The Juliet Spell (6 page)

So we crossed the overpass. Then I had to explain to him about stoplights and crosswalks and taking turns. This was after he stepped out in front of a line of cars turning into the main drag of Malpaso Row from a left-turn lane and he nearly got creamed.

A driver shouted, “Watch it, you stupid bastard!”

And Edmund shouted back, “Ye’re the whoreson heir of a mongrel bitch, an eater of broken meats and the very flower of the pox!”

“No, Edmund!” I yelled at him. “No, no, no, no, no! Never when the light is red. Only when the light is green. And stay between the nice straight white lines. That’s how it works.”

“Must I wait the pleasure of some lantern to do as I wish about so small a thing as cross?” he said. “’Tis like a prison

to walk your streets.”

“You’ll live a lot longer if you do,” I said, calming down.

“What of the yellow light?” he said.

“That means, ‘caution’.”

“Aha. So a man has some choice at least.”

“Come on,” I said. “You’ve survived your first stoplight. Let’s see what other trouble you can get into.”

Chapter Five

We cruised slowly up and down past the clothing stores and the restaurants and the bars. Edmund paused at one that had a sign hanging out that said:

Falstaff’s A Traditional English Pub

“Can we not go in here, at least?” he begged.

“Edmund, we’re underage. They’d throw us out so fast you’d meet yourself coming in. They’d lose their license if they let us stay.”

“Monstrous. Unnatural. Wrong.”

“Come on,” I said. “Let me show you something you’ll like.”

Down at the end of the street was a Corners Books. I was pretty sure Edmund would be interested in it. And it turned out he was.

“Books,” he said, like he might have said “Jewels.”

It was a big two-story place with a coffee bar in the mid.dle of the ground floor. We walked around every section, taking it just as slow as Edmund wanted.

“So many, so many,” he kept repeating.

He took some of them off the shelves, touching them as if he thought they might evaporate under his hands, study.ing the way they were made.

“Paper’s different,” he said. “Aye, and the bindings. But what riches ye have, Miranda. Even in London there’s no such place as this.”

Finally we ended up in the magazine section, which was right next to the coffee. The magazines absolutely transfixed Edmund. Or anyway, the covers did.

“Such images. How d’ye ever…” he breathed as he looked at all the bright-color pics of cars, pretty girls and famous heads.

But before I could display my vast erudition again, there was a voice behind us.

“Hey, Miri. What’s up?”

I turned around and saw Bobby Ruspoli smiling at me.

“Hey, dude,” I said.

Edmund also turned.

“Bobby, this is my cousin Ed,” I said quickly, and feeling rather proud of myself for being such an adroit thinker. “He’s from England.”

“Hey, Ed,” Bobby said.

“Give ye good even.”

“Ed, this is Bobby Ruspoli from school,” I said.

“You guys busy?” Bobby asked.

“Not exactly,” I said.

“Then come on over and help me work on Drew. I’m try.ing to talk him into reading tomorrow. Stubborn geek says he doesn’t want to be on stage.”

I would have agreed in a ten-thousandth of a second, if I’d been alone. But I had Mr. Shakeshaft to consider. “What do you think, is it okay, Ed?”

“Yes. It is okay,” Edmund said.

So Bobby led us over to his table and we sat down with Drew.

“Hey, Drew,” I said.

“Hi, Miranda.”

He had an empty espresso cup in front of him, and a paper.back copy of the play.

“Drew, this is my cousin Ed, Edmund, from England,” I said. “Edmund, this is Drew Jenkins. He’s in school with me, too.”

“Give ye good e’en,” Edmund said.

And Drew smiled and said, “Give ye good e’en, as well, fair sir.”

“Ye speak English,” Edmund said.

“Fairly well for an American,” Drew said, and the three Americans laughed.

“Bobby says he wants you to read for the play,” I said.

“No way in hell.”

“Please,” I said. “We need guys.”

