The Juliet Club

by Suzanne Harper

  Tom was gawking a bit at Silvia, Lucy noticed thoughtfully, but Silvia was intent on watching Giacomo and Kate. She would turn her head as she moved through the dance to keep them in her line of sight. Then she would frown or snap at Tom or just look downright peevish, which Lucy didn’t understand at all, since it was clear as day that their matchmaking scheme was working beautifully.

  The line of dancers stopped. Time to curtsy and bow.

  Tom bowed to Silvia as if he were a lovesick knight paying tribute to a courtly lady.

  Lucy found herself sighing again. Not that she was interested in Tom, of course. He was like every boy she had ever dated back home. She hadn’t come to Italy to date another Tom.

  But still, it would be nice if he noticed her once in a while, if he let her know, even by just a glance, that he thought she was pretty. Of course, Lucy didn’t harbor any real doubts about her charms; she had been told about them often enough. She was fairly sure that she was adorable.

  But then, that had been back home. A sudden dark thought struck her. Maybe she was only pretty by Mississippi standards! Maybe her charm only worked in a town where everyone had known her since she was a baby! Maybe in Italy she wasn’t adorable at all!

  This thought was so dismaying that Lucy felt quite dizzy. Only muscle memory, years of ballet training, and pure Southern grit helped her make it through to the end of the dance.

  “Ha! Take that! And that! And that, you dog!”

  Tom stood with his back against the wall, watching from a safe distance as Silvia, dressed in black tights and tunic, apparently took on ten swordsmen and won. “She looks good,” he commented.

  “She looks lethal,” replied Benno, who was standing next to him.

  Tom glanced over at him. “Are you sure you don’t mind the recasting?”

  Benno gave a little snort of amusement. “No, Signor Renkin is right. I am terrible at fencing, even pretend fencing. And now”—his face took on a beatific look—“I get to play Romeo opposite Lucy!”

  “True.” Tom was happy for his friend, he really was.

  “And you get to rehearse with Silvia!” Benno went on, bright as a button. “What fun for you!”

  “Yeah.” Tom watched from across the room as Silvia lunged across the floor, darted forward with a series of rapid feints, whirled around, and finished with a savage thrust, straight through the heart.

  Benno thought he knew who she was imagining as she dealt the death blow. Their adventure in the maze had not pleased her at all.

  “Why are you so angry?” he had asked her as he walked with her across the bridge that evening. “Everything is happening as you planned it.”

  “Yes, I know!”

  “Giacomo has been totally duped! He will feel like a complete fool when he learns the truth!”

  “Yes, I realize that!”

  “All that remains is to tell Kate and Giacomo how thoroughly they have been tricked and enjoy a good laugh—”

  But at that point they had reached her apartment building. She snarled good night and slammed the door in his face.

  Now, as he watched her whip her sword back and forth in a menacing fashion, he felt great sympathy for his friend Tom.

  Even Dan had backed away a bit, but he called out cheerfully, “Very good, Silvia, nicely done,” and gestured for Tom and Benno to join him. “Now I’ll take you two through the choreography, slowly at first. Once you’ve got the moves down, we’ll work on speed.”

  “All right,” Silvia said. “I’m ready.”

  “Yes, excellent, the readiness is all, as they say.” Dan hesitated, then said, “So, Silvia, I don’t know if you’ve managed to read through the entire scene yet”—he grinned to show he was joking—“but you do know that you lose this fight, right?”

  “Yesss,” Silvia hissed. “I know.”

  “Excellent. So, no getting caught up in the moment and trying to fight back, right?” Dan raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “No spontaneous rewrites on the night that would result in a Mercutio victory.”

  “No,” Silvia agreed through clenched teeth. “I will lose.”

  “Not that Mercutio could win,” Benno put in. He was standing in front of the mirror, trying out various poses with his sword. If he couldn’t actually fight, he thought, he could still look dashing. “Not against Tybalt.”

