Saving Juliet (3 page)

I would have been just another notch. So I started ignoring him except when we were onstage together. We still had to speak words of love and we still had to kiss, but I kept the kisses quick and tight-lipped.

But on that night one year ago, Troy and I were alone in the dressing room. Other girls would have killed to be in my boots but all I could think of was making an escape. Hadn't I made it perfectly clear that I wasn't interested in being one of his groupies? I didn't want kissing lessons from the biggest jerk on the planet, like he'd be doing me a favor. What made him think he was such an expert anyway? Practice does not make perfect all the time. For all I knew, he could totally suck at kissing.

"Romeo
and
Juliet's a stupid story when you think about it," he said. "What guy would poison
himself
over a girl he had known only for a few days? Romeo must have been retarded or something."

That's why you're perfect for the part.

He fiddled with a lipstick tube. "They're talking about a DVD."

"I know." My voice sounded heavy and unfriendly. "What about the stage fright thing? You puked all over yourself."

Thanks so much for the reminder.
My pride, though shriveled and damp, still had a few sparks left. "I
puked
because I ate bad clams."

"Yeah, right."
He swept a golden lock from his forehead. "No one's going to believe that spin."

I pulled my coat from the rack. "I don't care."

"I'm leaving tomorrow, right after the curtain call. I'm shooting a music video in the Virgin Islands." I might have been overly sensitive but I'm pretty sure he hesitated on the word
virgin.
"Want to hear my new song?" He noticed the mirror and leaned forward to inspect his teeth.

"Not really." I buttoned my coat.

"Tell me what you think." He must have graduated from the Veronica Wallingford School of Listening because he cleared his throat and started drumming his fingers on the counter as he sang. "Girl, you got me throwin', Girl, you got me sowin', Down the seeds of love, Down the seeds of love. Girl, you got me rowin', Girl, you got me stowin',
On
the sea of love, On the sea of love."

My mouth hung open as Troy
pulsed
his shoulders to his music, pointing a finger at me every time he said "Girl."
Simply asinine.
Oh God, there was more.

"Girl, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, girl."
He stopped pulsing and stared at me. "So, what do you think? Be honest."

"It's kind of .
..
stupid."

"It's totally stupid." He ran his fingers through his thick hair. "Some moron wrote it. I keep trying to persuade the producers to let me record my own songs but they say my stuff is too 'alternative.' They totally underestimate the girls who buy my CDs. The music doesn't always have to be fluffy, you know?"

Clarissa the understudy entered. "Babe," she said, wrapping her arms around Troy's waist. Then she shot me a wicked look. "I heard you're going to the Theatre Institute." News traveled fast.

"It's not for certain." I fumbled with my gloves and dropped them.

"Of course it's for certain. You're a
Wallingford."
She said my name as if describing something she had coughed up.

"It's not for certain. I don't know if I want to go." I put on my gloves.

"Don't want to go? Are you nuts? I'd kill to go to the Theatre Institute." She stepped toward me, her eyeballs blazing with envy. "But I don't have connections. I just have talent. Guess I'm screwed."

The tears that had been waiting pushed around the edges of my eyes as the truth of her words stung.

"Hey, you're really stressed out," Troy said to me as I tried not to blubber. "You should get out of New York for a while. Some of the cast are coming with me to the Virgin Islands. They're going to be extras." Why was he telling me this? I put on my hat. "Why don't you come with us? You can be Bikini Girl Number Four."

I looked at Troy, golden, beautiful, idolized Troy, and I didn't like what I saw. He felt sorry for me. He gave me the same kind of look that I gave my neighbor's cat the time it had a piece of poop stuck on its back leg.

"Thanks, but no thanks."

I grabbed my backpack and left the dressing room. A mob churned outside the backstage door so I walked quickly down the hall to the lobby, empty of employees and patrons. My driver waited outside the glass door.

Me, Bikini Girl Number Four in a Troy Summer music video.
That would kill my mother. Exposure, certainly, but not the kind she desired. For the briefest of moments I felt I just might do it. I might rebel. I felt sand between my toes and the sun shining on my butt cheeks. I tasted coconut milk as the chorus of "Girl, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, girl," pounded in my head.

But then I did what I often did before leaving the Wallingford Theatre. I turned and looked up at my great-grandmother's portrait. Adelaide returned my gaze, sobering me with her green eyes and miffed expression.
"Thinking about a rebellion, are you?"
I imagined her asking.
"Tell me, Mimi, what would you do if you left the theater? What talents do you have besides acting?"

I had no answer.

"You have no idea how tough the real world is.
I know
because I came to this country without a penny. I took the Wallingford name out of the factory and the low-rent district and I put it in lights for all to see"

"I know," I murmured.

