The Juliet Club

by Suzanne Harper

  “Are you all right, cara?” Her mother’s voice was troubled.

  Silvia smiled grimly at herself in the mirror that hung next to the closet. She was quite pleased with the way her wind-tossed hair, smeared black eyeliner, and cynical expression made her look. In fact, she fancied that she looked like the reincarnation of one of the Borgias, a family known for its expertise in the fields of poison and murder.

  “You must eat something!” her mother tried again. “You’ll waste away to nothing!”

  Silvia sneered at that, even as her eyes flicked over to the small photograph wedged into the mirror frame. It was a picture of her at fifteen. Surely her mother remembered how she looked then? A long, heavy braid of dark hair, scraped back from her round face. Thick black-framed glasses. Lips firmly clamped over the mouthful of metal that her orthodonist had subjected her to for years. And, of course, fat.

  “Silvia?” There was an edge of anxiety in her mother’s voice now, touched with a shade of irritation. “Did you hear me? Are you all right?”

  “Yes!” Silvia said, in the loud, impatient tone of someone who can’t believe she has to waste so much precious time explaining the most basic concepts over and over again. “I’m fine! I just have a lot of work to do!”

  “But you need to eat something. And dinner tonight is your favorite.” Her mother was cajoling her now. “Maccherine e ragu, your nonna made it special.”

  For a moment, Silvia wavered. Her nonna made the best maccherine e ragu in the world. . . .

  Then a sudden piercing cry split the air (Silvia recognized the voice of Giovanni, the most vocal of the triplets), followed immediately by two more. She heard her mother gasp with concern and start down the hall toward the latest catastrophe, only stopping long enough to call back hurriedly, “I’ll put something in the refrigerator for you for later.”

  Silvia slammed the closet door shut. Distantly, she could hear the babies’ screams gradually diminish to hiccupping sobs as a chorus of adult voices murmured and clucked and soothed them.

  Of course, Silvia thought bitterly. She had locked herself in her bedroom in obvious despair. Did anyone care? No, not as long as the terrible triplets ruled the household.

  At least her plan to trick Giacomo was going well. It had been quite amusing to see him flirting with Kate in the costume shop and Kate flirting back. Really, quite, quite amusing.

  In the mirror, Silvia could see her lip tremble. She bit it hard enough to taste blood, then turned sharply away and threw herself on her bed. She stared at the ceiling once more, imagining herself fading away into nothing, then floating away into a sky of vanishing stars.

  Act III

  Scene III

  “Benno is over there. In the farmacia,” Kate reported. “He’s doing his best to lurk, but—”

  “Yes, I see him.” Giacomo grinned.

  Kate and Giacomo were sitting on a bench in the piazza, sipping lemonade and people-watching. They were watching one person in particular: Benno, who had trailed them from the villa and through the town for the last half hour.

  “He would make a terrible spy,” Giacomo added, shaking his head. “Does he see us?”

  “Oh, yes.” Kate chuckled. It was a lovely sound, full of mischief, like sunlit water running over rocks in a stream.

  “Excellent,” Giacomo said. “Then let’s begin.”

  Across the square, Benno peered at Giacomo and Kate through the farmacia window. Their trick seemed to be working, although Benno was less gratified by this than he would have thought. For one thing, he was hot and sweaty after following those two all over Verona. They hadn’t spotted him, of course; he was far too clever for that. Although there had been a few moments when Giacomo had taken such a roundabout route to the piazza that Benno had wondered whether his friend was leading him on a merry chase on purpose. . . . But just as he was thinking that, they had all finally reached the piazza. Kate and Giacomo had settled down on a bench. And Benno had decided that his imagination was playing tricks on him.

  The second reason he was in an ill humor had to do with what he was watching through the window. He could see Giacomo’s dark head bend toward Kate’s blond one. He could see Giacomo’s hand lightly brush her arm. He could see—

  But actually, he thought, he had seen quite enough. When he had agreed to this prank, he had told Silvia that he would enjoy watching Giacomo and Kate being tricked into love, but he had expected Giacomo to fail; Kate, he thought, was simply too serious to be won. In fact, he had devoutly hoped that Giacomo would fail.