  “Exactly!” Tom thought it was about time to assert some authority here. He tried a quick thrust, parry, and counter and was pleased to see Dan give him an approving wink. “You don’t have a chance against me! Ha!”

  “Only because you are sneaky!” she said hotly. Dan had spent some time explaining to them that most of the play’s characters objected to Tybalt’s style of fighting, which was more like fencing than an honest Elizabethan knife fight. “Otherwise I would win. I am sure of it.”

  “But you don’t,” Benno said again, feeling more cheerful as Silvia got more aggravated. “Stab, stab, stab, die, die, die—”

  “Yes, I die, I understand,” Silvia snapped. She added haughtily, “But I die beautifully. And I have the best lines in the play.”

  Dan grinned. “Spoken like a true actor. So. Let’s begin.”

  Act IV

  Scene I

  Time slipped by, as it always does. The members of the Juliet Club answered letters, and danced, and rehearsed, and fenced.

  Kate and Giacomo found many chances to sneak away from the others. After a while, they stopped noticing whether anyone was still spying on them.

  Benno continued to teach Lucy how to play football. Lucy learned to dribble, do head shots, and kick goals in record speed, and discovered that she didn’t mind exercising after all.

  Tom humbly asked Silvia to help him practice his Italian. Silvia scornfully agreed, then spent hours disdainfully correcting his pronunciation, grammar, and imperfect grasp of the masculine versus feminine.

  Francesca Marchese had an espresso every afternoon, reflecting with great self-satisfaction that the Shakespeare Seminar was progressing marvelously well.

  Kate’s father found himself humming to himself and staring out the window when he should have been talking in a learned manner about verse and meter in Shakespeare’s poetry.

  Giacomo’s grandmother went to church every evening and chuckled throughout the service, much to the displeasure of the people sitting in the pew in front of her.

  And gradually, the golden days dwindled until, finally, there was only one week left before the final party that would mark the end of the first annual Shakespeare Seminar.

  On her last week in Italy, Kate found herself feeling oddly at loose ends one evening after dinner. The air had cooled off and a slight breeze had stirred up, bringing the scent of roses and damp earth. Kate felt too happy, and the world was too luminous, to stay inside; she couldn’t share the cause of her happiness with others and she was too restless to be by herself. Finally, after ricocheting purposelessly around her room for twenty minutes, she pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and set off on a run.

  She started at an easy pace, jogging on the path that ran along the river. The willows on the bank swayed in the breeze, their leaves trembling over the swift water. She quickened her pace as she ran across the bridge and turned right onto the path that followed the other shore. Birds darted across the sky, the setting sun glinted on the river, her strides lengthened until she was flying, and her mind was empty of everything. All she felt was the joy of movement.

  Kate followed the river for a while, then looped back toward the bridge. After thirty minutes, she had reached the old part of town. She decided to walk through the narrow streets as she cooled down, since there was always something interesting to see there. She walked past houses painted gold, orange, and bluish green, their windows opened to the night air, glowing golden in the dusk as lamps were turned on. The scent of tomato sauce, baking bread, and fresh coffee wafted out as people fixed their dinners; occasionally she could hear the murmur of conversation and low laughter.

  The stre
ets were quiet now. She turned a corner and found herself alone. Then, above her head, she heard the sweet, reedy sound of someone practicing the clarinet.

  She stopped to listen, enjoying the tired exhilaration that followed a run. And suddenly, between one note and the next, everything around Kate—the soft shadows, the glowing windows, the faded stucco buildings, the smell of coffee and bread, and that thin thread of music—became so intensely real and vivid that it felt as if she had stepped into another, richer world where every sense was more acute and every feeling more concentrated.

  Then a car horn honked. The spell was broken. Kate blinked and realized that she was standing in the middle of the street. She moved over to let the car pass, then began to walk slowly back to the villa. The moment faded, but the feeling lingered. By the time she got to the river, she realized that she had been smiling for a long time without even realizing it.

