“Well, both of us got to the garbage can at the same time on Friday, and he was so funny. He held up the lid for me, and said something about tipping his lid to a lady. I don’t remember exactly how he put it, but I couldn’t help laughing. And we just chatted a little on the way up the stairs. So, I didn’t take the garbage down on Saturday, but, sure enough, he was there on Sunday. I kind of had the feeling he might have been hanging around, waiting. Well, one thing led to another and—he lives in apartment 2C, on the landing below ours. His name is Roland Belfiglio. He’s a writer. Not famous or anything, and he works as a translator. He speaks Italian and Spanish fluently, and he admires Shakespeare. Only he thinks
King Lear
is the best. Well, so I told him tonight maybe I might be able to go to the movies with him this weekend if you’re feeling better. We both want to see the new
Henry V
movie even if neither of us is crazy about the play. Incidentally, he thinks Dante is the greatest poet who ever lived, but I don’t really mind.”
* * * *
Beebe sat in one of the back rows in the auditorium and watched. Juliet/Jennifer, wearing a short, flippy skirt and waving a green and black pom-pom, was leading a group of other cheerleaders in a cry—”Give me a
C,
give me a
C,
give me an
A,
give me an
A....
”
“Louder!” ordered Ms. Drumm from one of the front rows. “And Romeo, get over there, behind the billboard, and act like you’re really swept off your feet.”
Romeo/Dave, chewing gum and dressed in a red-and-white school jacket with the word
Montague
stamped on the back, slouched over to the billboard and assumed a casual, sneering stance.
“Okay, girls, show him your stuff,” said Ms. Drumm, sinking back into her seat.
The cheerleaders fanned out in a line behind Juliet, all of them waving green and black pom-poms. “Give me a
C,
give me a
C
....” they cried, pumping their arms up and down and stamping their feet on the ground.
Romeo/Dave, peeping through a hole in the billboard, suddenly rose, straightened up, and spit out his gum. He walked around the side of the billboard as all of the cheerleaders leaped into the air yelling,
“Capulet!”
“Good, good!” Ms. Drumm said.
Then Juliet caught sight of Romeo and slowly moved towards him, and he moved towards her. Off
stage could be heard the cries of the cheerleaders from Montague High School as they, in turn, shouted, “Give me an
M,
give me an
M
....”
* * * *
Dave was the first one from the cast whom she saw on her return to school that morning. He came up to her in the hall and asked, “Were you away for a couple of days?”
“I was sick for nearly a week and a half,” she told him.
“No kidding? Well, you’ve really missed something great. She’s a kick, that Drumm, and we’re having a ball.”
“I guess nobody circulated a petition or went to the principal.”
“Oh!” Dave made a face. “We’re lucky nobody did. The play is really fun now. Everybody loves it. It’s so cute and the lines are so easy.”
“Everybody?” Beebe asked.
“Everybody,” he assured her. “But you’d better go and check with Ms. Drumm about your part. I don’t have a mother in this version. Probably she’ll want you to be one of the cheerleaders. You’d make a cute one.”
He gave her shoulder a friendly pat and went off.
* * * *
Went off out of her life and out of her heart, she thought as she watched him amble up to Juliet on stage, and saw both of them exchange a high five.
Nothing was the same. Nothing in the play remained except for the rivalry between two high schools, Capulet and Montague, and the names of the characters. All the parts had changed. Most of the boys were now players on one of the two football teams, and most of the girls were cheerleaders. Over the phone last night, Wanda had prepared her for the worst.
“I’m still Juliet’s mother and Frank Jackson is her father, but everything else is different. Even the nurse. She’s Juliet’s best friend now, and everything ends up happy at the end. Capulet High School wins the football game, but Montague High School gets the prize for the best cheerleaders. Or maybe it’s the other way around.”
“I’m dropping out,” Beebe told Wanda.
“Look,” Wanda said, “just come in and see what’s going on. It won’t hurt you to look. Maybe you’ll love it, too, the way the rest of us do.”