  And yet there they were in the piazza, acting so sweet to each other that it made him sick.

  “What’s so interesting out there, Benno?” Signora Lombardi, the owner of the farmacia, leaned over his shoulder to peer out the window. “Ah, a pretty girl, I should have known. But isn’t that your friend Giacomo with her?”

  “Si,” Benno said glumly.

  Signora Lombardi gave him a knowing look and a consoling pat on the shoulder. “Never mind, Benno. Remember, botte piccola fa vino buono!” A small cask makes good wine.

  Benno began to scowl, then forced a smile instead. It wasn’t Signora Lombardi’s fault that she was perhaps the five hundredth person to quote this proverb to him in the past few years. It was supposed to be a nice way to compliment someone who was short, but somehow Benno never quite saw it that way.

  “And anyway,” she added, “I’m sure you’ll get your growth spurt any day now. My Christopher was the shortest boy in his class until he was sixteen, and then, overnight, he shot up five inches!”

  He decided not to point out that he had turned sixteen several months ago.

  “So, listen,” she went on, “Signor Moretti’s heart medicine is ready. Can you take it over to him?”

  “Ma certo,” Benno said. A quick glance out the window told him that Kate and Giacomo were still sitting in the piazza. He could slip around to Signor Moretti’s gelateria while still keeping them in sight and probably get a free scoop of cioccalato as thanks as well.

  “Look over there, at the woman in the green flowered dress,” Giacomo said, pointing to his left.

  Kate leaned in front of him slightly and looked. “Where? I can’t see—” She felt his arm go around her shoulders.

  “No, don’t pull away from me,” he said. “Relax.”

  “All right, fine.” She relaxed, somewhat gingerly, against his arm. “That was very clever, the way you did that. Do you often use the woman-in-the-green-flowered-dress approach?”

  “Only when there really is one. See?” He gestured toward a nearby bench, where a middle-aged woman was sitting down. Even from some distance, Kate could sense her sigh of relief as she eased herself back into the seat. Her feet probably hurt, poor thing. Kate looked her over more carefully. The woman’s hair was pulled back severely from her forehead and fastened with bobby pins. Her large round glasses winked in the sun like oversized bug eyes. And that dress . . .

  “She’s had that dress for thirty years,” she said out loud. “She has to have it altered every year, of course, because she can’t seem to stop gaining weight. But she can’t give it up.”

  “Not surprising,” Giacomo said easily. “After all, it was the dress she was wearing when her husband proposed. She didn’t know he was going to propose, of course, or she would have worn something much nicer.”

  “But they were going on a picnic and she thought it wouldn’t show the grass stains as much.” Kate stopped and turned sharply to Giacomo. “I thought I was the only one who did that!”

  “What? Making up stories about complete strangers? I used to do it all the time,” he said. “When I was younger. Hanging about at some boring conference with my mother—”

  “Trying to sit perfectly still and not make any noise and not get into trouble,” Kate said, adding indignantly, “even though it’s impossible to get into trouble in a room of two hundred English lit professors!”

  “Well, not impossible,” he said. “But you do have t
o try quite hard.” He gave her a mischievous sideways glance. “But back to our subject.”

  They both turned to examine the woman through narrowed eyes.

  “Her name is Cornelia, I think,” Kate said. “Her parents are dead now, of course. They were quite old when they had her.”

  “Yes, yes, they were so happy when she was born,” Giacomo agreed. “They had almost given up hope.”

  “And so they started spoiling her from the day she was born.”

  “Her father called her his little princess and gave her whatever she wanted.”

  “So she grew up expecting everyone to treat her that way,” Kate said. “And then one day, she met, um—”

  “Cesare,” he offered.

  “Yes, perfect!” Kate could see this Cesare in her mind’s eye. He had a bold nose, like the Emperor Caesar, and a willful, stubborn personality to match. “He was also an only child, also spoiled, also used to getting his own way.”

  “It was love at first sight,” Giacomo added.

  “Naturally,” Kate agreed.