  Lucy stretched out on her bed and held a letter above her, reading it for the fifteenth time.

  “Dear Juliet,” it said.

  My name is Martha and I’m a junior in high school. My problem is that I’ve never been in love. I’ve never even had a boyfriend! My friend Merry is dating the quarterback, my friend Debbie is dating the captain of the basketball team, and my friend Clare is dating a senior! But no guy in this stupid high school will look twice at me. So how am I supposed to find a boyfriend? What should I do?

  Yours sincerely,

  Martha P.

  Lucy sighed. She felt sorry for this Martha, she truly did. Not that Lucy had ever had a problem with dating. Boys loved her, they always had.

  She lowered the letter and stared unseeingly at the canopy over her bed. Everyone had loved her. Until she came to Italy.

  Maybe this was a sign. Maybe her best days were behind her. Maybe she was doomed to a long, lonely, loveless life. Maybe she never would have known what a terrible future awaited her if she hadn’t won this contest and traveled to Verona and flung herself into Italy, which she now realized was an utterly hateful country.

  This was such a horrible thought that she sat up in bed. “Now you are being just totally ridiculous!” she scolded herself, shaking the letter out so that she could read it again. The thing to do, she told herself, was to write an extremely sensible answer, then wash her face and brush her teeth in a sensible way, and go to bed at a sensible hour. Surely, after all that sensible behavior, she would wake up tomorrow morning, fresh and bright and eager. Just like the Lucy she used to be, before coming to hateful, hateful Italy.

  As she picked up her pen, there was a quick knock on the door, then Kate stuck her head in. “Hey, Lucy. I just got back from my run.” Her face was glowing.

  Lucy turned to get a better look. “What happened to you?” she asked, a trace of suspicion in her voice.

  “Nothing.” Kate looked surprised, then laughed. “It was a good run. Anyway, I wanted to take a shower. Do you need the bathroom for anything?”

  She looked so radiant that Lucy fell back on her pillow in despair. “No, that’s all right. You go ahead.”

  Kate looked her over, raising her eyebrows as she took in Lucy’s appearance. Lucy knew exactly what she looked like: sweaty, hair disheveled, no makeup . . . and what was more, she didn’t care. She met Kate’s astonished gaze with a defiant one of her own.

  “I thought you didn’t like getting sweaty?” Kate asked.

  “I don’t,” Lucy said. “But Benno’s teaching me corner kicks.”

  “Lucy Atwell, soccer star,” Kate said, teasing.

  Lucy’s mouth twitched into a small smile. “Well, it is fun,” she admitted. “But you know what’s really crazy? I’m kind of good at it! Me! You know, I’m the only person in the history of Littlefield High School who actually failed gym twice.”

  “I guess you just needed the right coach,” Kate said blandly.

  But Lucy was frowning again. Was that what her time in Italy was going to come down to? Learning to play soccer?

  Kate walked over to sit down on the edge of the bed. “Lucy? Are you all right?”

  “Perfectly.” Lucy’s chin was trembling.

  “Really? Because you don’t seem—”

  “Look at this!” Lucy thrust the letter at Kate.

  Kate read the letter quickly. “Are you upset about this?”

  “Yes!” Lucy cried.

  Kate waited. Finally she asked, “Why?”

  Lucy jumped up and began pacing around the room.

  “Because this poor girl!” She reached the bathroom door and wheeled around.

  “Is going to live her whole life!” Over to the window, and another turn.

  “Without ever experiencing true love!” She finished on a wail, then flung herself down on her bed and stared mulishly at Kate. “I know you probably think I’m overreacting.”

  Kate bit back a smile. “Maybe just a little.”

  “You see why I’m so upset, don’t you?” Lucy rushed on. “And I can’t think of a single thing to say that will help her!”

  “Well,” Kate said.

  Lucy sniffed. “Yes?”

