The Juliet Spell (20 page)

All very interesting, but not helpful. I wished I had a the.ater to go to and some work to do there. I got up.

“I’m going to do something about dinner,” I said. “You hungry?”

“I could eat a bear!”

“I’ll see if we have some in the freezer.”

I made chicken tacos and a salad. Edmund wolfed them down.

“There is somewhat I would tell thee, cuz,” he said, lay.ing down his fork.

“If ’tis that my cooking is the best ye’ve ever tasted, I know that already,” I said.

He smiled. “’Tis only that I hate myself for what I did to ye last night,” he said.

“Edmund, it was an accident,” I said.

“Of course it was,” he said. “And yet, ye’re hurt, and I did it.”

Hurt. Oh, Edmund, if you only knew.

“No, really. It’s not that bad. I’m a fast healer. Look. Prac.tically gone already.”

I pulled the tape off my face.

He reached out and touched me very gently.

“I hit ye very hard.... Yet now there is scarce a mark to be seen.”

“Wonders of modern medicine,” I said. “Also, my neck took a lot of the force. I’ll probably have blinding headaches for the rest of my life, but my bruise is small.”

“Oh, cuz,” Edmund said.

“I’m joking,” I said. “I’ll be fine. I am fine.”

“I feel I must do something to make my apology, all the same. Is there nothing ye would command me to do, fair cuz, like some great lady of old romance to her knight?”

I think he was in more pain than I was. It made me hurt for him. But how could Beatrice comfort Benedick without dropping her guard?

Then it came to me.

“Actually, there is one thing you could do.” I smiled evilly. “One thing, and one thing only, O, wannabe knight.” I pointed to the kitchen sink. “The dishes.”

Edmund looked shocked.

“I could never do so womanly a thing!” he said. “Com.mand me something else.”

“Nope,” I said. “I mean, nay, varlet. Have at them.”

Edmund looked at his big, strong hands. He shook his head. Then his face took the set of a man who was going to jump off a cliff to prove he could do it.

“I will do this,” he said. “But promise me, cuz, ye will not torment me nor mention it to anyone. I cannot help finding it unmanly.”

“I promise.”

“Will ye help me?”

“I’ll advise you.”

“What must I do?” he asked.

“First, pick up the things on the table and transfer them to the kitchen without dropping them.”

Edmund took every dish into the kitchen one at a time.

“Well done, sir knight,” I said when he was finished. “Now, scrape the plates into the trash.”

He did.

“Now, sirrah, fill the sink with soap and water.”

He held the dish-detergent bottle in both hands and shook it up and down.

“Squeeze, good knight, squeeze,” I told him.

He did, and way too much detergent fell into the sink.

“Is’t enough, d’ye think?” Edmund said, and turned on the taps.

When the sink was hidden by a mountain island of suds, Edmund held up a plate.

“Nay, sir. Begin with the glasses,” I said. “Cleanest to dirtiest doth make the water keep its cleansing properties the longest.”

Edmund picked up a glass, studied it and daintily put it into the water.

“How long must I leave it there?” he asked.

“Oh, ’twill not clean itself. Scrub, sir, scrub. The small blue squarish thing is your tool.”

Slowly, as carefully as if he were washing a baby, Edmund ran the sponge over the glass.

“There. That’s done,” he said, and rinsed it.

“Nobly done, sir,” I told him.

I decided to do the fair thing and dry it.

One by one, Edmund washed the dishes. While he worked he sang a sad song about a girl who’d drowned herself in the Avon River when her boyfriend dumped her.

“And her dress did float

And her hands did float,

And her hair did float about her.”

That was the chorus.

It was a really awful song. And he handed me things to dry in time with it.

Finally, I joined in on the chorus. I took the salad bowl and sang,

“And her dress did float

And her hands did float

And her hair did float about her.”

I waved the dish towel slowly back and forth like it was the hem of the drowned girl’s dress.

“Ah, cuz. Ye sing most affectingly,” Edmund said. “Stop, I beg you, before I am unmanned completely by yer howls.”

Then I realized he’d been playing with me.

“Thou rogue,” I said, laughing. “Thou hast been having me on. Thou art no more afraid of these dishes than thou art of thine own pillow.”

“D’ye think I do not watch all ye do?” Edmund grinned. “Ye teach me much, cuz, and never know it.”

“Aw, I’ll bet you say that to all the fairies,” I said. Then I giggled like an idiot and dropped my dish towel.

Edmund picked it up and handed it back to me.

“I thank thee, fair knight,” I said. “In fact, I dub thee Sir Edmund of Warwickshire, Knight of the Blue Sponge.”

There was a bread knife in the dish rack. I took it and touched him on each shoulder.

He looked at me the way Romeo must have looked at Juliet when he saw her for the first time. Then he put his lips on mine, and I took his beautiful face between my hands and ran my fingers through his long, chestnut hair.

I was falling and flying, and I knew that I could hold him forever if he wanted me to.

But then he pushed himself away, and he was blushing.

“Oh, Miri, I am sorry,” he said. “Do not think on this.

I was—I was—” and he ran into his room and slammed

the door.

What did I do now?

My feet decided for the rest of me. I followed him.

“Edmund, it’s—it’s okay,” I said through the door. “Come on out. We need to talk about it.”

“Nay,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Talk through the door if ye must,” he said.

“I’m coming in,” I said.

“Nay!”

But I opened the door.

Edmund was sitting hunched up on the bed.

“Begone,” he said. “Lest worse befall.”

I sat down beside him.

“Get off me bed,” he shouted.

“Edmund,” I said. “It’s all right.”