  “They met at the disco.”

  “At the festival of Santa Lucia,” Kate corrected him. “They shared a passion for parades and marching bands.”

  He considered this, then nodded. “Yes. Each secretly imagined that the celebration was being held in their honor.”

  Kate laughed at that and added, “But after two months of happiness, they faced their first real test. Cornelia wanted to go to France on vacation.”

  “But Cesare hated France, ever since the time a Parisian maître d’ had sneered at him,” Giacomo said gleefully.

  “Yes, he had never had anyone sneer at him, not ever!” she said dramatically. “He still thought about what he should have said, even though his scathing comeback was years too late!”

  “So he suggested a holiday in Greece,” Giacomo went on.

  “But Cornelia had her heart set on Paris.” Kate sighed. “Neither one would give an inch.”

  “So the love affair ended.” Giacomo’s tone was mournful. “No ring on her finger, no beautiful wedding to make her friends jealous, no bambini for the parents to spoil.”

  “She began going to the piazza to throw a coin in the fountain, wishing that she would find a love like that again,” Kate finished. She sighed, feeling unexpectedly sad at the ending they had written.

  “Hmm.” Giacomo seemed to sense her mood. He tilted his head to one side, squinting at the woman as if he were a painter trying to decide if his canvas was finished. After a moment, he said briskly, “And her wish was answered. One day a young man appeared, as if by magic.”

  “Yes, that’s good,” Kate said, her face brightening. “He had golden hair and blue eyes and a winning smile.”

  “But he wasn’t perfect,” Giacomo cautioned. “He snored, for example.”

  Kate gave a little shrug. “Cornelia could forgive that. After all, she had a tendency to hum under her breath.”

  “But he insisted on having his supper every evening at five.” Giacomo shook his head sadly. “She hated to say it, but her new love was a barbarian. The only civilized hour to dine, of course, is nine o’clock. And he watered his wine, and he picked his teeth, and he used up all the hot water every time he took a bath.”

  “But she loved him anyway,” Kate interrupted hastily, determined to bring this story to a happy conclusion.

  “She did?” Giacomo quirked an eyebrow at her. “Because . . .” He paused invitingly, waiting for her to complete his sentence.

  And Kate stared back at him, completely at a loss. Finally, she threw her hands up in the air. “Because she loved him,” she said simply. “She couldn’t explain it, she knew it made no sense, her friends and family thought she had lost her mind, but there it was.”

  He smiled and shrugged. “There it was. She loved him.”

  They stopped and looked at each other. Without realizing it, they had stood up and started walking, engrossed in their story. They had ended up in the small parklike area in the center of the piazza, where tall trees cast a cool, green shade.

  “Benno is still watching, yes?” Giacomo whispered.

  Kate looked into his eyes and nodded slightly.

  “Then I think we should kiss now.”

  “Do you?”

  “Well.” Giacomo pretended to give this serious thought. “Benno will be expecting it.”

  Kate nodded judiciously. “Yes,” she said. “If we don’t he may begin to wonder.”

  On the other side of the piazza, Benno gaped at the sight of Giacomo kissing Kate.

  Then he saw Kate kissing Giacomo back.

  “No,” he said under his breath. “I don’t believe it.”

  He threw his half-eaten dish of gelato in a nearby trash can. Somehow he no longer had the taste for it.

  Entr’acte

  “Those boots will look perfect with my black coat,” Sarah said dreamily.

  She rolled over on her stomach and hung her head over the edge of her bed, the better to see Annie, who was stretched out on the floor and sulkily rereading the latest e-mail. “You know, the long black coat with the faux fur collar?” She smiled sweetly at Annie, then flopped on her back again.

  Act III

  Scene IV

  “I’m just saying Paris seemed like a nice guy,” Tom said the next day as he casually kicked his soccer ball from one foot to the other.

  “Yes, he was,” Benno said, as mournful as if they were discussing the fate of a close friend. “And you know what happens to nice guys. They finish last. Or, in this case, dead.”

  Tom persisted. “So why didn’t Juliet want him?”

  “Because he was not Romeo,” Silvia said with finality.

