The heat on my neck feels like an inferno, but I guess I should have prepared for this. I think back to all the times Charlie gave Greta and James crap for dating each other. So. Many. Times. This is what having friends is like. I have friends. That “s” makes a big difference. Victor can’t fool me any longer. I sit with the techies because they are my friends. And to be a friend, sometimes you’ve got to—
“Sorry to have replaced you so easily, Victor. But really, can you blame Max? I’ve got brains and boobs.”
Victor chokes on his coffee, spraying it all over the back of Max’s headrest. Max swerves, coffee spit and the word “boobs” still ricocheting around his truck. He pulls over to the side of the street, his face a deep copper, and covers the ears on the Mary statuette on the dash. “Becca,” he says, and I’m so glad he’s biting back laughter. “You can’t say b-o-o-b-s in front of the Virgin.”
“Oh,” I say, pulling my face in an exaggerated expression of guilt. I turn and look seriously at Victor. “Sorry, Vic.”
Victor is still wiping coffee off his face, but stops mid-swipe, mouth agape. Laughter spills across the front seat as Max lets go of the statue to take in Victor’s shocked face.
“Well done, Becca. Bravo,” Victor says, raising his coffee cup in a toast.
“And don’t you forget it,” I say, clinking mine against his before taking a satisfying gulp.
Scene Four
[The guidance counselor’s office]
At lunch, I knock on Dr. Wallace’s door to apologize for missing Friday’s appointment. I decided to stick with the story Darby and I had used on my mom. It’ll be easier than juggling multiple lies. “Oh what a tangled web we weave” and all that stuff.
Mrs. Wallace welcomes me in, carefully trying to hide her annoyance with me behind a big, gap-toothed smile. She whirls her long curls up and jabs a few pencils in to hold it in place before motioning for me to join her at the little sitting area in a corner of her office. She folds her legs up under her long skirt as she sits, crossing her hands in her lap and waiting for me to begin.
“I’m sorry about Friday. My friend had some boy trouble. I found her crying in the bathroom and just couldn’t leave her.”
Mrs. Wallace’s face flickers with disbelief, but she settles it quickly. “A friend?”
“Darby. She’s in the play.”
“Darby Jones? I didn’t realize you were friends.”
“Only since the play,” I say, nodding for emphasis, remembering the way Darby shrieked just before she hit the water.
“Well, I’m glad you made it today.”
We sit in silence, and I’m aware she’s waiting for me to say something, like I keep epiphanies up my sleeves and can pull them out on a whim. But I’ve got nothing.
“I’ve got nothing,” I say.
She chuckles once.
“No, seriously. We’ll be waiting here a long time if you think I’ve got some sort of amazing discovery about myself to disclose. I thought maybe doing the play would help me figure out my life, but I’m just as confused now as I was when I agreed to do it.”
“That’s impressive.”
“I know, right?” I shift forward. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve got it figured out.” I think back to my amazing kiss with Max, the way I felt whole again for just a moment. “But then, I don’t know, it’s like I’m back where I started—missing Charlotte so much that it hurts. My chest aches and my stomach burns and my head is a mess. Plot twists in real life suck.”
Dr. Wallace leans toward me. “A little like taking a step forward only to stumble and slip backward again. Right?”
“Yeah. It’s frustrating. I just want to get better.” I drop my head into my hands.
“Becca?”
I groan in response.
“You’re not broken.”
I peek at her between my fingers. “I feel broken.” Pressure like a thousand boulders thunders through my skull, piling up behind my eyes until I think they may burst from my head in a flash flood of tears. I push the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to hold myself together with an unraveling thread.
I hear the tinkling of Mrs. Wallace’s bracelets as she stands and places her hand on my shoulder. “You’re not broken. You’re grieving.”
“But for how much longer?”
Dr. Wallace lowers herself to sit on the edge of the coffee table in front of me. “Forever.”
Looking up, I count four deep lines in her forehead. I wipe my eyes with the cuff of my sleeve. “That’s really depressing.”
