Saving Juliet (8 page)

Lady Capulet stepped aside to reveal a narrow door, upon which she knocked. A rotund, middle-aged woman with large pores opened the door. "Nurse, this is Mimi of Manhattan, Juliet's distant cousin. She is just arrived. The devil's offspring have robbed her of her traveling cases."

"The Montagues?"
Nurse asked.

Lady Capulet scowled so hard her eyebrows became one.
"Of course the Montagues!
Who else would dare attack a Capulet woman but those wretched whoresons? The eternal fires of hell await them where they will be flayed like suckling pigs on the morn and eaten by cannibals at dusk." She smoothed her embroidered bodice, relaxing her face. "Tell me, Nurse, how is my Juliet?"

"Quite well, my lady.
She naps like the innocent spring bud that she is."

Lady Capulet nodded. "How beautifully put. Like a spring bud waiting to blossom into womanhood. Now then, I must find Mimi an appropriate dress for tonight's festivities. See to it that she naps." Lady Capulet turned and glided back down the hallway. Both Nurse and I sighed with relief.

Nurse ushered me into a dimly lit room that contained a bed, a large wooden chest, a painted table with matching stools, and a high-backed chair. She shut the door. "
Spring
bud," she muttered. "That'll be the day. More like winter mud or summer crud." She fluffed a pillow,
then
wagged a finger at me. "See here, Capulet cousin. I've got enough on me hands, what with that beastie over there." She pointed to the bed, where someone lay beneath a pile of blankets. Juliet, I assumed.
But a beastie?

"Me old heart can't take no more tricks or tricksters. Beastie over there is bad enough. Don't get me wrong. I love her like me own child, but she sucks the life from me, she does." She stood close and looked me over. She smelled like a mildewy shower curtain. The source, I guessed, was her dingy apron.

"Did those Montagues molest you?" she asked, pointing her red, bulbous nose up at me. "Did they hold you down and have their manly way with you?"

I might let Benvolio have his manly way with me, if my dream could find him again. I stepped away, searching for sweeter air. What was up with all the odors? I couldn't remember ever smelling stuff in a dream before.

The pile of blankets moved and a pair of bare feet popped out. Nurse shuffled over to the side of the bed. "You're supposed to be sleeping, you are."

"I am,"
came
a muffled reply.

"I am, she says." Nurse adjusted her apron,
then
spoke again to the pile of blankets. "How can you be asleep if you just said, 'I am.'"

"Exactly so.
I must be talking in my sleep." The feet retreated back under the covers.

"Sassy little whelp," Nurse muttered. "Well, get on in," she told me, pointing to the bed. "Lady Capulet wants you to nap as well. But watch yourself. Your bedmate's been known to bite." Nurse handed me a pillow.

The lump moved over. I kicked off my slippers, picked up the edge of the bottom blanket, and crawled in. A hand pulled the pile over my head, trapping me in a toasty cocoon. "Shhh," Juliet whispered in my ear. I couldn't see her but she scooted over until her shoulder pressed against mine. Nurse shuffled about,
then
both she and the chair groaned as she sat down.

"O, what a miserable life," Nurse complained.
"Nursemaid to a terrible, thankless beastie."

Juliet giggled and plunged her feet back out, exposing mine as well.

"Don't think I don't know you're not asleep, because I know you're not asleep, young lady." Nurse's words began to slow. "And it'll be meself that has to listen to her ladyship when she finds that you've got bags under your eyes from not taking your nap. Not
me
fault
..
." Her voice faded, followed by loud snoring.

Juliet giggled again and threw back the blankets. I found myself face-to-face with the character I had played for the last six months.

***

"How stands your disposition to be married?"