“Nay, ’tis never all right,” he said. “I have broken your trust and near violated your good mother’s faith in me.”

I gulped. “Edmund. It’s okay if you feel that way about me. I feel that way, too.”

“Ye do?” He looked as surprised as if I’d sprouted wings.

“Yes.”

“But do not ye see how much above me ye are?” Edmund said. “Ye are an enchantress, a spirit. Almost a goddess, ye seem. When I first saw ye, I thought ye must be Helen of Troy.”

“That? I thought that was because of the spell—oh, never mind. Edmund, I’m not any of those things. I’m just Miri of Guadalupe. But if you need me to be an enchantress or a goddess or anything else, I’ll give it my best shot.”

We kissed again, and it was better than before.

“Ah, Miri, I must not,” Edmund said. “We must not. ’Tis betrayal.” He took me in his arms again and I kissed him and

we fell back together and—

And the front door opened and Mom came home.

Edmund pushed me away like he’d had an electric shock. Then he pulled me back to him. Then he pushed me away again, while I tried to hold on.

“Milady!” he shouted at my mom and raced out of his room. More than a little panicked, I smoothed my hair look.ing in the little mirror over Edmund’s bureau. I smiled. I couldn’t believe how happy I looked.

Chapter Twenty.

Three

I was expecting to see Mom’s usual back-from-an-operation face, which was a tired but satisfied look. Instead, she looked sad and worried.

“Mom, what is it?” I said.

“Bad news, I’m afraid, Miri. Bad for you, I mean.”

How could she know how could she know how could she know?

was all that was going through my mind.

“That operation I was called out on? Guess who it was. Gillinger. Major heart attack. He’ll live, but he won’t be directing anytime soon. In fact, his directing days may be over.”

I have to tell you the first thing I thought was not, How awful for poor Mr. Gillinger, but Who are they going to get to re.place him? Actors do tend to be self-involved.

Anyway, Mom gave Edmund and me the details over cups of tea.

Gillinger had had his attack the night before, and hadn’t been able to get to a phone. He’d just lain on the floor of his bedroom conscious but unable to move until Phil Hor.mel happened to stop by and found him there. If he’d been alone much longer, he would probably have died.

But all the time that passed from attack to when he was discovered was what made his case so serious.

“Poor fellow,” Edmund said. “Never to do theater again. That would be worse than death, I think.”

My cell phone buzzed. I took it into my room to answer it.

“They’re canceling the play.” Tanya Blair’s voice was shaky. “They just sent me an email.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked in a squeaky voice.

“The school. The arts council. The people who funded us! They’re going to shut us down.”

“Shut us down? Why?”

“They say they’ll explain it tomorrow night at the the.ater,” Tanya said. “They have a meeting planned for seven o’clock tomorrow night.”

“Oh, damn,” I said. “Oh, damn it to hell.”

“Yeah—so be there. We’ve got to make them change their minds.”

“Yeah. Of course. Right.”

I hung up. They couldn’t cancel the show. Not when I needed it so badly. They couldn’t take my part—my gift, my shot at Ashland, my chance to be Edmund’s Juliet—away from me.

I stood in the middle of my room and let out a long, wordless wail.

Edmund was there in a second. “What is’t?” he said when he saw my face.

I folded myself into his arms. “They’re canceling us,” I whispered. “There won’t be any show.”

Mom came into my room and saw us together.

“What is going on?” she said.

When I told her, she came over and joined our hug.

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” she said. “But that’s the way it is sometimes. The arts in this country are run by a bunch of goons who don’t like the arts. And now they have an ex.cuse. Damn them. Damn them all.”

“Nay,” Edmund said. “That will not be the way of it.”

He stepped back, held my shoulders in his beautiful strong hands, and said, “The play will open. I swear it to ye.”

“What? What are you going to do?” I said. I was afraid he was going to get a sword and take it to the meeting tomor.row and run everybody on the arts council through.

“’Tis still forming in my brain. But this much I will tell ye. The man who thinks to get between me and Romeo had better never been born. I’ll pray the night. Tomorrow, fight.” He backed up and bowed to me. “Fear not, my Juliet.”

And he went down the hall to his room. I heard the door shut.

Mom brushed away a tear and said, “Damn, that boy knows how to make an exit.”

It was too much. I melted down. I cried. I cried for the play and I cried because I was in love. I cried because I couldn’t talk about it. I cried because I was crying and cry.ing was all there was.

“There, baby, there,” Mom said, holding me. “This, too, shall pass.”

But that’s what I was afraid of. I didn’t want it to pass. I wanted what I wanted and I wanted it right then. I wanted to be in Edmund’s arms, and I wanted to be with him on stage under hot bright lights dazzling a theater full of people. I wanted to be Juliet, damn it. Why did that have to be so hard?

Chapter Twenty.

Four

The theater felt like a tomb. Even with all of us there, the dim lights and the still air made the place seem like someone had died. Everyone was subdued, quiet, extra-nice. Worried. Probably the way the Capulets and Montagues were after they discovered the corpses of Romeo and Juliet.

Exactly at seven, two guys in suits climbed up onto the stage. One was Mr. Lawrence, the high-school principal. The other was someone I didn’t know. A tall man with a bad haircut.

“Thank you all for coming out this evening,” Mr. Law.rence said. “Most of you younger people know I’m Dave Lawrence, the principal here at Steinbeck. This is Ted Zecher who represents the city arts programs. As you know, Mr. Gillinger, your director, won’t be able to continue direct.ing the show. Since we got that message, Mr. Zecher has been trying to find a competent person to replace him. Mr. Zecher.”