The Juliet Club (12 page)

She tugged impatiently on Lucy's arm, but Lucy could be stubborn when she wanted to be. A small frown creased her forehead as she went on insistently, “It just seems so
odd
. I mean, the way the two of them argue in class! And they're always quoting Shakespeare to score points—”

“Exactly.” Silvia pounced on this. “A mutual love of literature binds them together.”

“Well, I was
going
to say that I never knew Shakespeare could be so sarcastic.” Lucy's voice held a hint of reproof, and Silvia gave a slight shrug as apology for interrupting. “Although I suppose,” Lucy went on, thinking out loud, “I
suppose
Giacomo could just be afraid that Kate doesn't return his feelings.”

“Exactly,” Silvia said with relief. It had taken some time, but Lucy had finally gotten there. “He's masking his true feelings, that's exactly what he told Benno. Now, come, she will finish eating and be gone if we don't hurry!”

Lucy seemed convinced by Silvia's urgent delivery. “You're right, of course! Oh, I really hope this works!” she said as she hurried down the path.

Silvia followed, silently congratulating herself on her truly superb acting skills.

A few moments later, she was even more glad that she was a wonderful actress because Lucy, despite years of training in her high school's drama club, was unbelievably bad.

They had approached the leafy bower, talking casually—or they would have been, if Lucy had not made every slight statement sound like a pronouncement from Mount Olympus.

“Oh! Silvia!” she cried. “Are you SURE that Giacomo LOVES Kate that much?”

Silvia looked at her in disbelief and answered, in resolutely normal tones, “That's what Benno told me. They went to the cinema last night and Giacomo confessed all.”

“It does seem STRANGE, though!” Lucy said. “After all, she's always ROLLING HER EYES at everything he says and telling him that he's committed another LOGICAL FALLACY and then explaining EXACTLY where he went wrong in his reasoning.”

No human being who had ever drawn breath on this earth talked like that, Silvia thought, but she seized the opening that Lucy had offered with wicked glee. “You're quite right,” she said smoothly. “In fact, he told Benno that that's why he knew that what he felt was true love, because it made no sense at all! He said that Kate is a shrill, argumentative, humorless girl with rather plain looks and no fashion sense at all.”

There was a thump from the other side of the bushes as if someone had slammed a book shut. Silvia smiled her pleased, catlike smile and went on. “He says that he only acts rudely to her in order to hide his true feelings, because he knows that she would just mock him.”

“Oh, that's so sad!” For a moment, Lucy was so caught up in the story they were telling that she responded in a natural, heartfelt way. Then her eyes darted toward the bushes as she remembered Kate's presence and she began projecting for the balcony once again. “But maybe we could TALK to her and LET HER KNOW how much he LOVES her and get her to BE NICE TO HIM!”

Silvia shook her head sadly, quite enjoying herself as the scene played on. “I'm afraid that won't work. After a week together, we know her too well. She's too proud of how smart she is, and completely unable to act charming.”

Lucy frowned and whispered, “Don't you think that's a little mean?”

“Fine!” Silvia whispered back. “The next line is yours.”

“Um…” Lucy looked momentarily frightened, as if they were truly acting in a play and she had missed her cue. Then she got back in the groove and said, “It's really TRAGIC! Giacomo is so good-looking, and charming, and intelligent, and funny.”

“Yes, yes, he's stuffed, as they say, with honorable parts,” Silvia quoted bitterly.

“What?” Lucy whispered, lost.

“Never mind,” Silvia murmured. “Let's bring this scene to an end.”

Obediently, Lucy called out, “OH! It is almost TWO O'CLOCK! We'd better get back to class!”

“Yes,” Silvia said, pleased now that they had accomplished their mission. “We wouldn't want to miss rehearsal.”

As they ran back up the path, Lucy tried, without much success, to stifle her giggles, and even Silvia found that she was almost smiling.

Act II
Scene II

Giacomo sat on a bench in the church courtyard and gazed at the small poster that had been pasted on a nearby wall to announce the death of a Verona resident. Despite the somber surroundings, he was trying not to laugh. He had amused himself for the last hour as he had watched Benno and Tom try to figure out how to maneuver him into a position where he would be sure to overhear their staged conversation.

First, they had entered the café where he was enjoying an afternoon espresso and tried to skulk in without his seeing them. That plan had been doomed to failure, of course, since the café was only big enough for eight tables, each of which was only inches from the other.

“
Ciao,
Tom,” he had said. “
Ciao,
Benno.”

