by Michelle Ray
I sat on my bed, trying to catch my breath. Rubbing my leaden eyelids, I hoped that I hadn’t actual y woken up at al and that when I removed my hands from my eyes, I would find Hamlet sitting by the window. Sadly, the room was occupied by only me. I twisted my pajama bottoms between my fingers, my stomach aching, and hoped he wasn’t anywhere murdering anyone. Ghost hunting, I could hope, was the extent of his predawn weirdness.
When the hour seemed decent enough, I texted Horatio.
Me: H says he saw hs fathers gost. Wtf?
Horatio: i saw it 2
Me: b.s.
Horatio: my last night in elsinr. aftr u lft. kng ws in unifrm. scry as hell.
Me: i can’t believe this
My phone rang. It was Horatio.
“Seriously, Ophelia, I’m not lying. We saw him.”
I lay flat on my back, unable to believe the turn the conversation had taken. I considered hanging up, but the stronger part of me had to know more.
“What did”—I paused, stunned that I was actual y entertaining the thought—“the ghost say?”
“Nothing. Not to me.”
I explained, “Hamlet says he has to avenge his father’s death. If the ghost didn’t speak, then how does Hamlet know?”
“Wel … I wasn’t with Hamlet the whole time. Apparently the ghost wil speak only to Hamlet.” I scoffed, but Horatio ignored it. He continued, “The ghost—
or Hamlet’s dad or whatever—told Hamlet that Claudius poisoned him.”
I didn’t say anything for a while. It was like having static in my head. Too much nonsense. If Horatio hadn’t confirmed the ghost sighting, I would have dismissed it out of hand. I mean, if I got as little sleep as Hamlet had been getting, I would have seen pink elephants crashing through my apartment. But what did Horatio gain from being part of this delusion? I had to cal it a delusion. I wasn’t ready to believe in ghosts.
“That’s insane,” I final y said, though Claudius holding that bottle was pretty damning.
“Maybe. But it’s true.”
I hung up and put on my uniform. I would have been better off skipping class altogether because I couldn’t concentrate on anything that was being said. I ignored school rules and kept my phone on but received no messages.
When I got back to the castle, Marcel us was waiting behind the security booth with a handwritten note. He said, “He told me not to leave it with anyone else.”
O—
I couldn’t stick around. I hurt you every time we’re together. And I don’t think being in Elsinore is good for me right now.
I’m trying to sort this all out, but I’m doing a crap job of it. Maybe I’ll have more perspective from far away. It’s at the point where I’m not sure what’s right or wrong anymore. And if what I believe to be true is true, then I have to do something about it. But I’m afraid to.
I know you don’t believe what I’ve been telling you. That’s okay. I wouldn’t believe me either.
Better go back to school for now. Sorry about everything. I love you.
H
Francisco: So Hamlet threatened to kill the king and you didn’t think to warn anyone?
Ophelia: Like who?
Barnardo: The authorities.
Ophelia: He was the authorities.
Francisco: Interesting.
Ophelia: What?
Francisco: So you’re saying Hamlet ruled over you?
Ophelia: No. Yes. Everyone. He was the goddamned prince.
Francisco: And Gertrude?
Ophelia: She definitely ruled over me. And so did Claudius, in case you’re about to ask.
Francisco: You didn’t think to mention his plan to them?
Ophelia: Why would I mention it to them?
Barnardo: Because it was a plot to kill Claudius! (b anging on the tab le) Ophelia: It didn’t sound like a plot. It sounded like Hamlet talking, which he did a lot.
Barnardo: And you’re saying you saw Claudius in the garden. Why didn’t you report it?
Ophelia: It didn’t seem like anything at the time.
Francisco: You keep saying that. A rather convenient answer.
Ophelia: There were cameras in the hall outside the conservatory. You must have some video that showed who came and went that day.
Barnardo: The, uh, tape disappeared.
Ophelia: Talk about convenient.
12
“You went to visit Hamlet a couple of weeks after he returned to Wittenberg.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you go?”
