Juliet's Answer

by Glenn Dixon

  * * *

  Devin came slamming into the classroom. “What happens next?” he demanded. Allison had opened her book. Andy was still settling into his desk. Sadia was pensive and quiet.

  “Friar Lawrence,” I said, “was supposed to send a letter to Romeo. He was supposed to tell Romeo about the plan. But his letter is never delivered.” I flipped ahead a few pages.

  Outside the classroom windows, the trees were coming into bloom. “The thing is,” I said, “everything depended on that letter. Everything. And now, well, now things are . . .” My voice dropped away.

  “Mr. Dixon?” asked Sadia. “Are you okay?”

  I stared out over the rows of faces. “It’s just . . . it’s a tragedy,” I managed. “It’s all over for them. It’s over.”

  “Mr. Dixon?” Sadia’s eyes were wide.

  I glanced at the clock. We had lots of time but I wanted to finish this scene. “And now,” I said, “Romeo delivers what I think is one of the greatest lines in the play.”

  “You always say that,” said Devin.

  “Is it even so . . .” I began. I knew these lines by heart.

  Devin grimaced, but he was listening, and I raised my voice, in spite of myself, and boomed out the line. “Then I defy you, stars.”

  “Stars?” said Andy.

  “Yes. You understand what that means? To ‘defy the stars’?”

  Sadia’s voice was soft, but it was dead quiet in the classroom. “Romeo’s not going to take it anymore,” she said. “He’s going to fight against his fate.”

  * * *

  That evening after school, I took the letter from Juliet out from Desiree’s grammar book. I’d not been sleeping well or eating. I’d been a wraith for the last few days, and as I held that letter in my hands, I considered throwing it out or even burning it.

  Desiree’s book was flipped open to a map of Italy. Now, I don’t want to say that it was a sign, exactly. I don’t believe in those kinds of things, but there it was on the map, Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet, circled twice in blue ink.

  Desiree was back in Canada She lived for the winter months in Mexico, but she was home now, and I’d already e-mailed her to see if she’d pick up the damn book. I hadn’t heard from her yet.

  I needed to escape. I was falling apart, and as soon as the school year was over, I would get out as soon as possible. Rick had moved in and it was unbearable. But where would I go?

  I thought again about the letters to Juliet, about my trip to Verona the summer before. I knew I hadn’t really learned anything about love. All those broken hearts and it had come to this. Maybe, I thought, maybe I should just go back and try again. Dammit, maybe I wasn’t finished with Juliet yet.

  I made an appointment with the principal of the school, Mr. Tuff, and, yes, that was his real name. Everyone was a little leery of Mr. Tuff. All the teachers imagined you could wind up teaching Home Ec or something if you made a mistake. But I wasn’t afraid of him. I was afraid of what I was about to do. I was about to quit teaching.

  Oh, I was committed to finishing the school year all right—keeping myself busy till the end of June, but then I’d be gone. I’ve heard it called the geographic cure—running away to escape the pain, presumably as far away as possible. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as faking my own death—but it wasn’t so different, really.

  I sat in the main office by Tina, the head secretary of the school. Along the glass wall of the school office was a row of chairs we called the Chairs of Shame. They were reserved for kids the teachers couldn’t handle anymore, the ones sent to the principal’s office. I slouched, and Tina pushed a bowl of candies toward me. “Looks like you need some,” she said.

  I grabbed a cinnamon heart and crunched down on it just as Mr. Tuff’s office door creaked open. He ushered me in, over to an area he’d set up with a throw rug and a circular Formica table with a couple of blue chairs around it. He seemed to know that this meeting was going to require a more informal touch. His shirt collar was unbuttoned and he loosened his tie a notch. He heaved a sigh, closed the door behind me, and followed me over to the table.

  “How long have you been teaching now, Glenn?” he asked.

  “Twenty-one years.”

  He sat down on the chair beside me. “I’ve done thirty-seven.”

  “Thirty-seven. Wow.”

  Mr. Tuff stared at his bookshelf as if he were remembering all thirty-seven years. “You feel like you’ve paid your dues, Glenn?”

  So he knew. I didn’t even have to verbalize it. “It’s not the kids,” I said. “They’re great. So are my colleagues.”

  “So?

  “It’s personal.”

  “You don’t have to tell me.” He leaned forward, interlacing his fingers. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, financially. But I just don’t have the energy for teaching anymore.”

  “You have two months’ vacation coming.”

  “It’s not that. I just need to—”

  “You need to make some big changes in your life.”

  “Exactly.” I’d already completely muffed my rehearsed speech, but I felt I should give him a better explanation. “I’m think I’m going to go to Italy,” I blurted.

  “Italy? Didn’t you go there last summer?”

  “Yes. But now I’m going to go for longer.”

  “Do you speak Italian?”

  “Not really.”

  His forehead creased. He probably thought I was making a mistake, but he wasn’t going to say so. He leaned back and pulled a sheet from the shelf by his desk. “This is the form,” he said. “It just requires a signature.” He pushed it across the table to me. “You’re sure about this?”

  “Can I take this with me? Maybe think about it for a few days?”

