The Juliet Club (11 page)

Entr'acte

“They're going to pretend to be in love?” Sarah was smiling into the distance.

Actually, she was gloating. A very unattractive quality, in Annie's opinion.

“He sounds completely obnoxious,” Annie said. “Not at all Kate's type.”

“Kate doesn't have a type yet. She's only dated Jerome,” Sarah protested.

“Exactly. Introverted genius boys with no social skills,” Annie agreed. “That's Kate's type.”

“Then it's time she found a different type,” Sarah said stoutly. “And I think Giacomo sounds like the perfect guy to change her ways.”

“Or drive her to homicide.”

“We'll see.” Sarah had gone back to smiling her Mona Lisa smile. “But in the meantime, they're going to pretend to be in love. This is promising. Very, very promising.”

Act II
Scene I

“I understand from Professoressa Marchese that you all know the play quite well, so I'm sure you will have great fun as we embark on this adventure,” Mr. Renkin said, smiling at them encouragingly. “Great fun, indeed!”

Mr. Renkin—he had told them to call him Dan—had a mop of brown hair, lively dark eyes, and a merry expression. He was a British director, temporarily based in Verona to scout locations for his next film. He had been immediately dragooned by Francesca Marchese to provide coaching, dancing lessons, and fight direction for her students—at a nominal fee, of course, since he would be furthering the cause of education. He had stayed politely quiet as Professoressa Marchese had unveiled the enormous piece of paper that was her casting chart and briskly announced what parts they would play.

“First, Benno and Tom,” she had said briskly. Tom looked tense, Benno wary. “You will play Mercutio and Tybalt.” She gave them a smiling glance and added, “I'm sure you will enjoy the duel greatly.”

They both sighed with relief and grinned at each other.

“Giacomo, you will play Romeo's part in their fight scene—that shouldn't be too taxing, since you just have to watch them and look horrified,” she said. “As for Juliet—”

She flipped through the casting chart, which was covered with livid squiggles and dramatic crossouts. Kate saw Lucy surreptitiously cross her fingers, biting her lip with anxiety.

“Lucy, you will play Juliet in the scene where you first meet Romeo at the party,” Professoressa Marchese announced. Lucy let out the breath she had been holding and smiled with pleasure. “And you, Kate, will play Juliet in the balcony scene.” She glanced over her glasses at her son. “After going over the schedule many times, I have decided that it would make the most sense if Giacomo plays Romeo in both those scenes.”

“Better him than me,” Tom whispered to Benno, even as Giacomo raised a hand to protest.

“I'm not sure that's quite fair,” he said quickly. “I mean, after all . . . Romeo! It's the part that everyone wants, isn't it?” He gave Tom and Benno a glinting look. “And I would hate to deny others whose acting skills are surely far superior to mine—”

“
Basta
!” His mother clapped her hands once, sharply, glaring at him. “I'm also considering the fact that you already know the part.”

“Indeed I do,” he said glumly. “I could recite every blasted line of that play while juggling blindfolded.”

“Precisely my point,” she replied. “And since our rehearsal time is limited, I believe that this is the most sensible solution.”

Giacomo folded his arms across his chest, looking martyred, and Benno gave him a patently insincere look of sympathy.

“Now Sylvia,” Professoressa Marchese went on. “You, I think, will be perfect as the Nurse.” She glanced up sharply, as if expecting protest. “It's an earthy, comic role that you will play to perfection, I am sure.”

But Sylvia shrugged one shoulder carelessly and said, “Fine. I would never want to play Juliet, she is far too dull.” Then she added stubbornly, “But I still don't see why I can't
fight.
”

Professoressa Marchese frowned. “I agreed that you could learn stage sword fighting, but I have many male students that I need to cast. The duel scene can only be presented so many times, Sylvia! Now, I don't want to hear any more arguments. I was up until midnight creating this chart, so for now—
è fatto
! It's done!”

Professoressa Marchese had then turned to the others, ignoring Silvia's sulking, clapped her hands twice, and said, “Remember, everyone,
surrender to the experience
! Now I must go deal with a catering crisis and a plumbing disaster, but I leave you in the best of hands. Carry on, Signor Renkin!”