Ophelia pauses and looks at the audience. “He needed me.” Ophelia’s gaze turns anxiously to the screen behind her on which only Zara’s name is floating.
“I’m not going to show any pictures of what went on,” she says, “but what would you say to anyone wondering about that night?”
“Well…” Ophelia begins. “It was… a frat party… girls go wild.” Her half smile fades. “If I could do it all over again, though, I wouldn’t go.” After Hamlet went back to school, I was kicked off the lacrosse team. As far as my coach was concerned (and she was concerned), I had already quit.
She said if she’d known about my lack of commitment to the swim team earlier in the year, she wouldn’t have taken me on this team in the first place.
Then she gave me quite a lecture about not changing my life for a boy, even if that boy was a prince. I liked the coach and I liked the game, but I’d only joined to keep myself busy after my mom died. Stil , I felt awful knowing I’d let everyone down by skipping so many practices.
I left the field and headed for the art studio, hoping to focus on a drawing I owed. When I got there, the place was merciful y empty, so I grabbed a sheet of white paper and a box of charcoals and perched on my stool. The paper was blank—so ful of possibility. And I had no idea what to put on it.
I startled at a noise behind me.
“Ophelia!” said Ms. Hil , who was coming out of the supply closet. “I haven’t seen you after school in ages.” I bit my lip and nodded.
She pushed strands of her wild red hair off her forehead. “Are you final y finishing your pieces for the portfolio?”
“What portfolio?”
“For art school.”
I frowned, not sure if it was dogged determination or blindness that was preventing her from seeing that I had trashed al my plans and that there was no turning back. I rol ed the charcoal in my palm and said, “You know I didn’t apply to art school.”
“Not this year,” she said, her voice breezy. Then she walked over and sat on the stool next to mine. “But I also know Denmark State isn’t where you want to be. Or where you’l end up staying. So let’s put the portfolio together in case you change your mind.” Not knowing what else to do, I nodded. My life had been looking like a windowless room, but here she was, offering a way out. Satisfied, she leaped up and went back to organizing paints.
The assignment had been to draw something important to us, and the first thing that came to mind was Hamlet. That just pissed me off. There was more to me than him. Wasn’t there? I closed my eyes and thought about what I loved. I considered drawing my art supplies, but I already had a stil life, and the portfolio needed variety. A portrait was the way to go, so I considered who else I could do. My brother? My father? Hamlet’s father? And then it came to me. My mother.
I reached into my bag and unzipped a hidden compartment, pul ing out a crinkled magazine article about her death. There was a picture of the bul et-riddled, crushed limo she’d been riding in when the assassin attacked. I had stared at the image so often that it no longer stung. It was more like the pressure of getting your teeth dril ed after a shot of Novocain. Anyway, next to the car photo was a picture of her and my dad from before Laertes and I were born, which I’d always loved because they looked so young and hopeful.
I was sitting and considering whether to do just the portrait or to combine it with the accident—an idea that made my stomach hurt, but I knew would get a reaction from a vie
wer—when the studio door opened. I snatched the article off the worktable and held it in my lap.
Sebastian walked in and in the split second that I saw him before he saw me, I wished myself invisible.
Sebastian was one of the people I used to hang out with most, but our relationship had always been complicated. And I just didn’t want any more complications at that moment.
Sebastian’s feelings for me had been obvious for a long time. I would catch him staring at me at lunch or even watching me during study hal . I had deflected his attentions, but I admit I liked them. He was sexy and cute and total y different from Hamlet. He was tal er and more solid, his black hair was cut very short, and his dark eyes smoldered—a fact I knew because on one drunken night I didn’t look away but let him stare at me and I stared back, locking him with my eyes, sharing in the mutual longing. But the next day, hungover and back to my senses, I remembered that I was taken and acted accordingly. He had continued to fol ow me around like a puppy, a damn attractive puppy, but to no avail. Until Hamlet and I broke up last spring.
