AND SHE WAS JULIET. So, I mean, of course I couldn’t ask that question.
Lucy was my best friend, but obviously, she couldn’t understand.
29
“I’ll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters.”
—Romeo and Juliet, IV.i.123–124
Winter break meant two weeks of nonstop relatives—aunts, uncles, assorted cousins, two sets of grandparents, three dogs, plus Cara and two of her college friends. Tessa spent the break with her dad, although she texted me so often it hardly felt like she was away. I hung out with Lucy a bunch of times to rehearse our scenes together, and once we went to the mall with Keisha and Ellie Yamaguchi.
“So are you guys going to Willow’s for New Year’s Eve?” Ellie asked as we stood on line for pretzels.
Lucy and I exchanged glances. New Year’s Eve was the very next day, and I hadn’t gotten an invitation from Willow. Not that this surprised me.
“Nah, we have something else planned,” Lucy said.
“Oh, yeah? What?” Keisha asked.
“Can’t say. It’s top secret.” Lucy nudged me in the ribs, so I nodded.
After the mall, when the two of us were crocheting tiny animals in Lucy’s bedroom, I asked Lucy if Willow had invited her.
“Yes, but what difference does it make?” she said. “I’d never go, the way she’s been treating Tessa lately. And the way she keeps excluding you.”
“Thank you,” I said. It wasn’t the first time that I’d thought how Lucy always had my back. “So what’s our top secret plan for tomorrow night?”
I said this grinning, sure there wasn’t any plan at all.
But Lucy closed her bedroom door. In a quiet voice she said, “I happen to know that Gemma and her dad are ba
ck in England for Christmas. So if you wanted to communicate, now would be the perfect time to leave something in her mailbox, or slip it under her door.”
“Communicate?” I put down my crochet needle and stared at her. “You mean telling Gemma how I feel? Asking if she feels the same way? Lucy, I already told you—”
“I just mean expressing yourself. You don’t even have to sign your name. Then afterward you and I could have a sleepover.”
“But what’s the point? I mean, if I don’t sign my name, she won’t know it’s from me!”
“Right,” Lucy said, as she admired her tiny crocheted chick. “But that’s not what matters. I just think you need to get your feelings out somehow, or you’ll go crazy. Frankly, I think you’re already going crazy.”
“You do? Why?”
“Mattie, you’re sitting on my bed pulling threads out of my blanket.”
“And that equals crazy?”
“You’ve also been staring off into space.”
“Lucy, I always stare off into space.”
“True. But when you did it over Elijah, you weren’t also destroying my blanket.”
I left Lucy’s house in a sort of stupor. Lucy was my Sensible Friend, the one Mom liked, the one who thought in PowerPoint presentations, everything all logical and numerical. And here she was advising me to do something that made no sense.
Except deep down, I knew it did. I did need to get my Gemma feelings out. Between wondering how she felt about me and feeling guilty about not telling Tessa, I was barely sleeping most nights this vacation. And with the Kissing Stuff about to happen in three more days, I needed to be well rested and not all eye-baggy.
Plus, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t think of a downside to Lucy’s plan. Gemma wasn’t home, so I didn’t have to worry she’d see us creeping around her building. If I didn’t sign my name, she’d never know who’d sent the note. I wouldn’t even have to disguise my handwriting—I could just type the thing on my computer.
So there weren’t even any risks, at least none I could see. Not like there were in asking the Question and getting an Actually, um response in return.