"I
did all that, and I'll have no great-granddaughter of mine sullying the name by wiggling her bare derriere in a music video'.'

She probably would have gone on all night if I had let her. I left the lobby with the weight of Adelaide's legacy pressing down on my shoulders.

Rebellion smothered.

What was I thinking anyway? I didn't even own a bikini.

***

"
Now is the winter of our discontent".

S
now continued to fall. The limo's wipers squeaked out a rhythm that reminded me of Troy's horrid song. I was furious at myself for crying in front of Clarissa and Troy. My unhappiness was none of their business. They had probably laughed about it on their way to one of Troy's parties
--
laughed at the girl who had it all but couldn't handle it all.

Steady snowfall had turned our brownstone into a frosted gingerbread house. I thanked the driver and stepped cautiously onto the slick sidewalk. Larry, our neighbor, was also returning home. A large, silver cross swung from his neck as he tried to keep from slipping. "Hello, Mimi," he greeted, holding an umbrella above my head. He offered a fat arm as well. "Good performance?"

"I barfed all over the stage."

He laughed. He thought I was joking.

"No, really.
I puked up my dinner in front of everyone."

"Holy St. Francis," he said, shaking his head. Then he gave me a kindly pat on the back. "Look at the bright side. That's a performance no one will soon forget."

I collected the day's mail and took the stairs to the second floor. Silence and cold air greeted me as I stepped into our apartment. A lingering aroma of lemon Pledge meant that the cleaning lady had been there earlier. Neither my mother nor I spent much time at home so it lacked our own personal smells. We didn't have any pets or plants, unless you counted a pathetic cactus that refused to die. The place was tomblike in its lifelessness.

I locked the door, turned up the heat, and dumped the mail, my gloves, and my backpack onto the kitchen table. My stomach growled as I opened the refrigerator. We used a catering service
--
a woman who cooked our meals for the week and put them in tidy paper containers. My mother insisted on low-calorie, low-fat entrees, which was why my father used to spend so much time at the diner on the corner, savoring sausages and gravy-drenched mashed potatoes
--
contributing, no doubt, to his heart disease. I pulled out a box labeled Sun-dried Tomato Pilaf, and popped it into the microwave.

The night had been a complete disaster. During past performances of
Romeo and Juliet,
I had managed to keep the stage fright backstage. Sure, my Juliet may have appeared more nervous than most Juliet's, a bit more wild-eyed, nothing more than that. But that night what I feared might happen
had
. What would the next night bring?
Loss of bowels?

While the microwave hummed I pulled off my hat and started muttering to myself, a perfectly normal thing to do when there's no one else to talk to. Solitary muttering allows you to say all those things you don't have the courage to say to all those people who are driving you nuts. I told Clarissa she had no right to judge me. I told Troy he was a jerk for making me think I actually "liked" him. I told my mother to stop controlling my life. I told my father I would never forgive him for dying so young and leaving us with that cruddy theater. And I told William Shakespeare that Romeo
and Juliet
totally
sucks
because everybody just dies and none of the characters get what they want. What kind of ending is that, anyway? I'd totally write a different ending.

I sat at the kitchen table and took a few bites of pilaf. The center was still cold but I didn't care. When you're riddled with anxiety, food gives you no pleasure. A brown, padded envelope stuck out of the mail pile. It was addressed to me with a return address from World Family Clinic, Los Angeles.
My aunt's clinic.

At that time, my mother despised my aunt Mary. They had had a big falling-out after my father died. Mom went through the house and threw away all the photos of Mary that she could find. I found a forgotten photo, buried beneath some mismatched cuff links. The photo had been taken after Mary graduated from medical school and had gone off to Africa. In it she's wearing a white smock and stethoscope and is surrounded by children with purplish black skin.

One day, my mother found the photo in my room. "For God's sake, why do you have that?"

I had spent a great deal of time staring at the photo, wondering how it felt to live in a place where people had so little. "Why don't we ever see Aunt Mary anymore?"

"She's selfish. She abandoned your father."

"But she helps the poor."

"There are plenty of poor in New York City. Why couldn't she be a doctor here? We needed her help with the theater when your father fell ill. Wallingford is her name, too." Despite a series of strokes, my father had continued to serve as executive director of the Wallingford. My mother was convinced that work-related stress finally killed him. She told everyone that if Mary had stepped in, he would still be alive. A blood clot had actually killed my father, formed from frosted doughnuts, fried catfish, and greasy diner sausages.

A fast food addiction wasn't the only thing that good old Dad had been hiding. Turns out we were in debt, big time. He had taken out a number of loans to keep the theater afloat, all the while we wore expensive clothes and hosted fabulous parties. No one suspected that we hovered on the brink of poverty, not even my mother.