Sebastian and I had gone to see the Poor Yoricks alone because none of our friends liked the band enough to pay scalpers’ prices to the sold-out show. Everything started out fine, but then when the equipment was being set up for the main act, the recorded music was real y loud, so we had to lean in to hear each other. I was close enough to feel his heat and to smel the gel he used to make his hair perfectly messy. Something shifted, and I wanted so much to lean in and kiss him right behind the ear. Wel , he must have felt the same, because at that moment, he inched forward and stroked my bare arm.
A chil passed over me and I was about to touch my lips to his skin when over his shoulder, I caught a guy lifting his camera phone and pointing it at us.
I leaped back and ran, weaving through the crowd.
“I’m sorry, Ophelia,” I heard Sebastian cal ing after me.
I waited for him by the door. “It’s not you. But—I can’t have this in the papers.”
“You’re not with him anymore, so what do you care?”
Sebastian rarely cal ed Hamlet by name, and at that moment, it upset me even more. “I love him, okay? We’re having problems right now, but we’l get over them. We always do. And that’s not why I came out with you.” It kind of was, and we both knew it, but at least Sebastian didn’t argue the point. “I like you, and I can’t risk messing up our friendship. Or having my dad see what I do when he actual y lets me go out.” Sebastian rocked back on his heels, his face red. “So, you wanna leave?”
I looked at the stage, where the microphones were being set up. “No. But we can’t.… Just friends, okay?” His shoulders had drooped, and he fol owed me back toward the stage.
In the art studio doorway, Sebastian stopped short when he saw me and asked, “Don’t you have practice?” I shook my head. “Kicked off the team.” Saying it aloud, I was even more embarrassed than I had been before.
“You’re kidding,” he said, pul ing his bag off his shoulder and setting it next to his easel. “That sucks.”
“Too much missed practice.”
He pursed his lips, holding back a comment about Hamlet, I’m sure, and said, “Wel , it’s nice to have you back in here.” I rubbed my forehead and said, “Thanks.”
“Keren and Justine are grabbing coffee. Wanna go after we work for a while?”
“Can’t.”
“Is he waiting for you?”
“He is back at school,” I snapped. “My dad told me to come straight home today.” Sebastian cocked his head, measuring his next move, I’m sure, but I added, “I’l ask if we can al go out tomorrow.”
I know he caught the “al ” I had careful y added to the phrase. He stooped to grab paint off a low shelf, and we both went back to work.
I spent the next while trying to catch up with my studies and my friends and trying not to worry about Hamlet. I figured if he was out of the castle, it was safer for everyone. I had final y begun to breathe, eat, and sleep normal y when Horatio cal ed.
Skipping al pleasantries, he opened with, “Hamlet’s bad.”
“What is it?”
“You have to visit. He’s dying here.”
“Wel , it wasn’t so hot in Elsinore for him, so how much worse can it be?”
“He can’t sleep. He won’t go to class. He just sits around scribbling weird crap in journals and then burning the pages. He’s set off the fire alarm a few times, which is starting to piss off the other guys. He keeps saying he has to go back and finish business. I hope it doesn’t mean what I think it means. I keep reminding him how much he hated being around his mom and the Claw, but he won’t listen to reason.”
“The Claw?”
“It’s what we’ve taken to cal ing Claudius. It’s about the only thing that gets him to lighten up.” I smiled. “I like that.”
“Can you come today?”
“Today? No. I have to—”
“He needs you.”
“Tomorrow. I think. I have to talk to my father.”
“Your father? Seriously, Ophelia, Hamlet’s right. You gotta get out from under his thumb.” My cheeks burned. “Screw you, Horatio. I know you asked permission to go places right through the end of high school. I’ve already put so much on—” My phone clicked. Cal -waiting. “I gotta go.”
“Ophelia—”
I hung up on him. Then I felt bad because he and I never ended arguments like that. I’d apologize when cal ed him with my plans.
“Hey,” I said to Sebastian, who was on the other line.
“Hey. There’s a gal ery opening tonight. Wanna go with me?”
