Romeo, Juliet & Jim

by Larry Schwarz

  Juliet would be playing her customary role of interested and dutiful daughter, and sitting, as usual, in the front row, next to Thibeau.

  Not too far away, Romeo would be in the same role—but of dutiful son—for the House of Montague meeting.

  For now, Henri would be on stage, standing beside their father like the next in line the public believed he was. The Capulets had a long history of admiring females as objects of beauty only. Progressive notions of putting a woman at the helm had never infected the Capulet line.

  But this week her father had actually engaged her in passing for brief tête-à-têtes about some bit of news from the design team or the marketing people. He’d always relied on Juliet for the “girly details,” as he called them, but the questions he was asking her—would it be a coup to source some fabric from female entrepreneurs in the third world (not just a coup, the right thing to do, Juliet had said), for example—were bigger than just, were the cloth buttons for the new Antigone topcoat more interesting covered in leather or lace? (Lace over leather, Juliet had urged.)

  But any real change in his attitude was probably only in her imagination. After all, it was the morning of a big event and Juliet had done nothing but get groomed. She’d rather have been in school than made to be another well-dressed prop. Still, as she slid into the House of Capulet’s spring triumph, the Peony Dress, she allowed herself a few moments of pleasure.

  New clothes really did feel exquisite.

  Fitted like a forgiving, ethereal ballet dancer’s tutu, the Peony Dress was already the star of the spring lines. Not just the Capulet spring lines, but all the spring lines. No fashion house anywhere—Paris, Milan, New York—had so captured the public’s imagination with something fresh the way this dress did. It was part of a story, as Juliet had told her father. “You can’t just expect a dress to sell, Papa,” she’d told Maurice. “It has to be part of a fantasy.”

  So when the dress debuted, it was part of an entire midsummer’s night landscape—models dressed as fairies and fawns and flowers, with Tamar Descartes, a previously unknown model, wearing the dress and posing in the center of it all. Tamar was now, mere months later, a household name. And the dress was already the most copied design of the Fashion Week shows, and had ushered in a “new era of magic,” according to Maintenant. Juliet hadn’t really thought it was such a big deal—didn’t the designers and marketers know by now that every young woman wanted to feel swept into a fairy tale but still hold the reins of her destiny?

  Now, Juliet’s phone buzzed. It was her mother calling from the parlor. “Juliet,” Hélène said into the phone, urgency in her voice. “Are you ready?” Juliet cringed. No doubt Maman would want to see to it that her lipstick was perfect, her hair properly chignoned. Juliet was fairly certain her mother hadn’t picked up a book in years, unless you counted the September edition of Vogue. She sometimes said that thinking too much gave a woman wrinkles. Juliet knew her mother was no idiot, though. Hélène just preferred to avoid facing difficult things.

  “Yes, Maman,” Juliet said. “All dressed.”

  “Good, your father is on his way up,” Hélène said.

  Interesting. Maurice must have really been panicked to come to Juliet’s room with a query. Usually, he fired questions at her over breakfast or in the back of their chaffeured Mercedes. Always in passing, probably so she didn’t get any ideas that she was too valuable a consultant.

  A few short raps came at the door and Lu Hai went to answer it, standing behind the door as she swung it open. Maurice sidled into the room, his footfalls heavy on the dark hardwood. The rest of Juliet’s room was done in varying shades of white and pale pink. The four-poster bed was covered with a sumptuous ivory goose-down bedspread and hung with sheer rose-tinted drapes. A white and gold-thread rug handmade in Marrakech unfurled beneath the bed. A low chaise in cream lolled dreamily under a huge picture window that looked out over the fashionable street below and all of Paris beyond. Next to the bed were stacks of the old books and fashion magazines Juliet liked to buy at flea markets, and scattered around were small knickknacks that had caught her eye in vintage stores: carved wooden peacocks, small jewelry boxes inlaid with colorful tiles, old postcards in gold frames. Her favorite part of the room, though, was a small balcony that overlooked the yard and private street next to the Capulet manse. She’d told Romeo about it, teasing that he should come shout for her from below. Sometimes at night, if she heard a noise from the flower beds, she’d imagine Romeo was there. Of course, he never was.