J
uliet Capulet had about the worst case of bedhead I had ever seen. Masses of kinky brown hair shot up in the air in a chaotic defiance of gravity. "I am not sleepy," she informed me. "Me neither." How could I be? I was already asleep. Juliet slid out of bed and tiptoed over to Nurse. As the exhausted woman breathed deeply, Juliet tied Nurse's apron strings to the chair's back rungs. She had to stop for a moment, to stifle a giggle. Nurse shifted her hips but kept sleeping. Juliet tied a front knot across Nurse's roly-poly belly.

Juliet tiptoed back to the bed and pulled off a blanket. "Nurse is such a bother," she whispered to me.
"Bosses me around all day.
Do this,
do that
. Come hither, go thither." Her voice was somewhat boyish, the way mine sounds when I have a cold. We sat cross-legged on the floor, beneath a shuttered window. "I'm Juliet."

"I'm Mimi."

Cracks in the wooden shutters let in bits of daylight.

Juliet stared at me with large brown eyes, like I was some kind of alien. She had a round face with a clump of freckles on the ridge of her nose. Not scattered like most freckles, just kind of dumped in one place. She wasn't at all like Fernando's Juliet
--
full-lipped and perfect. Nor was she like Hollywood's Juliet
--
graceful and angelic. She looked
real,
the way a girl is supposed to look.
A real girl, cute and full of energy, like she'd be more comfortable in soccer gear than in her long nightgown that dripped with lace and bows.
But what I most noticed was how young she was.

She reached up and took a little knife from the windowsill. She started poking the wall with the blade, flaking off pieces of plaster. "Are you going to the party?"

"If your mother can find me a dress," I told her.

"My parents are giving this bothersome party because they want me to get married." She stabbed the wall extra hard. "I am not yet fourteen and they want me to get married. Mother had a baby by fifteen." She scrunched her nose.

"At fifteen?"
I asked, horrified, remembering the Oprah show about the girls in Africa whose insides got torn apart because they gave birth too young. I shuddered.

Nurse snored loudly, her chin resting on her overflowing cleavage.

Juliet leaned close. "Mother says that Paris will seek my hand tonight. He is a member of the prince's family and twice my age. I am to marry an old man!" She flicked another piece of plaster. Multiple holes covered the wall, from previous attacks. "She said that marrying her only daughter into the prince's family is an excellent route for the Capulet name. But what she really wants is his money."

"Have you told your mother you don't want to get married?" I asked.

Juliet frowned. "What good would that do? She does not care what I want. She only cares about the Capulet name."
How painfully familiar.

Two daughters, both alike in dignity, forced down paths of their mothers' choosing.
I had never realized the similarity between Juliet's and my plight. It made perfect sense that my subconscious had selected this story for my dreamworld.

"My mother's the same way," I confided. "She only cares
...
cared about me becoming an actor. She owned a theater in Manhattan. She wanted me to follow in her footsteps."

Juliet stopped stabbing and widened her eyes. "You are an actor?
On the stage?"
I nodded. "A troupe was here last month. They performed some of the Greek tragedies. It looked like so much fun. They get to travel the world. I am not allowed to leave the house except to attend church or family gatherings." She leaned closer. "Your husband allows you to act?"

"I don't have a husband."

Juliet narrowed her eyes. "Did your husband die?"

I shook my head. "I've never been married. You don't have to get married in Manhattan if you don't want to."

For a moment she sat speechless, letting the knife fall to the floor.
"Amazing!
I want to go there. Will you take me there?"

"Uh, I really don't want to go back there. How about we go somewhere else?
How about Paris or London?"
Why not? It was a dream, after all.

"You do not wish to go home?" She smiled. "Then we shall run away together."

Nurse farted and momentarily woke herself up. Juliet and I froze until she had nodded back to sleep. I giggled because, by far, it was the loudest fart I had ever heard.