She nods.
“You kind of suck at this.”
The wrinkles on her forehead shift upward as she grins. “I’m a work in progress—same as you.”
The bell for next class sounds out in the hallway. Dr. Wallace sucks in her lips and then releases them as she exhales messily. “Well, thank you for coming to see me today. I’m not going to require you to come back, but remember that I’m here to listen.”
I stand. “Maybe I can stop by or something, I don’t know, sometime.”
She cocks her head to one side and her smile goes lopsided. “That’d be lovely.”
Scene Five
[The theater]
In the week since the party at Thomas’s, Darby has reverted to growling at me instead of talking to me (which is fine by me because that girl has no idea what the word friend really means). And poor Thomas. He’s civil to me, but a lot of our spark as Romeo and Juliet has died. Owens has noticed. He stomps around wailing about how this play will be the death of him.
The one bright spot in all of this is that Thomas’s sparring with Darby when Romeo kills Tybalt is explosive. My heart races watching them hack at each other. Thomas is definitely putting his anger to good use.
Today Owens has us rehearsing what Victor has dubbed the postcoital scene. Romeo and Juliet have spent their ill-fated wedding night together, and Romeo must now get the hell out of town before someone finds him and kills him.
I follow Thomas over to a long, low futon. Victor swears the bed will be made to look historically accurate by opening night. His face got all red and sweaty when I joked I’d read somewhere that Shakespeare had a futon. I was informed that I am most definitely not funny. Victor takes stage dressing seriously.
This scene is a major test for Thomas and me right now because there’s like a million kisses and tender looks and all that stuff. That’s right, one million kisses in sixty lines of iambic pentameter. Shakespeare isn’t the only one who can write hyperbole.
I glance up at the booth where Max is working. “Yes,” he says, his voice sweet in my ear. “This will be weird.”
I smile, placing a hand over my earpiece, like I can hug him through it.
“Tell him if he gets fresh, I’ll drop a Leko on him.”
“What’s a Leko?” I ask.
“Huh?” Thomas says turning toward me, still adjusting his own mic.
“A Leko?”
“Oh.” He points up at the giant light fixtures that hang from the catwalk above us.
I look up at the booth and burst out laughing.
At Owens’s instruction, Thomas and I lie back on the futon. When we blocked this scene a few weeks ago, I lay beside him rigid and untouchable, exactly the same as I lie in the corpse scene. But today when Owens calls the scene to action and that spotlight burns over me, I curl into Thomas’s side. I trace lazy circles on Thomas’s chest with soft fingers, remembering the way Max’s kisses feel along my neck.
“Hmm…” Max’s voice is a soft buzz in my ear. “I think you’re getting too good at this acting thing.” I hide a smile, burying my face in Thomas’s neck.
Thomas’s intake of breath is sharp as he turns his head to look at me. But the spotlight is on, and I’m not Becca Hanson. When he turns, I’m Juliet, and he’s the man of my dreams. I stamp out the little voice that is crying bullshit at the back of my skull.
“Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day,” I say, making my voice liquid
like syrup on Sunday morning pancakes. Thomas pushes himself up on one elbow, a finger sweeping my hair from my face as he listens to me speak. “Believe me, love,” I say, sliding my hand from his chest to cup the back of his neck.
There’s chuckling in my ear. “By the way, I totally saw him eating the fish sandwich at lunch today. Enjoy that.”
Ewww. It takes all my willpower to keep from wrinkling my nose in disgust. I pull Thomas’s face to mine and breathe a light kiss on his lips before finishing my line. “It was the nightingale.”
“I hate him.” Max sighs, and it sends tingles down my spine.
Once we’ve finished the scene, Mr. Owens claps his broad hands in a way that echoes across the empty seats in the back of the theater. His Cheshire cat smile is bright white in the glare from the spotlight. “Bravo, Juliet. And thank goodness, too, because I thought for sure we were going to have to cancel the whole show the way you two have been acting lately. Bravo, indeed.” He’s trumpeting like a drunk elephant.