  Juliet looked around her room, somehow self-conscious to have her father here. But Maurice took no notice of anything as he folded his large frame into a delicate birch-wood chair.

  “What is it, Papa?” Juliet asked, turning from her vanity to regard her father. Maurice was broad-shouldered and jowly and never looked happy.

  “It’s about the meeting today,” he said, looking around the room like he expected to see an intruder.

  When his eyes landed on Lu Hai, the servant asked, “Shall I go?”

  He waved a hand at her. “No, you are loyal. You can stay.”

  Maurice looked at Juliet now. Really looked at her. Could he see her thoughts? Did he know the truth about Romeo? Juliet’s heart raced. Though they often talked, this was especially careful attention on her father’s part and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

  “Henri is no longer fit to lead, as you know,” he said. Now, he looked at his hands, as though asking them why his only son had to disappoint him the way he did. “But I don’t like Thibeau. He is strong, and he will do fine. I just don’t like him.”

  Juliet laughed.

  “We agree on that, I know,” Maurice said. “I need a youthful face to present today, to remind the public that we have more to us than an old man like me. Especially at a time like this. In fashion, someone my age might as well be dead.”

  “Don’t say such things, Papa,” Juliet said, now getting up to put a hand on her father’s shoulder.

  He shook his head. “It is life, to die. That’s not the point here,” he said. He looked up at her. “It’s a different thing altogether to let yourself be killed. I need you to deliver a speech this morning, something to please the investors, show them we are still full of youth and beauty. That this American and his pledge to do us in is nothing more than a wrinkle to be ironed out.”

  Juliet felt weak. This was too much. Too much for a sixteen-year-old who only wanted to be with her boyfriend. Just days ago she’d been hoping to run away, and now here was her father, doing what? Was he asking her to play a bigger role with the company?

  “But, Papa,” she said, “they won’t take me seriously.”

  Maurice smiled. “You’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m not giving you the keys. Just a speech, marketing approved. I haven’t read it.” He handed her some notecards. “Do you prefer I email it or text it or whatever you do?”

  “This is fine,” Juliet said, scanning the cards as her stomach flipped over. She shook her head. “But I’ll be in front of all the shareholders.”

  Maurice shrugged. “You look beautiful. Isn’t that all a woman needs to feel her best?”

  Juliet rolled her eyes. It was a wonder her father could survive in the modern world with ideas like that. “Papa, I need much more than that.”

  He stood up. “Okay, I will ask Thibeau.”

  “Non.” Juliet reached for his arm. “I will do it.”

  Maurice grinned in a way that showed Juliet he’d had no intention of using Thibeau and that her cousin’s name had been dropped solely to provoke her. “You do whatever it is you need to feel your best.”

  “But we leave in an hour!”

  Maurice shrugged as he walked out the door. “Capulets learn quickly. And the speech is written. Now you just need to deliver it.”

  Juliet felt like this was large and important. What did it mean? Did she want what it meant?

  She turned to Lu Hai, who was better to talk to about these things than her mother
. “Do you think he wants to turn the company over to me?”

  Lu Hai shook her head. Not in a “no” way but in a way that indicated Juliet had much to learn.

  “He never said that,” Lu Hai said. “A good rule in life is not to hear words that are not said.”

  CHAPTER 11

  JULIET

  THE CAPULET MEETING was to be held at the Musée Rodin, a small museum in the Seventh Arrondissement that was dedicated to the art of the famous sculptor. The works were housed in an eighteenth-century chateau with stunning grounds. For the shareholders’ meeting, the entire interior had been filled with both real and silk flowers, mostly peonies, for an explosion of color and fragrance. The effect was opulent without being circus-like.

  Her father delivered the numbers portion of the presentation. Maurice was quite good at this. He was jocular when it came to discussing money.

