The Juliet Club

by Suzanne Harper

  “I don’t want them to recognize me,” Lucy muttered from the side of her mouth. “And I don’t want to attract any attention.”

  “I think it’s too late for that.” Silvia was all too aware of the amused glances directed toward Lucy.

  “They look like they’re really getting along,” Lucy said. “I would just love to be able to hear what they’re saying, wouldn’t you?”

  “Kate,” said Giacomo.

  “Yes, Giacomo,” said Kate.

  He sighed. They had been sitting and regarding each other in silence for three full minutes. And not just any silence. It was tense silence, the kind that usually erupted into tearful breakups, emotional confrontations, or sudden confessions.

  “Perhaps we should try some light conversation,” he said. He offered her a charming smile without much hope that it would work.

  He was right. It didn’t.

  “Conversation about what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. Giacomo thought with some exasperation that what was supposed to be a lark was turning into rather hard work. In fact, flirting with Kate was beginning to feel more like trudging up a hill.

  “Tell me about your family, your friends, where you live.”

  She frowned. “You can’t possibly be interested in that.”

  A very steep hill. In a torrential rainstorm.

  “I would be if I were interested in you,” he pointed out. “If that were the case, I would be fascinated with everything you said.”

  “But you’re not interested, there’s nothing to say about my life, and Lucy and Silvia can’t hear what we’re talking about anyway, so I don’t really see the point,” she said.

  Wearing heavy, mud-encrusted hiking books and carrying a backpack filled with bricks.

  “Well, we have to talk about something or people will think we’re looking for work as living statues,” he snapped.

  “Okay, fine.” She sounded just as testy. “My parents are divorced, my mother is a law professor, you know my father. I live in Lawrence, Kansas. My two best friends are named Annie and Sarah.”

  “Well. Thank you. Brisk and to the point.”

  “I told you there wasn’t much to say,” Kate pointed out. “Your turn.”

  “All right, let’s see. First, family. Well, you’ve met my mother.” He gave her a martyred look. “I grew up awash in Shakespeare. Even her motherly advice was stolen from old Will. You know—”

  “‘Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest, Lend less than thou owest.’” Kate nodded. She paused, realizing that, for the first time, she felt a spark of fellowship with Giacomo. “I hate being quoted at.”

  “Me, too. And somehow the iambic pentameter makes it even worse. Now my father, he’s also a professor. History, though, which means that his parental lectures usually involve Great Men and Where They Went Wrong.”

  “Divorced?” Kate was becoming a little interested in spite of herself.

  “Mmm.” Giacomo nodded. “When I was two. But I visit him in Oxford every summer and—”

  “—alternate holidays,” Kate said. “He’s British?”

  “Yes, I think that’s why my mother fell in love with him, actually. He spoke the language of the Bard.” He said the last two words in a lofty tone to show that he was being sarcastic, and she grinned.

  “Oh, that explains your British accent. When you speak English, I mean.”

  Giacomo made a mental note. She had noticed his accent, that was very good. She seemed to be relaxing, even better. Now it was time to move to the next level.

  He tilted his head toward Lucy and Silvia. “I think it’s time to demonstrate our growing affection, don’t you?”

  Silvia continued her unwavering observation of the café table across the square. Benno, of course, had wanted to come along on this surveillance, but Signora Conti had rung his mobile to ask him to pick up a few things for her at the farmacia. Signora Conti was ninety-one, lived with twelve cats, and rarely left her apartment. She called Benno as often as five times a week to run little errands for her, and he never refused.

  With a quick apology, he had dashed off right after the seminar ended. Silvia was stuck with Lucy, whose starry-eyed belief that they were furthering the cause of true love was making Silvia cranky, even though Silvia had planted that belief herself. Silvia glanced at the menu, saw the exorbitant prices that tourists were willing to pay for a slice of pizza, and felt even crankier. Then she glanced across the square and saw Giacomo put his hand on Kate’s arm, and felt—well, cranky was no longer quite the right word.