Max cuts the spot.
Mr. Owens blinks a few times and calls out, “Light, Maximo. I need the light. I have a grand announcement to make.”
I glance up at the booth and smile. Without the light on I can see Max, but as soon as he throws the switch, he becomes a shadow puppet along the back wall.
Mr. Owens claps three more times and then clasps his hands together in front of his heart. It looks a little like he’s going to burst into an operatic aria.
“My young actors, I have wonderful news for you, and for me.” He beams at us, motioning for the kids in the first few rows of seats to come closer. Darby and her court step out of the wings. “I have been speaking with a dear friend at the School of the Arts—”
There’s an audible gasp. Mr. Owens pauses. It looks like he really enjoyed that reaction. People whisper to one another, a few high fives are thrown, and Darby’s minions are doing a squealy group hug thing behind her.
“Yes,” continues Owens, “you heard me correctly. I have invited a Mrs. Natorini to be our most special guest on opening night. Mrs. Natorini is one of the talent scouts in the admissions department.”
There’s another explosion of excitement. Thomas snatches me up in a huge bear hug, whirling me around twice before setting me back down. He rubs a hand through his hair with an apologetic expression once he’s returned to his senses.
Mr. Owens watches us with a proprietary look in his eye. “Yes, a reason to celebrate, especially since Juliet has continued to grow under my tutelage.” Owens slides himself over so he’s standing beside me, waving his arms around me like a spokesmodel at a car show.
I glance at Darby out of the corner of my eye. The knuckles of her right hand are white where they wrap around her broadsword. As much as I hate to admit it, most of my progress is due to Darby’s help—not Owens.
“I know many of you have your sights set on The School of the Arts. This may be your opportunity,” Owens says. “The play is the thing. In the next few weeks, I expect each of you to eat, drink, sleep, and breathe this play. Our futures may depend on it.” He opens his arms wide and takes a small bow before exiting the stage.
Bedlam. It’s the only way to describe the frenetic energy that explodes in the theater once he’s gone. Thomas is about to hug me again, but the spotlight cuts out quickly, and he glances up, losing momentum, stunned by the ordinariness of the lighting. I step back a few paces.
“So, this is good news?” I ask.
“This is amazing news. Auditions are hard to come by, and if a scout picks you out, there’s a great chance you can get some scholarship money, too. Plus, for juniors like you, if you get into the high school program as a senior, you’re practically guaranteed a spot in the undergrad school.”
I pan the crowd, taking in their excitement, stopping briefly where Darby’s girlfriends have engulfed her in their group hug. This play just became the most important thing on Darby’s agenda—the boost she needs to realize her future. I wonder if that makes her more dangerous now. What will she do to get what she wants?
I look back at Thomas to ask, “But not everyone wants to go to The School of the Arts, right?”
Thomas raises an amber eyebrow. “The only ones who say they don’t are the ones who fear they can’t afford it.” He opens his hands at his sides, indicating the stage we’re standing on. “This is the dream, Becca.”
It is? I enjoy slipping into the role of Juliet, taking a time out from being Becca, but I don’t dream about it.
Scene Six
[The woodshop]
Owens caught Max on our way out of the theater and demanded a few new panels for the Capulet ballroom. He insisted that if we were going to have a scout at the play, everything needed to be beyond perfect—as if perfection weren’t hard enough to achieve on its own.
The shop has tall ceilings and cinderblock walls painted that jaundice yellow public schools are so fond of. The windows are all near the ceiling and with the lateness of the afternoon and the angle of the setting sun, the western wall of windows is lit like the world outside is on fire. The room reminds me of Dezi’s barn studio, full of open space and smelling faintly of straw, wood, and dust, with maybe a twinge of barnyard animal, which makes no sense, but there you have it. It’s a comforting place to be.
I drop my bag on a long, dusty table in the shop and then pull myself up, too. My legs swing. Max drops his bag next to me, but moves off to the workbenches along one wall, gathering a long power cord, a T square, and a few other things. He shoves a pencil behind his ear before setting everything by a large board propped up on sawhorses. Then he begins sketching long lines and soft curves onto the board.