When she had left, Dan turned to his cast. “Right,” he said. “Let's begin by running lines. Giacomo, Kate, why don't we start with your scene? In your own time . . .”

“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” Giacomo reeled off his lines with polish and flair, aware that he had an audience. They were, he was quite sure, admiring his delivery.

At the far end of the room, Lucy and Tom were supposed to be running lines, with Tom standing in as Romeo, and Benno and Silvia were supposed to be doing stretching exercises. But they had all stopped what they were doing to listen.

For the next few lines, Giacomo's voice became louder, his stance more self-assured, as the rhythms of the poetry took over.

But when he got to “Her eye discourses. I will answer it.—I am too bold. 'Tis not to me she speaks,” Dan interrupted.

“Nicely done, Giacomo,” he said. “Marvelous voice, very resonant. Clear articulation, very good.”

Giacomo looked gratified. Dan moved closer and murmured, “But if I could just make one or two notes. . . .”

Giacomo frowned. “Yes?”

“Your delivery is perhaps a little . . . glib. I feel that you're not quite connecting yet with the character's emotions. Romeo has fallen instantly in love with Juliet and they've met and shared a kiss, but he doesn't really know how she feels about him. He's so intent on finding out that he's come to this dangerous place, he's standing right under her balcony! So Romeo is bold, daring! But at the same time”—Dan's voice softened, paused, stuttered. “He's hesitant. Look at the text: ‘I will answer it.' He's determined to get her attention. Then the next line: ‘I am too bold.' Backing off. You see? He's like any young man who is approaching the girl of his dreams and wondering whether he'll be greeted with a smile or told to shove off.”

“Mmm.” Giacomo nodded in what he hoped was a thoughtful manner. “I see.”

“So what you could do here, I think, is recall a time when you felt that way,” Dan suggested. “When you tried to talk to a girl you fancied, and you weren't sure of what to say, or the words came out all wrong. Can you remember a moment like that to help you connect here?”

Giacomo tilted his head and stared intently at the ceiling, as if the answer might be written in the cobweb that was strung across the corner. “Well,” he said after a long moment, “no, actually.”

From the other side of the room, he heard Silvia give a little snort. He glanced over and saw Benno glaring at him, and realized that his answer, although true, was not calculated to make him friends. He was slightly cheered to see that Tom looked impressed and that Lucy was smiling at him in a friendly way. . . . But when he stopped to think about it, that didn't mean much because it didn't take anything at all to impress Tom, and Lucy always looked friendly.

Kate, he noticed, was yawning behind her script.

He turned back to see that Dan was looking at him with a rather befuddled expression. “I see. Well, let's leave it for now, but give it a thought, will you, Giacomo? Some time when you felt unsure of yourself, it doesn't have to be anything to do with love, you know, just a moment of insecurity and self-doubt. You're doing brilliantly, of course, but I think that will help your performance really come alive.”

Dan turned to Kate. “Right! Kate, let's start again and see how you do.”

“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” Kate intoned. “Deny thy father and refuse thy name.” She went on, secretly proud that she had read the play so many times that she hardly needed to refer to her script.

She barely paused long enough for Giacomo to say his line—“Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?”—before continuing.

“'Tis but thy name that is my enemy,” she said. Word perfect, of course. She wouldn't even need her script by this time tomorrow. “Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man—”

“Yes, Kate, very good, thank you so much for that.” Dan was sitting in front of one of the large windows, straddling a chair backward, watching her intently. “Your memorization skills are very impressive.”

She smiled complacently. “Well, I know it's important to get all the words right.”

“Absolutely, and you're going to do splendidly, you've done a lot of preparatory work already, I can tell,” he said.

She hesitated. Something about the way he said that was not reassuring. “But?”

“Very nicely done, really, but you do sound a bit as if you're doing a trial summation. Rather brisk and to the point, if you know what I mean.”

“But if you look at Juliet's dialogue, it
is
almost like she's making an argument to a jury,” Kate said eagerly. As soon as she heard she had won a place in the seminar, she had gone through the play several times, underlining passages and making notes in the margins. Now she picked up her copy and opened it to the speech she had just said. “Look, here, Juliet says, it's your
name
that is my enemy, not
you
. And you would still be you, no matter what your last name was, so who cares about the name Montague anyway?” She lowered the book. “I thought it was a very logical point.”