  She searched her mind for the exact word to describe the way she felt right now. Ah, yes. Assassino. She felt ready to kill.

  Giacomo put his hand on Kate’s arm. She jumped in surprise, which made him jump, and their little table rocked from the movement, spilling water on the tablecloth. He felt ridiculous, especially when he saw that the waiter had noticed and was hiding a smirk.

  “Haven’t you ever flirted before?” he asked as he gave the waiter a sharp look.

  “Of course,” she snapped. “But never for an audience.”

  “Right.” He took a deep breath and readjusted his smile. “This is an unusual situation. So, let’s, I don’t know, let’s think of ourselves as actors who are playing a scene.”

  He let his fingers brush her wrist and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Actors who are pretending to seduce one another, when in fact we are really wooing the ones who are watching us.”

  He lifted his hand to her cheek and let his fingers drift down to her chin and waited for her to blush. . . .

  “That’s very good,” she said approvingly. “I can tell you’ve practiced.”

  He only kept from pulling his hand back through sheer force of will. “This only works,” he said tightly, “if you play your part as well.”

  “Oh, I see.” She gave him a satirical look. “I’m supposed to swoon.”

  He took a deep breath. “Well, yes,” he said. “It would be helpful if our charade is meant to convince.” His eyes slid sideways to where Silvia and Lucy were sitting, then back to her. He gave a tiny, meaningful nod.

  Kate smiled serenely. “By all means.” She leaned forward, propping her chin on one hand, and gazed into his eyes.

  From a distance, Giacomo reflected—say, the distance from their table to Silvia and Lucy’s table—her gaze might look adoring.

  From close to, however—say, the distance across this table—it most definitely did not.

  “Oh, this is going so well, don’t you think?” Now that Lucy had finally lowered her menu, Silvia realized that it had served a useful purpose. Surely even two people who were as totally engrossed in each other as Kate and Giacomo might notice Lucy’s beaming smile. “Silvia, this was such a good idea of yours!”

  Silvia muttered something under her breath in Italian. Fortunately, Lucy did not ask her to translate.

  “Kate is really going to thank us when she hears how we set this up,” Lucy went on blithely. “I mean, to come to Italy and have someone like Giacomo fall in love with you . . .” A faint cloud moved across her face, but Silvia didn’t notice it, because she was still staring across the piazza, reminding herself that Giacomo was going to feel like a real idiot when he learned how he had been set up.

  “I mean, it’s the kind of thing that people dream will happen to them, but it hardly ever does. Not to most people, anyway.” There was a slightly vexed note in Lucy’s voice, but Silvia didn’t hear it, because she was too busy imagining how she would reveal that she had made a fool of Giacomo, who richly deserved it, and of Kate, who probably deserved it.

  “So?” Kate asked crisply. “Do I look as if I’ve fallen under your spell?”

  At least she was gazing at him with an expression that was . . . well, not enraptured, exactly. Giacomo certainly knew that look, and this wasn’t it. But she did appear to be perhaps somewhat fond of him, which was an improvement over the trapped-hostage look.
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  He tilted his head to one side. “Almost. Now put your arms on the table and lean toward me slightly.”

  She rolled her eyes, but she did as he suggested. When she leaned forward, her face moved into a ray of sunlight that had managed to sneak through a gap in the umbrella over their table. For the first time, Giacomo noticed the light dusting of freckles across her nose, and the velvety darkness of her brown eyes, and the slight arch in her eyebrows. . . .

  If only those eyebrows weren’t raised in that sarcastic way, and those eyes weren’t giving him a cool look, as if he had been measured against some private standard and found wanting.

  “Stop tapping your foot,” he snapped.

  “I’m not—” she began, then caught herself. She took a deep breath, and smiled. “All right. Now what?”

  “Now I lean toward you ever so slightly.” He shifted forward and looked into her eyes. She looked away. “Yes, that’s good, that little glance to the side, that makes you look modest and shy—”

  “Oh, please.” Her eyes snapped back to meet his.