  The morning’s rehearsal had ended. They had eaten a picnic lunch in the garden and were enjoying a well-deserved rest while Dan rehearsed with the other Shakespeare Scholars. Lucy was sitting in the shade, while Silvia and Benno were lying in the sun. Tom, who didn’t want to sit on the ground and risk getting dirt on his new shorts, started bouncing the ball off his head. Kate had carefully selected a spot that was close, but not too close, to where Giacomo was leaning against a tree trunk. She gazed down with satisfaction at the new cotton dress she was wearing, which Lucy had helped her pick out the day before. It was simple, yet flattering, the exact pale apricot shade of the flowers that bloomed under her window. . . .

  Kate glanced up to see Giacomo smiling at her, and looked away, blushing.

  “I agree with Kate,” Tom said. “Romeo was an idiot.”

  “What?” Kate asked, trying to remember what they were talking about. “When did I say that?”

  “The first day we met,” Tom reminded her. “You were saying that Romeo and Juliet took everything too fast, they didn’t stop and think things through.”

  Silvia sniffed with disdain.

  “You said,” Tom finished, “that they were impulsive in the worst way, because all they thought about was themselves.”

  Giacomo grinned at Kate. “That is so like you,” he said. “Because Romeo and Juliet are not practical, they must be idiots.”

  “Well, you know what I meant,” Kate said, forcing herself to meet his eyes. “When you really read the play closely—okay, the poetry is amazing, I admit that, but when you look at the plot, the whole thing is ridiculous! In fact—”

  “Please!” Benno groaned and put his arm over his eyes. “We’re not in class now!”

  “Yes, can’t we stop talking about Romeo and Juliet for a few minutes?” Lucy begged.

  “I thought it was your favorite play in the world,” Kate teased her.

  “It still is. Except when I’m falling asleep, like right now.”

  “No, no, you can’t fall asleep.” Giacomo reached over with a stalk of grass to tickle her nose. Lucy giggled. “The day is too beautiful to sleep through.”

  “It’s also too hot to sleep through,” Silvia said crankily. Then she glanced from Giacomo to Kate and added more sweetly, “Tell me, Ka
te, have you explored the villa’s gardens?”

  “A little bit,” Kate said. “Lucy and I walked to the grape arbor when we first got here.”

  And she and Giacomo had whiled away a few afternoons on a bench hidden behind a riot of rosebushes, but she wasn’t going to mention that. Especially since it was one of the times they had slipped away from their watchers.

  “Oh, but there are acres and acres to explore! Giacomo, I don’t think you’ve been fulfilling your duty as a host!” Silvia said, mock-chiding. “Your guests haven’t seen the Greek temple, or the secret grotto. I would wager they haven’t even tried their luck in the maze.”

  “Oh, right, I read about that when we first got here,” Kate said.

  “And you didn’t try to find it?” Silvia gave her a sly look. “It’s called the Lover’s Maze, you know.”

  “It is?” Lucy was suddenly more alert. “Why?”

  “Oh, yes.” Giacomo leaned back against the tree, settling in to tell a story. “That was the reason my mother bought the villa. Not just the maze, the whole garden, really. The house itself—” He shrugged. “Seventeenth century, not very important or distinguished. But acres of land that have been cultivated for three hundred years—that is what she set her heart on.”

  “Yes, but the maze,” Lucy insisted.

  “It’s very old, the oldest part of the garden—”

  “Don’t tell me,” Kate said. “There’s a legend.”

  “But of course!” he said, and Lucy sighed happily. “It’s a complicated maze with two entrances. The legend says that if two people enter the maze, each at a different place, and manage to find each other at the center, they are destined to be together.”

  “That’s beautiful!” Lucy said.

  “But extremely difficult,” he warned. “There are all kinds of cul-de-sacs and paths that double back on themselves. There are even enclosed areas with a tree and a bench that make you think you’ve reached the center, but you haven’t. My mother commissioned marble statues of Shakespeare’s characters and put them in the false centers. You see Rosalind standing there or Puck or good old Henry V and then you know the maze has defeated you again.”