“Max?”
He glances at me but doesn’t stop working. “Yeah.”
I can’t squelch the strange new nervousness in my stomach. “Is the scout coming to the play a big deal for you?”
He shrugs, smudging a line and redrawing it. “Why?”
“Well, it’s a big deal for the actors. It’s obviously vital to Darby, and even Thomas says it’s what everyone wants—the stage.”
He cocks a brow at me. “That’s what Thomas says, eh?”
I purse my lips and slide off the table to come closer to where he’s working. “I guess I just didn’t realize. I mean I thought it was just for fun. I didn’t think any of it mattered.”
Max puts the pencil behind his ear and straightens to face me. “It is for fun, Bec. Don’t let it get to you.” He runs his hand down my arm, making the hairs there stand on end.
“Fine, but it made me think.” I can’t help but twist a long strand of hair. “I worry because”—a sigh escapes me—“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“I don’t know what I want to do.”
“When you grow up?” He chuckles, and I can see that twisted canine when he grins at me.
I roll my eyes and snatch his pencil, pointing it at him as I speak. “Don’t mock me.”
His face becomes serious. “I’m not mocking. I’m just suggesting that perhaps you don’t have to worry about when you grow up just yet.”
“Everyone else does.”
He shrugs and steals his pencil back. Turning back to his work, he says, “Yeah, but I bet they don’t really know. I bet they’re just faking it.”
“So what about you? What do you want to do?”
I notice he’s bearing down on the pencil harder so that this line is heavier than the others before. “Mom says I’d make a great structural engineer. Dad says artist, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I say, we’ll see.”
“But what about college?”
“I’ll go wherever I can get a scholarship.”
“Wherever?”
He shrugs again.
“How can you not care?”
“I don’t have the luxury of caring, Becca.” He’s pressing so hard on the pencil that I can see a groove in the board. I think back to our game of Would You Rathe
r and the choice between failing or doing the same thing every day. Max chose failure, but perhaps he’s still afraid—afraid of caring too much about a future he may have no control over.
He peeks up at me from his work. “I just want to go to college.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t be saying anything, right? I mean, I haven’t even thought about going anywhere. It’s just that Charlie always knew where he wanted to be. I don’t think he even applied anywhere other than MIT.”
“Risky.”
“Not if you knew my brother. He was made for MIT. Or maybe MIT was made for him, just biding its time until he was old enough to attend.” But then I remember how Charlie almost let it all go. How he almost said, “screw it”—would have left it behind for the chance to spend more time with Charlotte. He’d had a new dream. One filled with Charlotte.
Max is finished with the sketch and has plugged in the power cord for the jigsaw. He secures a long, slim blade into place. The metal teeth catch the fiery sunlight and sparkle like prisms on a chandelier.
“I need a dream.” My voice is jagged like the blade’s edges. I feel like I’m wasting space on this planet, like Charlotte would have one hundred dreams if she’d been allowed them, and I can’t come up with one.
Max looks up, setting the saw to the side. He places his hands on my shoulders, running his fingers down the length of my arms until he tangles them in my mine. “I hope when you find one, it makes you happy.” He squeezes my hands before letting go and reaching back to present me with a pair of fluorescent orange safety glasses. He fits them over my ears, setting them on the bridge of my nose, dragging his thumb down my cheek and under my jaw when he’s done. “And I hope there’s room for me.”
He destroys me with a gallant smile before he puts on his own ugly glasses.
When we’re finished, I sweep the floor as Max stores the tools. “So I was thinking,” he says, grabbing the dustpan and bringing it to where I’ve swept up a pile of shavings. “We should go out, just the two of us.” He squats with the dustpan and looks up at me. “No Victors. No little brothers. No homework. No interrupting fathers. No ice cream.”
“No ice cream?” I carefully move the pile into the dustpan.
Life After Juliet Page 19