  “There’s recently been gossip about our company being purchased by an American. This James Redmond,” he said. His face had grown a bit red, like just mentioning the name “Redmond” was enough to cause him anger. “But I want you all to know that our company is vital, and too important to France to let it fall into the wrong hands. The idea that we’d merge with our longtime competitors, the House of Montague, is even more ludicrous.…”

  He was certainly mincing no words. Next to him, Henri stood bolt upright, as if to demonstrate that the company was strong.

  In the echoey museum, Juliet could hear the scribbles and taps of journalists writing and typing their stories as Maurice spoke. The meeting was bigger news than usual, no doubt due to Redmond.

  “And now, I’d like to conclude by introducing you to a face you all know and a mind you’ve not yet had the chance to meet. My daughter, Juliet, is my secret weapon in figuring out what our youth will wear. And certainly hearing from someone more fashionable than I am should inject faith in you all for our coming success.”

  It was quite an introduction, though after Lu Hai’s words, Juliet noticed that he didn’t say she was his successor. As she stood up to take her father’s place on the makeshift stage, Juliet realized that she’d never paid much attention at these meetings before. And she’d always been in the front row. So as she got behind the podium, she saw just how many people filled the room. And just how many people were looking at her expectantly. She’d delivered speeches with aplomb at school. Juliet had a natural ease at speaking because she was wise enough to know that it was one of those things that was not a matter of life and death, and too many people treated it that way.

  But before, the words she spoke had been hers. She glanced down at the cards her father had given her. Her speech, which she’d begun to memorize in the car, looked like nonsense to her. She closed her eyes and let the sentences come into focus. Words like youth, glamour, and spirit sprang out at her. And to Juliet they seemed like a jumble of, well, bullshit. So she set the cards on the podium and said what she knew to be true.

  “I am Juliet Capulet,” she started. “I am sixteen. I go to school, I see my friends, I think about the future, I think about who I want to be. I sometimes have crushes. I dream of falling in love.”

  Here, she looked down at her father and mother. They smiled benignly at her, like this was a school play, and she guessed that neither of them were aware she wasn’t reading from the cards. They’d never expect her to go off-book. Henri, however, who’d taken his seat in the audience as well, must have known right away that she was making it up as she went. Her brother smiled, almost gleefully, and made a silent clapping gesture with his hands. Next to him, Thibeau looked smug, as though Juliet were failing and he believed himself to look the better for it.

  “Well, today we are here, in the Rodin Museum, and there are two sculptures here that speak to me,” Juliet said. She felt like she was at confession, because everything she was saying was true. “There’s The Thinker, maybe Rodin’s most famous work, and The Kiss, which has been copied in fifty percent of perfume advertisements for the last one hundred years.”

  Here, the crowd laughed. Juliet was surprised how satisfying it was to have gotten it out of them.

  “But the point of them is, to me, the head and the heart. We are all ruled so very much by our heads, and what we know we should do and how we know we should act, and what we know to be best for us. Or what we think we know.”

  One of the publicity team members had scurried to the front row and was whispering something in Maurice’s ear. Likely something about how the speech Juliet was giving was not the speech she was supposed to be giving.

  Her father glanced up at her, and while he didn’t look happy, he didn’t look mad, either. The familiar furrow between his brows appeared as he frowned.

  “But then you see something like The Kiss and you realize that, well, if we are just thinking all of the time, we will all be sitting alone. We need to be ruled by the heart, too. The thing that drives us to kiss, and to fall in love…”

  From the far back of the room, a skinny man had stepped into the aisle. He had on a pair of cropped black pants, held up by red suspenders that matched his patent loafers. He clutched a notebook and was obviously a reporter of some kind. “Are you in love with someone, Juliet?” he asked.

  Juliet felt color flood her face and knew it was probably apparent even from the back of the room. “I could be, but it’s no matter,” she said. She smiled sweetly at him. “And certainly not important to the shareholders.” Even if it was. The news of Juliet and Romeo—the enemy houses tied through young romance—would be a scandal for the ages.