Their faces fell at being discovered, and Giacomo had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

He went on smoothly, “On your way to the football field?”

“What?” Tom had asked blankly.

Benno gave him an exasperated sidelong glance and tossed the soccer ball he was carrying from one hand to the other.

Tom's face cleared as he suddenly remembered their cover story. “Oh yes! Right! We're going to go play soccer with some, um, guys. But we came in here because”—he glanced wildly at the menu written on a chalkboard—“we were thirsty!”

Benno nodded at the waiter
. “Due aranciate, per favore.”

Giacomo had smiled to himself and waited until they were served their orange drinks. Then he had taken a last sip of his espresso and said, “I have to go now. A few errands to run for my mother.
Ciao!
”

He had chuckled all the way to the
pasticceria
at the memory of how crestfallen Benno and Tom had looked as they had been forced to sit at the table and finish their drinks. He leaned against the counter as the
pasticceria
owner slowly wrapped up the loaf of bread he had bought. Fortunately for Benno and Tom, the man moved at a glacial pace. Usually this drove Giacomo wild, but now he hummed under his breath as he gazed out the window, watching the street for the next scene to begin. Sure enough, Benno and Tom came running up, red-faced and panting in the heat, just as Giacomo stepped outside.

“Hello!” he said, pretending great surprise. “How odd to run into you again.”

“Verona is not so big,” Benno pointed out.

“True. But weren't you going to play football? And isn't the football field where you usually practice in that direction?”

Tom shot Benno a wild glance. Giacomo had to stop himself from shaking his head reprovingly at this. Really, Benno couldn't have chosen a worse person to involve in this conspiracy! Every thought that went through Tom's mind was written on his face for all to see.

“Yes, but I have to stop by my aunt Bettina's to, er, get some tomatoes she picked from her garden,” Benno said quickly, clearly improvising. “
Then
we're going to play football.”

“Ah.” Giacomo nodded. “Well, I have to meet my grandmother at church now.
Ciao.
”

He sauntered back in the direction that they had just come from, pretending not to notice as they trailed behind him. He could have kept playing this game all day, but the afternoon was hot and the thought of going home and sipping a cool drink in the shade sounded very appealing. He finally decided to take pity on them and put himself in a position where it would be easy for them to sneak up on him.

He hadn't been lying, exactly, about going to the church. He did plan to head there, not because his grandmother had asked him to, but simply because it would take Benno and Tom so far out of their way.

The inner courtyard had high walls to provide shade, weathered stone benches to provide rest, and the sound of droning bees and church bells to provide a contented and meditative atmosphere. It seemed like a quiet and pleasant spot to while away the time it would take for Benno to coach Tom on his lines and then slip up behind him.

He settled onto a bench and let his mind drift until he finally heard approaching footsteps.

“That's what I'm telling you, Tom,” Benno said, rather too emphatically. “Kate told Lucy that she has a—how do you say this in English? A crush?—on Giacomo!”

“I can't believe it!” Tom was doing a credible job of sounding amazed. In fact, Giacomo was impressed. He wouldn't have thought, given Tom's performance so far, that he had any acting ability whatsoever. “Giacomo doesn't seem like Kate's type.”

Giacomo smirked a little at this. No girl had ever said he wasn't her type.

“In fact, she kind of acts like she hates him,” Tom went on. There was a brief silence, then a whisper, then Tom's voice again, unnaturally loud. “Oh! But maybe she's just
pretending
she hates him!”

“Yes, I think she is a very good actress,” Benno said. “Because Lucy tells me that she sits in her room at night and writes his name over and over in her notebook, then she sighs and even cries a little over the fact that she can never have him.”

“But why doesn't she just tell him how she feels?” Tom asked.

“As you said, she has treated him so badly since they first met,” Benno replied. “That was before she realized she loved him, of course. She says she would be embarrassed to confess her true feelings now. Afraid, even!”

“Afraid?”

“You have heard how Giacomo treats her,” Benno pointed out. “He mocks her constantly. She does argue with him, but you must admit that he also disagrees with every point she makes.”

“Hmm,” Tom agreed. “Well, maybe it's better that he doesn't ever know that she likes him.”

“I agree,” Benno said. “You know Giacomo is my friend.”

“You guys seem really tight,” Tom agreed, and Giacomo smiled.

“But still, even I have to admit,” Benno went on, “he does have some faults.”

Giacomo raised his eyebrows at this.

“Everyone does,” Tom said fairly. “No one's perfect.”

