Saving Juliet (13 page)

Troy raised his hands in a motion of surrender. "Okay, okay, let me try that again. What do you want from me?"

"Gratitude would be appropriate, for saving your life."

"Saving my life? Oh, from the Capulet guard.
Right."
Sarcasm oozed from Troy's mouth. "Sure, thanks a lot."

"Troy, we need to talk," I said. If I could get him alone for a few minutes, I could explain everything. "I know what's going on."

He waved to me to be quiet, as if I were annoying background noise. "Look, whatever your name is
...
"

"Benvolio Montague."

"Right.
Look, Benvolio, why don't we go outside and get a taxi? My label has a New York office. We can go there and get you a money order or something." He smiled, thinking himself clever. "Come on, what do you say?"

Benvolio raised an eyebrow. "I am beginning to believe that you are insane." He sat on the windowsill next to Romeo, his long leg swaying like a metronome. Romeo whispered Rosaline's name. I walked barefoot across the plank floor and stood in front of Troy, my back to the others.

"Remember how I grabbed my necklace from you and then I opened the door and those ashes flew all over the place?" I spoke as quietly as I could. "Remember when I said I might go somewhere and you said that maybe I should go to Verona?" Troy frowned. "Well, that's exactly what happened. They haven't kidnapped us. My Shakespearean charm brought us here. It's magic."

"Oh, that's very interesting," the friar whispered, having stuck his overgrown ears where they didn't belong.
"A charm?
Pray tell, did I meet you in the square early this morning?"

"Yes," I told him.

"What are you talking about?" Troy demanded. "What do you mean you met him? I don't remember any ashes."

"You don't remember the ashes? How can you not remember the ashes? We choked on them."

"I am afraid that is a side effect of the herbal tea I fed you," the friar explained, squeezing his rotund self between us. "The tea deadened your pain and put you to sleep so I could perform surgery on your thigh. Your memory will be foggy for a short while, but it will return."

"You drugged me?" Troy's eyes widened. "DRUGGED ME?"

"Excuse us," I said to the friar, pushing a crazed Troy into the corner. "Listen to me."

He wasn't ready to listen. "That guy's a madman.
A sadistic butcher.
Did you see my leg? I've got to get to a hospital." He turned and faced our
captors.
"Look, just name your price and let us go."

"There is no price, my son. Go, if that is your wish." Friar Laurence tilted his head toward the open door,
then
took another drink from his blue jug.

Troy raised his eyebrows. Then he grabbed my hand and started hobbling as fast as he could, which wasn't very fast.

"Wait," I said. "You don't understand. They're not holding us for ransom."

"Come on," he urged.

"Mimi?" Benvolio called, sliding off the windowsill. I wrenched my hand free of Troy's and stared into eyes as hot as espresso. "Are you leaving with him? Are you going back to Manhattan?"

"Mimi!" Troy yelled. His voice cracked with impatience.

Was I going back? I didn't quite know how to answer that question.
Back to Reginald Dwill's stupid DVD.
Back to vomiting onstage.
Back to the Theatre Institute with its 100 percent acting classes.
Back to tutors and cardboard food and identifying with a cat who spends its days and nights pressed against a window, yearning.

Benvolio looked like he was yearning
--
for me. He took both my hands and pressed them to his chest, right over his heart. Corny, I know, but the gesture made my legs feel weak. "Will you leave so soon?" he asked softly.

"Mimi!" Troy stood in the doorway.

Benvolio gently kissed the cut on my hand. It had stopped bleeding.

What would it be like to kiss a man from the sixteenth century? Not the close-mouthed kiss that Troy and I knew so well, but the kind of kiss I longed for
--
a kiss that makes your eyeballs roll backward.
A kiss that doesn't leave room for breathing.
Would Benvolio nibble on my lower lip? Would his tongue taste like the contents of the blue jug? At that moment, I forgot all about Lady Capulet's threat.