Juliet stood and began to pace, her crazy hair bobbing to and fro. "What am I talking about? My mother will never let me run away. She would send her guards after me even to the far corners of the world." She stomped her foot. "And tonight I have to go to that wretched party and meet the old windbag who wants to marry me. He spied me last month when I attended a cousin's wedding and claims he fell in love with me at first sight. He said I am as beautiful as one of his roses. He is obsessed with flowers.
Spends all his time in his garden.
He told my father that there could be no lovelier addition to his flower collection than me. He will probably stick me in a vase." She shuddered. "I must find a way to make him
not
in love with me so he will withdraw his proposal."

I considered myself the expert on making guys not in love. All those plays, all those leading men, and not one, except Troy, had ever asked me on a date
--
if you count kissing lessons a date. Aunt Mary said that my family name made me unapproachable and my mother, who intimidated everyone, served as a major roadblock. Aunt Mary said my lack of dates had nothing to do with who I was inside. I didn't believe her. If somebody really wanted to date me, they would have found a way.
Even if it meant dealing with my mother.
Even if it meant climbing an enemy's balcony.

"Will you help me to get rid of Paris?" Juliet asked.

Getting rid of Paris sounded like a lot of fun. He's such a butthead in the play. "Sure, but how?"

"I am not certain. I only know that I do not wish to be his pretty little flower."

"Then why not become an ugly weed?" I suggested.

Her mischievous expression returned. "Brilliant!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands in glee. Nurse remained in a stupor as Juliet opened a door onto a small balcony.
The
balcony.
Light spilled in and a warm breeze drifted through the room. I discarded the blanket and stood next to her as she leaned over a railing. "Boy," she called, trying to restrain her voice. The boy from the apricot orchard sat on a crate in the street below. He scrambled to his feet.

"Yes," he answered, giving me a little wave.

"Do you know the man named Paris who lives in the villa at the edge of town?
The one with all the flowers?"
The boy nodded. "I should like you to go to him. Tell him that you overheard some women in the market. Tell him that you thought he might be interested in what you overheard because it concerned Juliet Capulet. Then pretend that you are too embarrassed to continue because it concerns a delicate matter. He will urge you to speak." She snickered and looked over her shoulder. Nurse snored on. Juliet tiptoed back into the room, removed a coin from the wooden chest,
then
tiptoed back to the balcony.

"What shall I tell him, my lady?" the boy asked.

"Tell him that the women were discussing a boil, the likes of which has never before been seen. And that this boil resides on Juliet's bottom." She paused for a minute, strumming her fingers as she thought. "Tell him that it is a
recurring
boil that bursts forth with every
full moon."
She snickered again. "Tell him that Juliet is in such pain that she cannot dance, so the party has been canceled. Did you get all that?"

The boy nodded. "Juliet has a boil on her bottom, the likes of which has never before been seen. It bursts forth with every full moon."

"Yes, but don't forget that Juliet cannot dance so the party has been canceled."

"Right.
Canceled."

"Remember that you overheard this at the market." Juliet tossed the coin. The boy caught it and ran off. "He is a good, loyal boy," she told me. "He will tell no one that I sent him. We shall see what Paris thinks of girls with boily bottoms."

I decided then and there that I really liked her. She was the crazy little sister I never had.
A rebel at heart.
She was my alter ego.

The bedroom door opened and Lady Capulet entered. The room's temperature instantly dropped a few degrees. "Why are you two not napping? Move away from that breeze," she hissed. "You shall both come down with fevers."

Juliet closed the balcony door as two servants entered the bedroom, each carrying a gown. "Put those on the bed," her ladyship directed. Then she leaned over Nurse and called her name. Nurse awoke with a jolt and kicked out her legs so hard that she kicked Lady Capulet in the shins.

"Get up, get up," Lady Capulet ordered, waving her hands as Nurse struggled to free herself from the tied apron strings. "What ever is the matter with you? Are you having some sort of fit? Go on, get out of here. I wish to speak with my daughter and our guest."

Juliet smirked as Nurse slammed the chair against the wall a few times, finally freeing herself. "Beastie," Nurse mumbled as she and the servants fled.