Giacomo nodded approvingly at this sentiment.

“Very true,” Benno said. “Although . . .”

Giacomo sat up a little straighter and turned his head to make sure he heard what came next.

“Although Giacomo, perhaps, has more faults than most people,” his friend went on. “In fact, if I'm being honest, I would have to say that he has a lot more.”

“Really?” A note of genuine interest entered Tom's voice. “Like what?”

“Well, I don't like to say it, but he is a little vain about his looks. Have you noticed how he dresses?”

“Well . . . no, not really,” Tom said. “I mean, his clothes always look just like, you know . . .
clothes
.”

Benno snorted. “Extremely expensive clothes, believe me. And his sense of humor . . . well, sometimes he enjoys mocking people.”

“That's not very nice,” Tom said thoughtfully.

“He's always at least fifteen minutes late. He's very forgetful.” Benno sounded as if he were ticking the points off on his fingers. “And he sometimes borrows people's CDs and then forgets to return them. Actually, he does that pretty often. Once a month, at least.”

And
you
are such a paragon of virtue, Giacomo thought, fuming. He had only forgotten to return Benno's precious CDs twice. Three times at most.

“And then, when it comes to girls, he is
incostante
,” Benno said. “I think the word in English is fickle? It is shameful, everyone says so.”

Benno's tone sounded quite severe, Giacomo thought, even condemning. And what did he mean, everyone said so? What had he ever done that was so bad? Of course, he flirted with girls, but, to be fair, he also flirted with the perpetually tired waitress at his favorite café, who often slipped him extra biscotti. And the sour-faced secretary in the school office, who usually unbent enough to give him a late pass and a small smile. And even his second cousin's four-year-old niece, who now shyly offered him a small bouquet of wilted flowers at every Sunday dinner as a token of her love. And where was the harm in any of that?

“If she won't tell him how she feels, maybe we should,” Tom suggested.

Giacomo could hear the shrug in Benno's voice. “What good would that do? He would just lead her on, break her heart, make her miserable, ruin her life.” He sighed heavily. “It's a shame that someone like Kate who is, as you said,
molto gentile,
should fall for someone who will never return her affection.”

Tom sighed heavily as well. “You're right. He's crazy not to like Kate, though. She's so nice and pretty and smart—”

“Yes, very smart,” Benno agreed. “Except, of course, for loving Giacomo.”

Act II
Scene III

“I can't believe it!” Giacomo was storming around the seminar room, running his hands through his hair in an agitated manner and glaring at anything that stood in his path. “I simply can't believe it!
I cannot believe
what Benno said about me!”

“Yes, that's what you've been saying for the last ten minutes,” Kate said. She was seated at the table, flipping through the pile of letters to Juliet. She gave him a wicked glance and quoted his own words back to him. “You know, eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves.”

“Yes, I believe I've heard that somewhere before,” he snapped. “But still, I can't believe—”

“Calm
down
. The others will be here any minute.”

He stopped and whirled to face her. “Calm down!” he shouted. “Why should I calm down? I have been most foully perjured!”

She stopped rifling through the letters and tilted her head to one side. “‘Foully perjured'? Who said that?”

“I said it! Just now!” He looked at her as if she were mad. “Weren't you even
listening
?”

“I could hardly help listening, the way you've been shouting!” Kate said, her voice tart. “I thought you were quoting Shakespeare, and I didn't recognize the line, that's all.“

“Oh, of course.” He threw himself into the chair opposite her, crossed his arms, and slid down until his neck was resting on the back of the chair. “I should have guessed. My best friend has slandered me behind my back and all you can think about is whether I'm quoting Shakespeare!”

“It's not slander,” she pointed out, “if it's true.”

He glared at her. “Betrayed at every turn,” he muttered.

Before she could respond to that, she heard the sound of the others approaching. “Never mind,” she said quickly. “They're coming. Just remember to play your part.”

They began their second day by answering Juliet's mail. “Read each letter carefully,” Professoressa Marchese advised. “And as you write your reply, remember to answer in the spirit of Juliet!” She opened the box of letters and tipped it onto the table. Letters with stamps and postmarks from dozens of countries spilled out.

“Wow.” Tom looked daunted. “That's a lot of letters.”

“It's hard to believe so many people need help with their love lives,” Benno said with a sly glance at Giacomo.

“Yes,” Giacomo said, giving him a burning stare in return. “How fortunate that you are here to offer counsel. Given how perceptive you are about other people.”