  “She seems to be focusing a lot on the guys her friends are dating,” Kate said, somewhat tentatively. “You know, the quarterback, the captain of the basketball team, seniors . . . the top guys in the school, in other words.”

  “Right.” Lucy stared at Kate, who seemed to be making some kind of point although, for the life of her, Lucy couldn’t figure out what it was.

  “Well, all I’m saying is”—Kate gave an apologetic shrug—“maybe you should tell Martha to open her eyes. There are probably plenty of guys who would like her a lot if she would bother to notice they exist.”

  “Oh.” Lucy held the letter up in front of her eyes, as if trying to read between the lines. “You think so?”

  “I do,” Kate said, quite firmly.

  So when Kate went off to take her shower, Lucy sat down at her small desk, pulled out a sheet of Juliet Club stationery, and after staring off into space for some time, began to write.

  Dear Martha,

  I’m sure there are many boys in your school who like you, but I think the problem is that you don’t see them. Because sometimes very worthy people are totally ignored by everybody for no good reason. My advice would be for you to open your eyes and look around. Maybe you’ll find that your true love is right in front of you and you don’t even know it!

  Sincerely,

  Juliet

  Lucy reread her letter several times. She still wasn’t quite sure that this was good advice, but she had to admit, she had nothing else to offer. And so, satisfied that she had done her very best, she folded her letter, put it in an envelope, and set it aside to mail the next day.

  Act IV

  Scene II

  Tom entered Juliet’s House as furtively as a spy, although most spies would have known not to glance over their shoulders every two seconds to see if they were being followed, or to jump when the woman selling tickets asked for money, or to dart past her as if they were making a run for the border. Heart pounding, he crept up two flights of stairs, afraid at every moment that he would be caught and his mission revealed to all the world.

  Sure enough, he had just walked over to the bright red mailbox where people could drop letters to Juliet, had just glanced around to make sure that no one he knew was nearby, had just reached into his pocket to pull out the envelope that had been tucked away there all morning, when—

  “Buon giorno, Signora Marchi!” Benno’s voice echoed through the room as he climbed the staircase to the second floor.

  Tom dashed upstairs and hovered in a corner of the large, bare room that offered, as he now realized to his dismay, absolutely no cover at all.

  Fortunately he heard Benno chatting with Signora Marchi as he opened the mailbox and gathered the letters. Then he could hear both their voices drift away as they walked downstairs.

  Tom counted to one hundred, just to be safe, then walked back down the steps to the room where the
mailbox was. He stood there for a long moment, staring at it glumly. True, he hadn’t been caught. However, his carefully laid plot had been ruined. Everything depended on his letter being picked up today, and he had come too late. The mail had been collected. His grand plan had been dashed to pieces.

  He pulled the letter out of his pocket, where he had stuffed it when he had heard Benno coming, and took another look. He had worked hard on this letter. It was a good letter. He was almost tempted to put it in the mailbox anyway, even though it was, by now, pointless. Then he sighed, crumpled it up in his fist, and turned to leave Juliet’s House.

  If the letter couldn’t serve its purpose, he thought, he might as well keep it, a painful reminder of what might have been, a bittersweet souvenir from his trip to Italy.

  Head bowed, he walked down the stairs and out the door, oblivious to the laughter and swirling activity in the courtyard. He turned to trudge down the street, intending to head back to the villa, when someone leaped out at him, grabbed him, and dragged him into a side street.

  “What the—” He stopped, his heart pounding, and glared at Benno, who was looking pleased with himself. “What are you doing?”

  Benno shrugged. “I always wanted to try that,” he explained. “Just like in the movies, you know, when someone’s doing something sneaky and they think they’ve gotten away with it so they’re just walking along and then—bam! The hero grabs him!”

  Tom shook his head, confused. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Is that so?” Benno said in the cynical tone of a man who has heard every excuse and knows not to believe any. “Then why were you lurking in Juliet’s House? And why did you duck out of sight so that I wouldn’t see you? And what do you have in that pocket?”