  “Right, and now you look back at me to show you’re interested.”

  “Pretending to be interested.” She corrected him automatically.

  “Of course,” he agreed.

  His fingers were still resting on her wrist. He could feel her pulse beating.

  Kate pulled her hand away. “I think,” she said, still looking at him, “that Silvia and Lucy are leaving.”

  He leaned forward slightly and held her gaze. He said softly, “And then I’ll whisper something to you. An endearment of some sort.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary—”

  “The sort,” he continued, “to make a girl blush.”

  “Really?” she said coolly. “And that would be . . . ?”

  In answer, he leaned forward and whispered in her ear.

  And Kate blushed.

  Act II

  Scene V

  Benno eyed the soccer ball lying on the grass, then ran toward it. A straight shot, he thought, right into the goal. He kicked it hard and—damn. The ball veered wildly to the left. He ran after it, cursing to himself, and kicked it again. It shot off to the right. Frowning darkly, he chased it down.

  Fortunately, the soccer pitch was always deserted at this time of day. That, in fact, was why Benno was here. He preferred to practice on his own, so that the inevitable distance between the way he imagined himself playing (with fluidity and speed, scoring goal after goal in front of a cheering audience) and the way he actually performed (not so well; witness his complete inability to kick a ball in a straight line) was not on display for jeering onlookers.

  Most of the time, he actually felt quite happy, sweating in the heat of the midday sun while other people were sensibly inside, taking a siesta in their cool, dark bedrooms after lunch. He encouraged himself by narrating a mental commentary in the style of his favorite TV announcers (“And Benno Bugiardini scores again! Magnifico!”) and by imagining a group of girls standing on the sidelines, watching him with admiration. But today, he was disgruntled, and even visualizing his most elaborate fantasies of victory and applause couldn’t erase the feeling he’d had after reading the paper he had just pulled from the trash.

  He had waited until he had finished his errands and reached the soccer pitch before pulling Lucy’s letter from his pocket. When Benno read her response, he felt his heart sink with disappointment.

  “Dear Joel,” Lucy had written, “I totally understand why you don’t want to just tell the girl flat out how you feel until you know if she likes you. The good news for you is that I’m a girl, so I can tell you exactly what to look for! First, does she pay attention to what you say? Does she care about your opinions?”

  Unbidden, unwanted, the memory of Lucy leaning across the table and asking earnestly, “But Tom, what do you think?” came to Benno’s mind.

  Benno read on. “Does she pay you little compliments?”

  He gritted his teeth as he remembered Lucy saying to Tom, just that morning, “That shirt looks great on you. It really makes your eyes look green!”

  Disgruntled, he continued reading until the end of the letter. “Does she laugh when you make jokes? (Of course, that may mean that you’re funny, but to be honest most boys aren’t, so if she laughs it’s probably because she likes you.)”

  Benno sighed, a deep, despairing sigh. He had always thought that he was quite witty, but he had to admit that he had only managed to make Lucy laugh a handful of times. Well, to be totally honest, perhaps twice.

  Or maybe just once.

  Tom, on the other hand . . .

  Benno recalled how Lucy had giggled when Tom had said—well, Benno couldn’t actually remember what he had said, that’s how incredibly not funny his comment was, but he remembered clearly how she gazed admiringly at the person Benno now realized was a snake in the grass, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a—

  “Hey, Benno!”

  He looked up to see Tom, the person he now hated more than anyone in the world, waving cheerfully at him from the sidelines. Benno picked up the ball and trotted over, trying to look casual and elegant, like the best players on the Italian national team. This effect was ruined when he stepped in a small rut in the field, tripped, and dropped the ball.

  “Ciao, Tom,” he called out. “Come stai?”

  As usual, Tom looked flummoxed by this most basic Italian greeting. Benno imagined that he could actually hear the wheels in Tom’s brain turning as he tried to remember the correct response.

  “Bene,” Tom finally said with an air of triumph.