After Dad's funeral, Mary went off to New Zealand for two years, then to Costa Rica. She always called to check up on me, always asked about the plays, the theater, even about Mom. She told me that American doctors can work anywhere in the world.
Anywhere.
That sounded exciting. I began to imagine myself in that white smock and stethoscope. When she moved to Los Angeles a few years ago to open her own clinic, I realized the possibilities were endless.

I pushed the pilaf aside and opened the padded envelope, pulling out a letter and a small something wrapped in tissue paper. Inside the tissue lay a silver chain, from which hung a tiny glass vial filled with silver powder. I read the letter.

Dearest Mimi,

I
was so unnerved by your last e-mail that I spent the night searching through all my old psychology textbooks, trying to find something that might help with your stage fright. I agree with Dr. Harmony about centering techniques, but it sounds like things are getting worse. I think a change of scene is what you need. I can hardly wait to see you next week. Don't forget your bathing suit!

Love, Aunt Mary

P.S. While rummaging through my old boxes, I found this necklace. I bought it at an antiques shop in Stratford-on-Avon before I went off to college. The owner said it was very rare but I suspect it's just a tourist trinket.
Fun idea, though.
Maybe it will bring you good luck during these last days of performing.
Can't hurt to give it a try.

A
little card was paper-clipped to the back of the letter. It read:

Shakespearean Charm

In 1890, Mr. Burtrand, a merchant and collector of William Shakespeare's writing implements, decided to auction off his collection. Unfortunately, on the eve before the auction, a fire overtook his house, destroying everything.

Being a merchant of clever mind, Mr. Burtrand scooped up the ashes of the burned implements and poured them into small bottles. He claimed that he had captured the genius that had traveled from Shakespeare's hand through his favorite quills.

This is one of those very bottles. Whether the ashes come from the quill that wrote
Hamlet, Twelfth Night,
or
Romeo and Juliet,
they are certain to influence your destiny.

I examined the tiny vial.
Probably ashes from someone's fireplace.
But the fact that it came from Aunt Mary cheered me up a bit.

However, the good feeling was short-lived. As I shuffled through the rest of the mail, my mother's words filled my head.
You need to reach an audience beyond New York.
I shuffled faster.
Theatre Institute training is exactly what you need to reach your full potential.
I threw the bills across the room and slammed my palms on the table. Damn!

I tossed the remaining pilaf into the garbage. I just wanted to go to bed and disappear into a dreamworld where I was an orphan. Orphans always complain about their status but it sounded lovely to me. While collecting the scattered mail, one of the envelopes stuck to my boot. I tried to shake it free but it wouldn't budge. Focusing all my anger on that envelope, I stomped on it and ground it into the floor until it ripped open. Then I reached down and removed it from my heel. I had seen this envelope many times. It came every so often from Stronghead Financial Planners, addressed to Veronica Wallingford. The words
trust fund
peeked out from the torn paper. I pulled out the statement.

Looking back, I realize that I was completely ignorant about money matters. I knew that there were times when we had money and times when we didn't have money. I knew that as a professional actor I received a paycheck and that it went directly into a trust fund. I knew that I would get that trust fund when I turned eighteen. I never questioned this arrangement.

The next words I noticed were
beneficiary: Michelle Adelaide Wallingford.
My trust fund.
The fund where all my money went.
What a discovery! I found the balance column.
$532.
Excuse me? From my calculations,
that figure
was missing quite a few zeros. I moved my finger to the debit column and held my breath. A withdrawal with quite a few zeros glared back at me.

A withdrawal?
I hadn't taken any money from my trust fund.

I carried the statement to my bedroom and closed the door. The cleaning lady had tidied my bookshelves and had stacked my pillows. I dropped the shocking evidence onto my bed, expecting it to burn a hole through the quilt. My mother was spending my money. Was that legal? Orphans don't have mothers who steal from them.

After changing into my nightgown and brushing my teeth, I turned off my bedroom light and sat on the windowsill, pressing my cheek against the snow-speckled glass. The cold felt oddly soothing. The old lady in the apartment across the street was watching television. Her feet poked out of the end of a crocheted blanket. Her black-and-white cat sat on the windowsill, his usual perch. In the morning he always watched the birds and squirrels that hung out in the maple tree. That night he pressed his face against the glass, just as I did.

Did he feel trapped as well? Captive in a life he had not chosen for himself? If he could, would he jump out that window? Would he risk it all and cross the street, running toward the beckoning limbs of the maple?

As I cupped the Shakespearean charm, the black-and-white cat mouthed a meow, then lay down to sleep, giving in to his imprisonment.

What we desire and what we do
--
as different as a Shakespearean sonnet and a Troy Summer song.