“You need actors,” Drew said. “That lets me out.”

“Drew, there were guys on that stage today you could act the asses off of,” Bobby said.

“I agree there were some dreadful impersonations of act.ing,” Drew said. “But the fact that they were god-awful doesn’t make me good.”

“Dude, you have got to get over seventh grade,” Bobby said.

“Shut up—”

“This guy,” Bobby said, “used to do shows with me all the time in grade school. He was the beautiful white pony. I was the blue car smooth and shiny as satin. That was sec.ond grade—”

“Third. Second grade I was the woodcutter and you were the prince.”

“Oh, yeah,” Bobby said. “But the point is, he was good. Then in seventh grade—”

“Shut up, Bobby. Nobody cares what happened in seventh grade.”

“Apparently you do,” Bobby said.

“Okay, I do. So shut up about it,” Drew said.

“We were both cast in the Children’s Musical Theater Holiday Spectacular,” Bobby went on. “You didn’t know Drew could sing, right? Well, he can. Better than me. And he got a solo. ‘Christmas Is a Time of Giving,’ right at the end of act one. I mean, it’s the big act finisher, right? And he dries up. Can’t remember his song. Just stands there and—”

“Shut. Up. Now,” Drew said.

“All I’m saying is, it’s time to get back on the horse, Drew. The beautiful white pony. It’s been four years.”

“And all I’m saying is, you’re wrong. It’s not that I’m scared. Scarred for life, definitely. But not scared. I’m just not interested.”

“Miri,” Bobby said. “Explain to him why he’s interested.”

“I can’t,” I said. “But, Drew. Cast parties.”

“I come to those anyway,” Drew said.

Which was true. Whenever there was a cast party and Bobby showed up, Drew was with him. This was whether Bobby had a girl on his arm or not.

“They’re more fun when you’ve just finished a show,” I said hopefully.

“I have all the fun I can stand at them now,” Drew said. “Any more fun, I’d die from sheer pleasure.”

“Please,” I said. “We need people.”

“No.”

Edmund picked up Drew’s script. “I see ye have marked Mercutio’s speeches,” he said. “Friar Lawrence’s, too. Why have ye done so if ye are not interested?”

“I’ve been helping him,” Drew said. “We’ve been run.ning lines for weeks.”

“I could see ye as Mercutio,” Edmund said. “Friar Law.rence, too, though ye be something too young. ’Twould depend on who else was in the company.”

“Ed’s an actor,” I said. “A real one.”

“Hey,” Bobby said. “You ever play in this thing?”

“Yes. Okay. I have,” Edmund said.

“What part?” Bobby asked.

“Different ones. I’ve played in it more than once. But tell me, what part do ye fancy for yourself?”

“Romeo,” Bobby said like there was no question about it.

“Romeo,” Edmund mused. “It would not be my first thought for ye.”

“Oh? Who would you cast me as?”

“Tybalt, mayhap, if ye can fence well,” Edmund said.

“Tybalt’s not a very big part,” Bobby said.

“Thirty-five lines,” Drew said. “But he’s on a lot.”

“Not a long part,” Edmund agreed. “But a large one. He tries to kill Romeo at old Capulet’s party. Later, he kills Mercutio. Thus Romeo slays him, and must flee Verona. If there were no Tybalt, ye’d have no tragedy and Romeo and Juliet would live to ripe old ages.”

“Well, anyway, I’m up for Romeo.”

Edmund turned to Drew. “Tell me, fellow. When ye went dry onstage when ye were a lad, what happened next?”

“What do you mean, what happened next?” Drew said. “Nothing happened.”

“What nothing?” Edmund persisted.

“I just stood there until I started crying. Then they pulled the curtain.”

“Horrible. D’ye mean no one came to your aid?” Edmund asked. “No fellow-actor came and said, aught like, ‘Will you not give us a song?’ or somewhat like that?”

“We were just kids. Nobody thought to do anything.”