“I know I won’t.”
“Oh you, you’re such a snob. Just come and look ... and ... and Beebe, there’s something else.”
“What?”
“Well, you know that guy I wanted to fix you up with.”
“Oh, yes. It’s okay now. I wouldn’t mind meeting him.”
“Well, that’s just it. I don’t know. Maybe he’s going through something, but he just called me and said he didn’t want to.”
“Didn’t want to what?”
“Well—meet you. But I’ll talk to him again. He just might be shy. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow in the auditorium.”
* * * *
She did see Wanda, but Wanda didn’t see her. Wanda was walking out of the auditorium, hand in hand with Frank. They were so absorbed in each other that they passed Beebe’s row, only a few yards away, without seeing her there.
I’m invisible, Beebe thought to herself. Even Wanda doesn’t know I’m here. I’m invisible and unimportant, and I’m all alone now in the back of this terrible auditorium, where up front people are murdering my favorite play right before my eyes.
“I think,” Ms. Drumm called out, “we’d better do that scene again. Some of the cheerleaders aren’t really getting into it. Let’s start all over again. Romeo, get behind the billboard and start chewing your gum.”
How could she ever have been so dotty over Dave Mitchell, slouching there behind the billboard, chewing gum and peeping through the peephole at Juliet. She saw him now as he was, an ordinary, uninteresting, shallow boy whom she had endowed with special qualities.
“Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell,” she whispered to herself. But the wonderful lines did not make her feel better as they usually did.
To have everything change around her all at once was too much. She would never be an actress, she knew it now. The play was dead, and she, in the back of the auditorium, sat helplessly by as its murderers cavorted on stage in front of her. And her mother— changed and cheerful. Wanda in love. Dave Mitchell, completely gone from her life.
What was left? A future that was uncertain, a whole whirling world of questions with no answers, and a terrible, empty loneliness. She needed somebody to talk to, somebody who could understand. She needed, she needed ...
But it was only in books that miracles happened, that two kindred souls met by chance, that Romeo emerged from out of the shadows to declare his love for Juliet. The tears rolled down her face and fell on her hands, folded helplessly in her lap.
Chapter 12
His father took it hard.
“One day, we’re making plans, and the next, she’s telling me it’s all over. What did I do? What did I say?”
Mark tried to be supportive. “You didn’t say anything, Dad. Don’t blame yourself.”
“It was because of that kid of hers. Just because she was sick. I called every day. I tried to help out, but she didn’t let me do anything.”
“Well, maybe she was just upset because her daughter was sick. Maybe when she’s better ...”
“No, no,” his father said. “Her daughter is better. She’s going back to school tomorrow. I called her a few minutes ago. I said let’s get together—just to talk, but she said no. She said there was no point in talking.
I bet it was her kid. I bet it was Beebe who bad-mouthed me.”
“But Dad, you said she was a nice girl. You said she liked you.”
“I thought she did, but then I remember on Angel Island, she was the one who started talking about Shakespeare. That’s right. She started it, and then that got Barbara going, and then she asked me what I thought. I guess she was trying to show me up—the jealous little snob. She knew her mother was going with me, and she couldn’t stand it. That’s why she broke it up.”
“But Dad, maybe it was something else.” Mark could feel the disappointment rising inside of him.
“No,” said his father. “It was that Beebe. She was the one.”
* * * *
He had to harden his heart later when he called Wanda. Any enemy of his father, he decided, had to be an enemy of his.
“Hello, Wanda,” he said. “It’s Mark.”
“Hi, Mark, I was going to give you a ring tonight.”
“Well, I just wanted to tell you ...”
“Beebe’s coming back to school tomorrow. I’ll call her after I finish talking to you. We can set something up for this weekend. Friday’s fine with Frank and me, or Saturday ...”
“Well, something’s come up.”