  “Well, is there a point to this?” the man asked in a snide tone.

  “Yes,” she said, urging strength into her voice. “Yes. It is that we are a company that knows the smart thing to do is to be in the hearts of our buyers. There is no loyalty without love. And as we face these new challenges, and fight off this new threat of James Redmond, we will win no battles without a brand about which we are passionate. We need all of you to fall in love again—and stay in love—with Capulet.”

  In the front row, her father looked stunned.

  But also … proud.

  And as the audience rose to its feet, Juliet was shocked to acknowledge that she felt the same way.

  CHAPTER 12

  ROMEO

  “GO CHANGE,” ROMEO’S father told him. “I don’t want you wearing all black, like you’re at the company’s funeral.”

  Romeo looked down at his suit and tie. He liked wearing all black. He looked good in it. And besides, the suit was the same one that Cole Mohr was wearing in the House of Montague’s spring campaign, and Romeo looked arguably better in it. There shouldn’t have been an issue.

  But ever since that James Redmond guy had popped up at the Palais party, Jean Montague had become a nasty stress case. Romeo knew it was a big deal. Even though his dad thought he wasn’t paying attention, Romeo had heard enough about Redmond to know his buying the company and merging it with the House of Capulet wasn’t exactly desirable. Far from desirable. Like the Capulets, the Montagues thought being lumped in with their archrivals just added insult to injury.

  “Wear the navy, with a light blue shirt. Blue relaxes people.” That Jean Montague was himself not at all relaxed in his blue shirt and navy suit was evidently lost on him as he advised his son.

  “Dressing like a matching father-son set isn’t really going to make us look strong, Dad,” Romeo said, watching as his father scrolled through his phone for the fourth time in the last minute. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop, an expression that Romeo never understood but that seemed to apply here.

  “Just change,” Jean said, not looking up from his email.

  Minutes later, they were in the back of the limo, which Romeo hated. Its heavy AC and darkness made him feel like a cloistered old man. When he was on a motorcycle or even in his Lambo, he felt like he was part of the rhythm of the city that he loved.

  His mother was fawning over him, petting his hair like he was a child. Given t
hat at least no one could see him in here, he let her. Catherine Montague had only had one child, Romeo, and she made Romeo acutely aware of that fact. Though she’d been a successful model and designer before meeting Jean, the company was old-fashioned enough that she wasn’t expected to participate in the business side of things. After having Romeo, his mother had mostly retreated to a domestic role, as well as continuing to serve in that age-old female function: as the trophy wife. It was a shame because she was much more creative than his father, and capable of examining a problem from all sides.

  They rolled through the streets of Paris, crossing the bridge over the Seine to go to the Île Saint-Louis, a small island in the middle of the river, often called the heart of the city. For the shareholders’ meeting, the House of Montague had erected a tent on the street outside Berthillon, an ice cream shop known for its unusual flavors. Inside, models wearing pastel-colored jumpsuits from the Montague spring collection would be handing out cones in matching colors. The shareholders may not have been the most fun bunch on the planet, but they liked anything that made them seem like they were. Plus, the ice cream might detract from the fact that the House of Montague profits for the ending fiscal year were not what the company had projected. Normally, Romeo wouldn’t have been apprised of this fact, but after the Redmond news, Romeo couldn’t help but overhear his father’s many tortured phone calls. Clearly, this wasn’t going to be the best of meetings.

  His father was still hunched over his phone when he let out a “Zut alors” under his breath.

  “What is it?” Catherine asked him, finally letting her hand drop from Romeo’s hair.

  “This.” Jean turned the phone so the screen was facing Romeo and his mother. On it, Juliet’s lovely face stared back in a close-up from a video. She was standing behind a podium at the Musée Rodin, her cheeks flushed pink. Romeo had to keep himself from smiling. He’d been with a lot of gorgeous women, but Juliet’s face was the first that could instantly bring a smile to his lips.