I
don't want to go back. I want to stay here with you and
become Mrs. Montague. I want to go to parties and sleep next to your naked body and never have to act again.

"Mimi! Are you insane? MOVE IT!"

Benvolio dropped my hands and moved swiftly to the door. "Do not speak to her in that manner." He slammed his fist into Troy's jaw. Troy tumbled into the hallway.

"Stop it," I cried, snapping out of my lovesick trance. Benvolio stepped aside as I helped Troy to his feet. "I need to talk to him," I told Benvolio. "I'll be right back."

"Take a light, my child." The friar handed me a candle. "And wear your shoes. There are rat droppings about."

I slipped back into the shoes. Holding the candle, I led Troy down the winding stairs. He rambled the entire way, stringing sentences together as if he'd had too much coffee. "Have you lost your friggin' mind, playing along with them? Did they drug you, too? Can you believe those costumes? They must have dressed like characters from our play so they could sneak backstage. Then they must have gassed us or something. I don't know. I wish I could remember. What kind of twisted pervert comes up with a scheme like this? That fat guy stuck leeches on me. Leeches! We'll get a taxi then call the police." We reached the bottom step and started past the altar. "And what's up with you letting that creep touch you? You aren't one of those girls who sympathizes with her kidnapper, are you?
Because they stabbed me, Mimi.
Stabbed me! And I guarantee he'd like to stab you as well, but not with a sword, if you get my drift."

I wasn't going to argue with him. He wouldn't believe a word until he saw the city with his own eyes. After all, look how long it had taken me to figure things out
--
and I have more than half a brain. I pushed open the church's heavy wooden door and we stepped into darkness.

Darn it! It was too dark to see anything. The moon had disappeared behind heavy clouds.

"Smells like sewage," Troy said with disgust as he limped down the church stairs. "What part of New York is this? There must be a treatment plant around here."

I couldn't see more than a few yards ahead. I didn't bother to answer Troy because he wasn't ready to believe. And until the effects of the herbal tea wore off, he wouldn't remember anything about the broken charm or the ashes.

"Why aren't there any streetlights? I can't see a single street sign. How is a taxi supposed to see us without any streetlights?" He grabbed the candle from my hand. "Still can't see anything." He held it at knee level.
"Some kind of dirt road.
They must have driven us outside the city."

I didn't like the idea of wandering those streets at night. If the Capulet guards came along, I'd be in big trouble. "Troy, let's just go back inside and wait until the sun rises."

"Look, you obviously don't understand the severity of this situation." He held the candle at arm's length and started down the road. "This isn't a game, Mimi. This isn't a moment of insanity or a dream. Those freaks back there are capable of a lot more than stabbing me in the leg so start looking around for a phone or something."

"I can't stay out here, Troy."

"Why not?"
He stopped walking and even though I couldn't clearly see his face, I could feel his eyes burn through me. "You want to go back to lover boy?" He stepped closer. "He'll hurt you, Mimi. Get that through your thick head. He'll hurt you." He started up the street again, the candle's flame bouncing with every hobbling footstep. "The gas they used to knock us out is still clouding your brain. Come on."

"I can't. I have to go back. It's safer for me back at the church."

"Fine!
Go back!" The candlelight grew smaller and smaller, then disappeared around the side of a building, leaving me alone.

Something scurried across my shoe. Lady Capulet had mentioned a plague. Didn't rats spread plague? Getting stabbed in the leg or slapped in the face had to be like a Disney cruise compared with a case of bubonic plague. I stumbled in Troy's direction. He had stopped walking so I bumped right into him.

Dawn's rays started to trickle into the city. As Troy and I watched, light spread across windows, curled around sleeping pigs, and seeped through steaming manure piles. Like a well-rehearsed play, nature's alarm clock woke the city. Windows opened and hands tossed garbage and pots of urine into the gutters. Doors opened and storekeepers began to set up shop. Troy's mouth opened and, standing speechless, he looked like the village idiot. I shivered, remembering the rat, and shook my foot in case any bubonic germs clung to it.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to say anything until I've finished."