  “Of course,” he said. He interlaced his fingers again. “In my experience,” he said, “people don’t regret making a change. When you decide you’ve had enough—it’s probably because you have.”

  * * *

  The sun warmed the planks of my back deck, and that’s where I was sitting when Desiree came to pick up her grammar book. She swept in, tall and graceful. She’d been a ballerina. Her hair was long, a light brunette color with sun streaks of gold.

  I must not have heard the doorbell, because she came around the back to find me slumped in a patio chair. She read my mood immediately and, without a word, she eased into the chair beside me.

  “How did you make out with the Italian?” she asked. Desiree was the only person I knew who was actually fluent in Italian. The book was on the little patio table beside me.

  “Not good.”

  “Something wrong?”

  I hadn’t told many people about Claire and the sudden turn of events. I was so completely defeated by it.

  “I’m sorry to make you come over,” I said. “I was going to give you your book back, but I think I might go back to Italy.”

  “Keep it then. It’s no problem.”

  “I’ve kind of quit my job.”

  “Whoa. Okay.” She leaned forward. “So what’s going on?”

  “It’s a long story.” I knew I needed to tell somebody, somebody who didn’t know anything about the situation.

  “I have some free time.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said. “There’s this woman . . . I was in love with her for a long, long time but, well, it’s all gone pretty crazy.”

  “Oh,” said Desiree. “I’m sorry to hear that.” She tipped her head and stifled a smile.

  “What?” I said.

  “I . . . I’m sorry, but I thought you were gay.”

  “What?”

  “You dress well. You’re nice and you’re intelligent. And you’re not already taken.”

  “And that makes me gay?”

  “I just assumed . . . I don’t know.”

  “I’m not gay.”

  “Well, all right. Good to know.” She smiled again, and somehow that broke the ice.

  For
the next hour, I told Desiree everything. She remained silent through my story. I told her about Claire moving into a place not far from mine. I told her about Rick.

  “You’re kidding,” she said. “That’s crazy.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow.”

  “Did you ever go to Verona when you lived in Italy?” I asked.

  “I think so,” she said. “Honestly, a lot of it blends together now. I lived in a bunch of different places in Italy.”

  “When was the last time you were there?”

  “About ten years ago.” She stared down at my deck.

  “Don’t you want to go back?”

  “Of course I do.” Her eyes met mine. “But I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I left Italy,” she said, “because of a guy.”

  My God, I thought. Everyone has a story.

  Desiree clasped her hands behind her neck and leaned back in her chair. “His name was Rafael. We were together for five years. My longest relationship ever. We thought we were different from other couples. We thought the rules didn’t apply to us. We thought we were safe.”

  “Safe? What do you mean?”

  “In Italy,” she said, “people are very superstitious. There’s this superstition about accidentally brushing your feet with a broom.”

  “A broom?”

  “It means you’ll never marry. So Rafael and I used to brush a broom over our feet on purpose.”

  I sniggered.

  “Yeah, well, clearly it didn’t work. In the end, we got married.”

  “Wait, you’re married?”

  “I was, but I’m not anymore. That was a long time ago.” Desiree looked away, across the grassy expanse that sloped down from my deck. “It’s not what you think,” she said. “Ever since I was a teenager, I wanted to live in Italy. Not just speak Italian. I wanted to be Italian—you know what I mean? I wanted to live there forever.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I needed the marriage papers for my visa, so I could stay there. I begged him to marry me so I wouldn’t have to leave. It was stupid.”

  Desiree sighed.

  “We were together for four years before we were married. I loved him, but when we got married, well, things changed, and before the year was through we’d broken up. That was the end of us. I left Italy and I never went back.”

  Above the trees, the deep blue of the sky had faded to a soft, chalky pastel. In the east, a crescent moon, as pale as a scar, hung over the rooftops.

  “Maybe you should come to Verona with me,” I said. “Maybe you could answer some letters with me, improve your love karma.”

  “Are you serious—love karma?”

  “It’s just an idea. Maybe you could write your own letter to Juliet.”

  * * *

  June is a strange time in the classroom. A long and magical summer lies just ahead for most students. The gym teachers were conducting their classes outside every day. My classroom windows were open and I could hear them out there, students running around, throwing Frisbees, barely supervised, as if they were practicing their freedom. We had only a few days of classes left. The exam schedule was posted on a bulletin board by the main office. Long rows of desks were being set up in the gymnasiums.

  Just before the beginning of class, Andy came in with Allison. I was standing at the door, and I’d seen them come down the hall holding hands. She dropped his hand when she saw me. “Hey, Mr. Dixon,” Andy said, breezing by me into the classroom.

  The other students wandered in. Devin ambled through the door just before the bell rang. Sadia was already seated. She opened her text, flipping almost to the end.

  “Okay,” I said, “we’re almost there. Just one more big scene.”

  “Finally,” said Devin.

  “Romeo,” I began, “is going to sneak back into Verona.”

  They had all dropped their heads to read the lines, but Sadia’s gaze remained on me. “To defy the stars,” she said, almost under her breath.