“Well, Sunday’s okay. We could walk across the bridge to Sausalito on Sunday, if you like, and take the ferry back. Beebe likes to hike.”
“No,” he said painfully. His father’s enemies were his enemies, and if this mean, snobbish girl had really been responsible for his father’s anguish, he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. “I can’t come this weekend. I mean, let’s just call the whole thing off.”
“Did you meet somebody else?” Wanda asked.
“No, but ...”
“But what?”
“Look, I just don’t want to. That’s all.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why don’t you just meet her? I really think you’d like her, and I think she’d like you too. You both really have a lot in common.”
“Like what?” he couldn’t help asking. “Isn’t she a Shakespeare nut? Isn’t she in that acting group of yours?”
“Well, yes and no,” Wanda said. “She is crazy about Shakespeare, but I don’t think she’ll be in our play. She’s a serious girl, too serious, I think, for her own good. I mean, in a nice way. I mean, she doesn’t run with the crowd, but in a nice way. And, Mark, she’s pretty, and you can talk to her and she really listens.”
“No,” he said quickly. Beebe sounded wonderful. “No. I’ve changed my mind.”
“Well, let’s talk about it in school tomorrow,” She laughed. “I’m not letting you off the hook so easily.”
* * * *
He purposely cut his history class because Wanda was in it. There was no point in talking to her about why he wouldn’t—couldn’t—meet Beebe Clarke. His father’s enemies were his enemies. And yet, he couldn’t help wondering if his father was mistaken. Perhaps it didn’t have anything at all to do with Beebe or with Shakespeare. As much as he loved his father, he couldn’t help seeing some of his faults and how demanding he was of Barbara. Oh, he supposed, most people who were in love wanted to spend all their time, or at least most of it, with the person they loved. He supposed his father must have been like most people in love. But if he was, then maybe there was something wrong with being in love.
It hadn’t happened to him yet, but he felt love should open doors and not close them. It should make your life bigger and not smaller. It shouldn’t lock you into a cramped space but take you out into a universe filled with new stars and brighter constellations. One day, he knew, it would happen to him, and he wished it would happen soon.
That’s when he saw her. Wanda. Coming out of one of the side doors of the auditorium. She was laughing up into the face of some guy. In desperation he ducked into the auditorium through one of the doors on the other side. His heart was pounding, and he leaned against the door and waited. Waited for his heart to stop beating so hard, and also for a few minutes to pass. It would be safe in a few minutes for him to leave his sanctuary without danger of bumping into Wanda.
What a racket was going on in the auditorium! He turned his eyes to the stage up front, where a whole bunch of girls in cheerleader outfits were leaping up and down and yelling “Give me a C, give me a C” at the top of their lungs. He couldn’t help noticing that they weren’t very good and were completely out of step. Some of them were stamping on the ground, while others were leaping into the air. And they were waving pom-poms in the craziest, wildest way. It was deafening, and he turned to leave when he noticed her.
Over towards the middle, a few rows down. Her head was bent over her hands, her shoulders were heaving, and she was sobbing. A girl was crying in the back of the auditorium. He could actually hear her, in spite of the din from the stage.
And he could feel her sadness. How strange that he could feel it, as he had felt it himself just a few days ago up on the top of Twin Peaks. She was crying the way he had cried. All by herself with nobody to notice or to care. Something had gone wrong for her the way it had for him.
“It will be all right,” he needed to tell her. “It will pass, whatever it is, and it will be all right.”
He moved towards her, and as he approached she suddenly turned around and raised her face up to his. Her face was wet with tears. He sat down next to her, and saw two images of himself reflected inside the circles of her eyes. Up on the stage, the cheerleaders bellowed
“Capulet, Capulet,”
as he leaned towards her and began to speak.
With love to my granddaughter, the “peerless”
Miranda,
and with thanks for improving and expanding our family circle.
Copyright © 1992 by Marilyn Sachs
Originally published by Puffin
Electronically published in 2012 by Belgrave House
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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