***

"A horse, a horse.
My kingdom for a horse!"

W
e huddled next to a baker's window. The scent of warm bread mingled with the stench from a nearby gutter. There we stood as a world we had each memorized, yet didn't really know at all, wove its way around us.

I explained as best I could. Even though a Capulet guard might have stomped down the street at any minute, I did not rush my explanation. Truth lay in all the crazy details, beginning with the arrival of Aunt Mary's letter and the charm. Troy listened, turning his back to the street as if to block out all distractions. His gaze never strayed from my face as I described the ash cloud, the woman in the alley, and my first encounter with Friar Laurence. I talked about the shepherd boy and about meeting Romeo, about Juliet's predicament and Lady Capulet's terrible temper. "I thought this was a dream but it isn't," I concluded. "It's really happening." Troy didn't say a word. "It's magic, Troy. Those ashes transported us into the story. But by being in it, we've changed it."

A tower of wooden crates stood behind an old cart, just to the side of the bakery. Troy removed the top crate and sat on it, stretching his good leg. I sat next to him, resting my head against the bakery wall. Aside from my little nap in Nurse's chair, I hadn't slept since the night before the final performance. The night I had discovered that my mother was stealing from me
--
a discovery that had not led to a restful night's sleep. That had been Saturday night and by my calculations this was Monday morning. No wonder I could barely keep my eyes open. A deep, gaping-mouthed yawn possessed me, as did another and another.

"I wish I could," Troy murmured, "but I don't remember a necklace. Stupid friar and his
herbal tea"

"He was just trying to help you," I said, yawning again.

"Whatever. I could use some coffee. Do you see a Starbucks anywhere?"

He still didn't quite get it. "Troy, this is 1594, remember? There are no Starbucks. I don't even know if they have coffee."

"Great," he complained. "That's just great."

"Give me one," a familiar voice demanded. I stifled another yawn and craned my neck so I could see over the cart. Tybalt, Juliet's vile cousin, was bullying a girl who held a basket of bread. He tossed a coin in the air,
then
grabbed a flat brown loaf, forcing the intimidated girl to chase after the coin.

My heart fluttered. "We've got to get out of here," I whispered to Troy. Certainly I was worried about my own neck, having gotten myself exiled by messing with Juliet's engagement party. But Troy's neck was also in jeopardy because he was dressed in Montague orange and black.

Troy peered over the cart. "That guy looks familiar."

"He's totally dangerous. Come on." Troy didn't bother to argue this time. The fact that I had dug my fingernails into his arm might have helped persuade him. The fact that Tybalt looked like a salesman for one of those home bodybuilding systems didn't hurt either.

We could have made a clean getaway, except that when Troy struggled onto his bad leg, the tower of crates tumbled over. Before I could duck, Tybalt turned.
"You there!"

I grabbed Troy's hand and started running in the opposite direction of Friar Laurence's church. What else could I do with Tybalt blocking the other direction? Despite his hobbling gate, Troy managed to keep up.
"You there!"
Tybalt called again. Just before we darted into an alley, I glanced back. Tybalt had discarded the bread and had unsheathed his sword. He and his golden cobra, poised for battle, were on the move!

"I know that guy," Troy said as we hurried to the other end of the alley. "How do I know that guy?"

"That's Tybalt." I told him, scared out of my mind. He'd kill us. No doubt about it. Well, he'd kill Troy and probably drag me back to Lady Capulet for a round of eye-gouging and limb-hacking. We ran from the alley and followed a series of twisting streets until we came to a square. It appeared we had lost Tybalt so we stopped to catch our breath beside a fountain. "Hey, I remember this place," I said. It was the cake pedestal fountain with the sculpted lady on top. "This is where it all started."