Dan nodded. “That's true, throughout this scene Juliet is practical, down-to-earth, grounded—”

Giacomo sighed heavily.

“Yes, Giacomo, you have a comment about that?” Dan asked politely.

“Well, yes,” Giacomo said. “She's got Romeo standing under her balcony spouting gorgeous poetry and promising her undying love, and all she can say is ‘How did you get in here?' and ‘Who told you which balcony was mine?'”

“Right. While
Romeo
's speeches just get more and more extravagant,” Kate said, rather testily.

“He is expressing his soul,” Giacomo said coldly. He was about to go on, but he caught a glimpse of Silvia exchanging glances with Benno, and Tom nudging Lucy, and remembered, just in time, that he was supposed to be falling in love with Kate.

So instead of countering her argument with a withering remark, he took a deep breath, smiled, and moved a little closer to her.

“Here, for example,” he said, pitching his voice so that it was low and intimate, yet carried across the room for the benefit of his listeners. “O, speak again, bright angel!” He looked deeply into Kate's eyes. Fortunately, he was blocking her from the others' view, so they couldn't see the way she was lifting one eyebrow sardonically at him. She did not look at all like someone who was falling in love.

Undeterred, he pressed on. “For thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head, as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white, upturned, wondring eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds and sails up upon the bosom of the air.”

From across the room, he heard Lucy sigh. He cut his eyes over without moving his head to see the others' reactions. Silvia was regarding him with what looked like disgust, but he knew Silvia well and he knew that she was, however unwillingly, impressed. Tom's mouth was hanging slightly open—he was either struck by the words or Giacomo's delivery or both—and Benno was shaking his head slightly in disbelief.

All in all, a most satisfactory response. Giacomo turned back to Kate.

“See, that's exactly what I mean,” she said in an accusing tone. “It's too much! Everything Romeo says is so over the top, any sensible girl would run away as fast as she could, because she'd never be able to live up to his expectations!”

“Perhaps,” Giacomo said, “Romeo does not
want
a sensible girl.”

“He should,” she said tartly. “He needs
someone
to help him keep his feet on the ground.”

“Why? Because he has a heart? Because he has a soul? Because—”

“—he's an idiot. Look!” She flipped her book open to the first pages. “When the play begins, he's moping because Rosaline doesn't love him. Four scenes later, he sees Juliet and falls in love at first sight. And two scenes after
that,
he's swearing undying love to her. And then—”

“Yes, we all know the plot.” Giacomo was trying to keep his temper.

They stood still, glaring at each other until Dan stepped forward, smiling. “Very interesting discussion, thank you both. I'm sure we'll make many discoveries together in the days to come. But perhaps it's time for a small break to really absorb the connections you've made today. So! Let's regroup after lunch, shall we?”

“Are you absolutely, positively sure this is a good thing we're fixing to do?” Lucy worried, even as she followed Silvia along the manicured paths in the garden behind the Villa Marchese. “I mean, you are absolutely, positively a hundred percent sure that Giacomo told Benno he likes Kate?”

“Shh!” Silvia stopped so abruptly that Lucy bumped into her and almost sent her sprawling into the lavender border that edged the walkway. “Yes, I told you! Giacomo and Benno went to the cinema last night and that was when Giacomo revealed his true feelings.”

“Now what exactly did he say, again?”

“
Stai zitto!
Keep your voice down!” Silvia hissed. “I already told you!”

Fifteen minutes ago, Silvia had spotted Kate from an upstairs window, sitting down to eat her lunch in a secluded bower at the end of the garden. It was the perfect moment to implement the first phase of her plan, so she had grabbed Lucy and they had hurried down the three flights of stairs to the terrace. Now they were trying to creep behind the bench where Kate was sitting, surrounded by bushes and lemon trees, where they would then talk about Giacomo's supposed love for her, pretending that they didn't see her.

But this brilliant plan would only work if they actually made it to the end of the garden sometime this century. Right now, Lucy was standing in the middle of the path as if she had put down roots, waiting for Silvia to repeat, for the thousandth time, the fiction that she and Benno had created last night.