“Would that happen now, d’ye think?” Edmund asked.

“Never,” Bobby said.

“No way,” I said. “We’d be there for each other.”

Drew shrugged. “Look, I’m not being neurotic about something that happened when I was twelve. I’m just not interested anymore. Walking on stage, reciting lines. The same lines every night. It gets old real fast.”

“Is that what ye think acting is?” Edmund said.

“It’s all I know about it,” Drew said. “If you even call it acting.”

“Then ye do well to stay away from it—for ’tis nothing of the kind.”

“I’m always finding new stuff to do,” Bobby said.

“And ye, cousin Miranda,” Edmund said. “What is acting to you?”

“It’s hard to say,” I said. “But it’s the most important thing in my life.”

Edmund scratched his beard and looked up. “For me,” he began, “acting is queen, mother and mistress all in one. And more than a bit of a bitch. But I love her as I love no other thing. But, no. That does not speak to what acting is. Acting is—is finding the truth in the most artificial thing there is. For theater is a metaphor for all of life and all that is truest in it. Acting an endless race through a hall of mirrors seeking the one that shows, not yourself, but the truth of the character you’re playing. The truth in the shadow. And then reflects it, not to yourself, but to the audience at your feet. And when it works, there is nothing finer.”

“Man,” Bobby said. “I mean, word, dude.”

“I do not take your meanin’, friend.”

“He means you really told the truth about it,” I said.

Drew picked up the script and pondered the cover. It showed a balcony with the doors behind it open and light streaming through them. Romeo was in silhouette below, but the balcony was empty. No Juliet. We all had the same copy of the play. I thought it was a really stupid picture. Ju.liet was supposed to already be on the balcony when Romeo showed up. This cover looked like whoever’d done it hadn’t even read the play.

But now Drew was staring at it like it meant something to him. “I wonder if I could do that,” he said. “You do make a guy want to try.”

“What part do ye favor?” Edmund asked.

“I don’t think it matters,” Drew replied. “As long as I could have some of that feeling you were talking about.”

“’Tis hard to do. ’Tis not to be counted upon. But may.hap I could help ye toward it if ye would like.”

“Yeah. I would.”

Bobby burst into the conversation, excited. “Cool. Drew reads tomorrow, he scores a part, and Ed coaches him. Rus.poli and Jenkins together again, live on stage. Thanks, Ed!”

“Listening to meself, I wish—Cousin Miranda, may I not read tomorrow?”

“Do it, man,” Bobby said. “It’d be so cool to have a real English dude in the play.”

I felt a whoosh of panic. No, no, no, Edmund must not read. Edmund must not be cast. Edmund must be hidden away. But then

I thought how stupid that was, and, really, how impossible. For better or worse, Edmund Shakeshaft was living in Cali.fornia, in this century, in my house, and he’d have to find a way to fit in. And maybe being part of the one thing he’d learned how to do in his own time that we were still doing in this time would help him to adjust.

“Yeah,” I said, though still a little weakly. “Tryouts are two-thirty tomorrow after school.”

“I will come then.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking that in one way at least this could end up being the most accurate Romeo and Juliet anybody had done in more than four hundred years.

Bobby and Drew started asking Edmund all kinds of ques.tions about what it was like to be an actor in England. And I was really impressed with how he managed to answer them without giving anything away.

“How long have you been acting?”

“Oh, since I left school.”

“How many shows have you done?”

“I don’t recall for certain. About fifty, I think.”

“Have you done much TV?”

“Television? Nay. I do not think I would like to do it.” I kept thinking I ought to drag him away, but he seemed to be enjoying playing with the guys, and they were definitely interested in what he had to say. Finally, Edmund solved my dilemma for me.

“Cuz,” he said. “I am weary. Can we not go home?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Would you like a lift?” Drew asked.

“We’re close,” I said.

“Come on,” Bobby said. “Drew’s got a new ride.”