  “That’s right,” I said, “He’s going back to Verona with poison to kill himself.

  Juliet is about to wake up and Romeo has come into the churchyard. Friar Lawrence is on his way too—and it’s just a matter of who gets there first.”

  “It’s their fate,” said Andy. He blinked at me and smiled.

  “Romeo breaks into the vault and says, A grave? Oh no, a lantern. For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes this vault a feasting presence full of light.”

  “There’s a light on inside?” Good old Andy.

  “No,” I said, “there’s no light. It’s a metaphor. Juliet is the light. Remember?”

  Devin was looking at me in a strange way. “Mr. Dixon?”

  “Yes?”

  “Someone said you’re not coming back next year.”

  All the students’ heads sprang up.

  “What?” said Allison.

  “No way,” said Andy.

  Sadia’s eyes had gone watery and wide. “You’re leaving?”

  * * *

  I bought my ticket to Verona. I would have to fly overnight to London, cross up to Stansted airport and then fly to Milan. From there I would catch a train to Verona. I’d already written an e-mail to Giovanna asking if I could come and answer more letters. I don’t know why I felt like a kid around her, as if I had just cracked a baseball through her kitchen window. But of course she said yes, she would be happy to have more help. Meanwhile, Desiree had sent me an e-mail. She wanted to know exactly when I was going to Italy. “As soon as I can,” I wrote back. “As soon as the school year is over.”

  The end came, as endings often do, before I was really ready for it. We had one day left in the semester. The students were bouncing in with sunglasses on their heads, wearing board shorts and flip-flops. Some of the girls wore summer dresses. I had all the windows open and I’d already begun to pack my things into boxes.

  My students nestled into their desks, the glow of summer on their faces. “Let’s do the very end,” I said. “Act 5, scene 3.”

  Sadia had her book open already. Everyone else was still finding their place.

  “Romeo,” I began, “sees that Juliet is dead.”

  “She’s not dead,” protested Allison.

  “I know. I’m just saying—”

  “She’s not dead,” Andy repeated.

  “Yes, I know. But Romeo thinks she is. He’s brought poison and he wants to lie down beside her and die.”

  Devin spoke. “That’s so fucked up.”

  “Devin!” I stared him down. I wanted to give him a good scolding, but it was the last day.

  “Sadia,” I said. “Why don’t you read Romeo’s lines?”

  “Romeo’s?” she said. “But I’m a girl.”

  “So what?” I said. Truthfully, I wanted to hear her do her Scottish accent one last time.

  O, here will I set up my everlasting rest,

  And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

  From this world-wearied flesh.

  “Stars,” Andy said, as if it needed to be pointed out.

  “To shake the yoke means to throw off what imprisons you, to break the chains of—”

  “Fate,” said Sadia.

  “Yes, exactly.”

  She tucked her head back down to the text.

  “Thus with a kiss I die,” I read, taking over from Sadia. I looked up from my text. “And he does,” I said. “He drinks the poison and dies.”

  My students sat still in their desks.

  “And just a fraction of a second later, Juliet begins to stir, first her fingertips, then her eyelids.”

  “Romeo dies?” Andy asked.

  “Yes. He dies. He falls to the stone floor beside her. Juliet wakes to find him dead. She bends down and tries to kiss him—to taste any poison that might still be lingering on his lips. She wants to die with him.”

  The students were statues.

  “She notices he has a dagger.”

  “Oh no,�
�� Allison whispered, her voice as soft as a brush on a chalkboard.

  “And she stabs herself. In the heart. And all this, just a fraction of a second before Friar Lawrence comes rushing in.”

  “But it’s too late,” Devin said. “They’re both dead.”

  Sadia glanced up at me, her eyes moist with tears.

  I read the last lines:

  A glooming peace this morning with it brings;

  The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.

  For never was a story of more woe

  Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

  I let it sink in, the finality of it. “And yet,” I said, “there’s sort of a happy ending.”

  Devin scowled. “Yeah, right.”

  Sadia too was unconvinced.

  “Everyone forgets about it,” I said. “Usually, the movies don’t show this—but there’s a hopeful ending.”

  “C’mon, Mr. Dixon,” Devin said.

  “What does it say at the very beginning of the play?” I asked.

  “Oh no, Mr. Dixon. Let’s not go back to the beginning. Not now.”

  “A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life.” I brought my voice down low. “Whose misadventured piteous overthrow doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.” Thirty pairs of eyes locked on me, faces I would remember.

  “Which means?” asked Devin.

  “It means the fighting is over, the feud between the Capulets and Montagues. It’s been going on for centuries. And now it’s over. That’s the point. That’s what fate had planned all along. It was a catastrophe, but in the end, maybe it was the only way for the families to get beyond their petty squabbles. It was the only way to bring peace.”

  “Fate took away what was most important to both families: their children,” said Sadia.

  “Yes,” I said. “And Lord Montague offers to build a statue of Juliet.”

  I recalled the bronze Juliet in the courtyard in Verona. It hadn’t occurred to me until then exactly what it meant, how the statue fit with the hopeful end of the play.