I hesitated. It would be good to go out, to be with someone else, but I needed to talk to my dad about Wittenberg. And I didn’t think going out with just Sebastian was a good idea. “I, uh… I need to be with Hamlet right now,” I said.
“But he’s at school.”
“Yeaaah. I think I’m going there this weekend.”
There was a pause. “Oh. Got it.”
He hung up.
A few minutes later, my phone rang again. “What’d you do to Sebastian?” asked Lauren.
“Do? Nothing. I told him I’m going to Wittenberg.”
“Wittenberg? Ophelia, come on. You can go a weekend without him.”
“You and I went out last weekend. And the weekend before that.”
“Two in a row? Wow. You’re right. Time to disappear again.”
“You don’t understand. He’s real y—I think he might—”
“What?”
“I can’t tel you.”
Lauren sighed. “Of course not. Fine, Ophelia. We’l be here when you want us. God knows why, but we wil .” Al I was doing was disappointing people. But I couldn’t fix the situation, since I didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t share my problems with anyone because, even if I did have any information, which I didn’t, I didn’t real y trust anyone. The whole thing was turning me into a lunatic.
* * *
That night over stir-fry I told my dad I was going to Wittenberg. He put down his chopsticks and began, “There’s a Swahili saying: ‘When elephants fight, the grass gets hurt.’ You, my dear, are bound to be the grass in al this. Perhaps you ought to stay out of Hamlet’s fight. Perhaps you ought to stay away from Hamlet altogether. Let his return to school be an opportunity. They say, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ I say it’s worth giving absence a try.”
“If the object was to make him fonder, I might agree. But I can’t imagine that’s what you would want. An even fonder Hamlet?” He smiled at my smal verbal victory.
I sidled up to him and put my arm around his shoulder. “And as for my being grass among elephants, stop worrying. I’l be fine. Hamlet isn’t fine and that’s what matters right now.”
My father tried to circle back to why my being with Hamlet was a mistake.
“Dad, I’m not asking, actual y. I’m tel ing you. I’m going tomorrow and I’l be back Sunday night. I’m ta
king the train because I can get some work done, but I am going.” I shakily lifted my chopsticks and concentrated very hard on picking up the food. The adrenaline rush created a momentary high as I congratulated myself on standing up for myself.
I heard my father say, “I love you, Ophelia. You’re my baby. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“I love you, too. But Dad, you have to let me grow up.” I grabbed the bottle of wine and poured more into his glass. “Maybe you ought to try for a romance of your own.”
“My dear, ‘An old man in love is like a flower in winter,’ ” he said, raising his glass to his lips.
“Swahili?”
“Chinese. I’m done with romance. Your mom was my one and only.” He toasted the picture of her, which hung on our fridge, and put the glass down again.
“Dad, no one’s saying you have to get married. But a little fun never hurt anyone.”
“You’re not thinking this through, my dear. If I went out, how would I find the time to memorize quotes for our little talks?” He winked, and I kissed him on the cheek.
When I final y reached Hamlet’s frat house, I was amazed, as I had been the year before, at how run-down it was. The floors were warped; the carpet was threadbare and stained; the banisters shook if you grabbed them too hard. Food containers were left in al the common areas—and the smel seemed to indicate they’d been there for some time. Not exactly the place one expected to find a prince, but I suppose that had been the point when Hamlet chose it.
I knocked on Hamlet’s door and no one answered. I pushed it open and the stale smel sent me back a few steps. “Hamlet?” I cal ed, but stil no reply. I crept forward and saw him at his desk, hunched over and scribbling. “Hamlet!” I said loudly, and he swiveled in his seat.
He rubbed his eyes. “Ophelia? Is that you?”
I had a moment of utter confusion. “Yeah. Didn’t Horatio tel you I was coming?”
“Oh, was that today?” he asked. “I guess… I’m sure… How are you?” He took out his earbuds and came to hug me.
I hugged him back but asked, “Hamlet, when was the last time you went out… or showered?” He ran his fingers through his greasy hair and looked like I was waking him up from a peculiar dream. “I don’t know. What day is it?”