Lucy plucked a letter from the pile. “This is going to be such fun.”

Professoressa Marchese left them again, saying she had to meet with the German translator of her books and have lunch with the president of the university. Once the door closed behind her, everyone except Lucy looked at one another, then at the stack of letters. Lucy was busily reading the letter she had picked up.

“Oh, listen to this one,” she said. Then she read it out loud.

Dear Juliet,

I really like a girl in my school. How can I tell if she likes me? I've already asked my friends, but they don't have a clue.

Sincerely,

Joel P.

“Dibs on this one,” she said. “It'll be a breeze to answer.”

Silvia frowned at her. This was something else that annoyed her about Americans. They acted as if everything in life was so clear-cut and straightforward, whereas Silvia knew to the depths of her being that life was murky, unpredictable, and extremely complicated.

“Fine,” she snapped. “Then you answer it.”

Kate leaned forward to pull another letter from the pile.

Dear Juliet,

I like a boy in my math class, but I can't tell if he likes me. He doesn't ever talk to me unless I say something to him first. And every time I do, he asks me what my name is, even though I've told him five times now. But my friends think I should ask him to the school dance. What do you think? I will follow any advice you give me!

Sincerely,

Samantha B.

She looked at Tom. “You want to take this one?”

“I guess so,” he said reluctantly. “But I don't know what to write. I mean, I don't know anything about this guy she likes.”

“Well, obviously,” Lucy began, “he
does
like her, so you just have to reassure her a little bit.”

“Uffa!”
Silvia said in disgust. “You must be joking!”

Lucy looked puzzled. “What?” She looked around the table and saw a ring of skeptical faces. “What?”

“I hate to say it, but I think we should write back and suggest that she start thinking about someone else,” Giacomo said, sounding truly regretful.

Benno nodded, but added brightly, “Maybe we should give her advice on how to meet other guys, though! That would probably cheer her up!”

“Nothing will cheer her up.” Silvia pronounced in a hollow tone, sounding like an oracle of doom. “She loves him, he does not love her. Nothing could be worse.”

Kate clucked her tongue with annoyance. “Really? How about failing a class, breaking an arm, losing a wallet—”

“Those are only problems.” Silvia waved a hand dismissively. “Problems can be fixed. But unrequited love is a tragedy.”

“I don't know why you insist that it's unrequited!” Lucy said indignantly. “I think we should encourage her to at least try to find out his true feelings! Tom, you agree with me, don't you?”

She gave him an imploring look, as if she were being led to the stake and he offered her only hope of rescue. “Um, well . . .” As Tom tried to gather his thoughts, Benno found himself gazing at Lucy as if hypnotized. A beam of sunlight shone through the window, casting a golden halo around her blond hair. Her blue eyes—no, he thought, the mere word blue was not enough. Her eyes were the deep, dark blue of the ocean or the midnight sky, filled with unfathomable depth and mystery—

“Benno!” Tom almost shouted.

Benno came to with a start and saw that Tom was giving him a desperate look. “What do you think?”

Benno hated to disappoint Lucy, who had now shifted her imploring look to him. “Well, I guess he could just be
pretending
to not notice her,” he suggested shiftily, ignoring Giacomo's doubtful expression.

“Exactly!” Lucy beamed. “That's exactly right! I think this could be a situation like the one you see in the movies, where someone acts like he doesn't like someone because he wants to hide the true nature of his feelings! But secretly,
way
deep down inside, he really
does
like that person! So actually the more someone doesn't pay attention to someone the more he probably likes her!” She paused for breath, then added, “Now if you look at it that way, the fact that he keeps forgetting her name is actually a very good sign! No one who didn't like somebody a little bit could ignore someone that completely!”

There was a brief silence as everyone took that in.

Then Giacomo said, “You've obviously given this more thought than the rest of us. Maybe you should answer this letter as well?”

Lucy smiled and, quite contented, wrote two letters filled with impassioned advice to send out in the next day's mail.

By the end of the class, each member of the Shakespeare Seminar had managed to meet their quota of answering two letters a day. After an hour, they had agreed to stop discussing every letter, since it was clear that otherwise they would still be in the seminar room at midnight.

Occasionally, they would pass a letter around the table for comments. Kate noticed that not only was each person's handwriting as individual as their personalities (Lucy's looping and carefree, Silvia's a black scrawl, Benno's almost indecipherable, Giacomo's spiky and angular), but the tone of their advice ranged from blithely optimistic to doom-laden gloom. They didn't seem to be learning anything about Shakespeare and, moreover, they were probably actively damaging relationships around the world. Kate shook her head at the wisdom of this exercise, but she dutifully kept working until the church bells chimed three o'clock.