  A spark of mischief flared up in Benno’s heart. “Come parli bene, Tommaso. Ti congratulo,” he said rapidly. “Fra poco parlerai come un vero italiano!” You speak well, Tom. Congratulations. Soon you’ll be speaking like an Italian!

  “Yeah, whatever,” Tom said, abandoning the Italian language without ceremony. “So, listen, do you play on the local soccer, sorry, football team or something?”

  Benno ducked his head modestly. “I play a little.”

  “Awesome. I was really hoping I’d find a game while I’m here. Who’s your favorite team?”

  Benno threw out his hands and gave an expressive shrug. “Milano, of course, who else? They are fantastico.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Tom said, nodding judiciously. “But you gotta admit, Inter is just as good—”

  “Pah!” Benno’s entire body seemed to express his disgust. “The way they play, it is ugly. Now compare them with Milano. . . .”

  He kicked the ball over to Tom, who fielded it expertly and darted across the field, effortlessly dribbling with his feet until he was ten yards from the goal. Without missing a beat, he smoothly kicked the ball toward the goal. Even from a distance, Benno could hear the thwack that meant that the kick was solid and true. The ball sailed into the goal. Perfect.

  Tom did not raise his arms in jubilation, as Benno would have done, or yell “Goal!” the way his friend Tony would have done, or turned to grin smugly at any onlookers as Giorgio would have done. Instead, he trotted over to pick up the ball, then loped back to where Benno stood absolutely still, as if he’d just been frozen into place.

  Finally he thawed enough to say, “That was great.”

  “Well, you set me up with a great pass,” Tom said offhandedly. “Thanks.”

  He wasn’t even breathing hard, Benno noticed. And he kept bouncing the ball from one foot to the other in an easy rhythm, never missing a beat even as he continued talking. “This feels good. Actually, it feels great. I hate being stuck inside all day, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Benno agreed hollowly. “You look like you could play for Milano. Or Firenze, even.”

  “Really?” Tom’s eyes lit up, then he shook his head modestly. “No, thanks for saying that, but I couldn’t even come close to playing pro. I know that. College level, maybe, if I’m lucky.”

  “No, you’re better than that.” The note of authority in Benno’s voice
surprised both of them. He caught Tom’s eye and shrugged. “I know a lot about football,” he explained. He hesitated but couldn’t help boasting a bit. “My great-uncle played for Italy in the 1960 World Cup.”

  “Are you kidding?” Tom had that eager look on his face again, the one that reminded Benno of large, shaggy, happy-go-lucky dogs with too much energy. “That’s, that’s . . .” He stopped, searching for a word to express the magnitude of this accomplishment, but ended up shrugging, as if acknowledging how useless words were to describe such an experience.

  “I know,” Benno said.

  They stood for a few moments in reverent silence.

  Then Benno, who was feeling friendlier toward Tom, said, “Most Americans don’t know anything about football.”

  “I do. I know everything about it,” Tom answered fervently. “That’s why when I saw the announcement about the essay contest to become a Shakespeare Scholar I, um, . . .” His voice trailed off as if he was afraid he’d said too much.

  Benno looked surprised. “You entered it because you love football?”

  “Um, yeah.” Tom’s eyes had turned shifty. He looked down at the ball, which he was rolling back and forth on the ground with one foot. “Italy’s my favorite team.”

  “Yes, they are the best in the world,” Benno said slowly. He suspected there was something else going on here, but he didn’t know what. He decided to test the waters a bit. “But you must also know a lot about Shakespeare to have written a winning essay.”

  “Well, yeah,” Tom said weakly. “I guess so.”

  He looked over Benno’s shoulder, as if hoping to see rescue in the distance. From the disappointed look on his face, it was apparent nothing was in sight. “So, what do you think about Italy’s chances against Brazil next month?”

  But Benno was not to be diverted. “So. You have studied Shakespeare for a long time?”

  Silence. Then Tom sighed and said, “Okay, I’ll tell you something if you swear you won’t ever tell anybody else.”