Giacomo threw down his pen with relief and flexed his fingers.
“Basta,”
he said. “Enough.”

The others followed suit, yawning and stretching.

“What's everyone going to do this afternoon?” Lucy asked. “Does anyone want to go shopping?”

Kate made a point of looking at Giacomo, then hurriedly glancing away before answering. “Sounds like fun,” she said in an elaborately casual voice. “But I think I need to take a nap.”

“I have some other things I promised to do,” Giacomo said.

“Oh, too bad.” Lucy's voice was innocent, but Kate saw the knowing look she gave Silvia and smiled to herself.

Tom said he wanted to check out the city's soccer pitches, which clearly didn't interest Silvia or Lucy, so they all went their separate ways.

Only Benno lingered in the seminar room, saying that he had to write one last paragraph to finish his letter and that he felt duty-bound to mail it as soon as possible.

“It is a very sad case,” he had explained dramatically. “Adrian from Birmingham, England, suffers from unrequited passion for his older sister's best friend, who does not know he exists! In fact, she loves another! I really think I should send an answer today.”

Giacomo had given him a suspicious glance at this unexpected devotion to duty, but Lucy had beamed at him. “I'm sure your advice will help that boy
so much,
” she had said. Benno had tried to look modest.

As soon as he was alone, he had begun rooting through the trash can until he found what he wanted: Lucy's rough drafts. She had a habit, he had noticed, of writing pages and pages of advice, filled with numerous cross-outs and scribbled margin notes. She would chew thoughtfully on the end of her pen as she wrote (he found this habit delightful). Sometimes she would forget which end of the pen was which, resulting in an ink stain at the corner of her mouth (he thought the smear of dark blue was charming). She would furrow her brow, and sigh, and gaze absently out the window as she considered what advice Juliet would give (he found this seriousness of purpose quite admirable).

He kept searching until he had snatched all of Lucy's discarded letters from the trash, then turned to go. But as he was about to leave the room, he glanced back at the table where his letter—with, in truth, only one sentence written—lay half hidden under his notebook.

I only said I
should
reply today, he thought. I didn't say I
would
.

Then he thought of how Lucy had smiled at him so warmly. She seemed to think he was a kind person. Moreover, she seemed to
like
the idea that he was a kind person. He sighed, sat down at the table, and began to write.

His advice to Adrian had been succinct and realistic. Whether it would be helpful or not was another matter, and not one that he had time to think much about.

“Dear Adrian,” he had written, “it is indeed painful to love someone who does not love you in return. I suggest you find out what she wants in a guy, then demonstrate that you are exactly what she's looking for. For example, most girls like—”

Here he had stopped, his pen hovering over the paper as he tried to figure out how to finish that sentence. Benno had the advantage, if one could call it that, of having grown up with three opinionated older sisters. Over the years, he had often heard them dissecting various boys' looks, personalities, and intelligence in a matter-of-fact way that had made him shudder. Angie had always claimed she wanted someone who made her laugh, while Gisella said she would only go out with athletes, and Rosaria's constant quest was for a boy with a devilish smile. “Especially,” she would say meaningfully, “if he looks like he can back it up with action.”

But then Angie married a very serious lawyer, Gisella started dating a video-game designer who spent ten hours a day at his computer, and Rosaria—well, Rosaria hadn't yet found a smile that lived up to her expectations.

Benno had to face facts. He had no idea what girls wanted. And, now that he thought about it, he suspected they didn't know, either.

He crumpled up the letter and started over with a fresh piece of paper. Perhaps a more imaginative approach was called for. “Dear Adrian, I've heard that women often fall in love with men who have rescued them from danger. Perhaps you could arrange for this girl to encounter some small peril which would then give you the opportunity to save her.”

Not a bad suggestion, actually. His black eyes narrowed with thought. Perhaps Adrian could lure this girl into a field where a mad bull resided? And then save her when the mad bull (inevitably) charged her?

But then there was the question of speed. Benno had no idea how fast Adrian could run.

No. This plan was too fraught with difficulties. He stared balefully at the blank paper for several minutes, then began writing once more.

“Dear Adrian,” he wrote, “All I can tell you is to be yourself. If it's meant to happen, it will.”

Then he tossed the envelope in the mail bin and headed off with Lucy's letters in a pocket close to his heart.