Life After Juliet

by Shannon Lee Alexander

  “I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now…”

  I take out a pen, determined to illustrate Rochester’s words. He and Jane are sitting on a bench under the old chestnut tree, and he’s explaining how he feels like there is a string connecting his heart to hers. He’s afraid that should he lose Jane, should she go, that string would tug a hole in his heart and leave him to bleed out.

  Perhaps if I can draw the feeling, if I give the sentiment shape and physical boundaries, I can move on to the next part of the book.

  But I’m no artist, not like Charlotte, who illustrated her favorite novel in the margins of a paperback copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. I can’t paint like Charlotte, who made me the most beautiful, original copy of my favorite story, The Velveteen Rabbit. I’m nothing like Charlotte, who was not afraid to make her mark on anything.

  When I try to draw the old chestnut tree in the margin of Jane Eyre, it looks like a child’s doodle. I won’t even attempt to draw Rochester and Jane sitting on the bench at the foot of the tree. Instead, I press my pen to the page, my hand shaking, and draw a heart at the top of one page and another at the bottom of the facing page. I draw a string stretching across the pages from one heart to the other, but I don’t connect the strings. They’ve been severed.

  I close my eyes, willing my bleeding heart to keep going, to keep pumping despite the flood of loss in my chest.

  If you were here, Charlotte, if you hadn’t left, I would not have this hole in my heart.

  There’s a small commotion at the doors to the library, and I peek around the shelves of books, watching a troupe of toddlers walking in. Sandstone has an early childhood center, a preschool mostly populated by teachers’ kids. The child development students from the high school volunteer as teachers’ aides. We don’t actually see the kids much, they usually stay in their classroom located near the front office, but it’s apparently story time in the big library today.

  I watch as they all sit, crisscross applesauce, on the carpet in front of the sunniest window. There’s a row of rocking chairs there that usually face out toward the courtyard, but one rocker has been turned around to face the little kids, and who should take a seat there but Darby Jones.

  My heart goes berserk, and I slouch even lower in my seat, peeking just the top of my face over the back of the overstuffed chair. Fight or flight is one crazy reflex.

  Darby’s purple boots are flat on the floor, toes pointed in a bit, and she’s leaning forward talking to a little girl sitting in the front row of kids. I can’t hear her, but her whole body looks relaxed, comfortable, and completely unlike the haughty despot of the drama club who verbally attacked me at lunch.

  “Good afternoon, Busy Bees,” the preschool teacher says, snapping everyone to attention. “Our favorite storyteller, Miss Darby, is here to share one of her favorite books with you.”

  Darby picks up the book she’s been holding on her lap and shows it to the class of preschoolers, who cheer and clap and start wiggling like puppies. Their teacher quiets them down before Darby opens the familiar looking book and begins to read.

  “Congratulations! Today is your day!” Darby says, her voice bright like the sunlight streaming in around her. She’s reading from Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go.

  My insides go haywire. I know this book. Too well.

  I’m suddenly back in my bedroom with Charlotte, just minutes after midnight on my birthday last year. In my memory, I’m holding a newly unwrapped book identical to the one Darby is reading.

  Well, not identical because my copy contains The List.

  I curl up in my chair and listen to the story, slipping into memories just as the little kids are slipping into Dr. Seuss’s magical world.

  “Do you ever write in your books, Becca?” Charlotte sits across from me as I flip through the pages of my new book.

  I look up and shrug. “Why would I do that?”

  Charlotte smiles, pulling the thin book onto her own lap. “To make your mark on the greatest pieces of literature ever written.” She nudges my knee with her own. “To become part of the story.”

  “No. I never write in my books.”

  Charlotte nods once. “Want to start?” She leans over and reaches into her bag to pull out the tin she keeps there. It’s full of pencils and pens, and rattles when she yanks it out.

  My neck feels hot. “I don’t know.”

  “Think about it,” Charlotte says, handing me a purple felt-tipped pen. “When you die, your words live on in this book. Anyone who picks it up will get to know you—a piece of you. It makes you immortal.”

  My whole face feels hot now.

  Charlotte sets the book so it is resting on both of our laps. “And it’s fun.” She opens the book to an illustration that covers two facing pages. The yellow pajama boy in the book is surrounded by a surreal landscape. The text at the bottom reads, “Oh! The places you’ll go!”

  “What do I write?”

  “Start with a place you’d like to go.”

  “Like the library?”

  Charlotte smiles. “Think bigger.”

  “The New York Public Library?”

  Charlotte laughs and points at a space on the page. I take a deep breath and write the words.

  Visit the New York Public Library.

  Charlotte grabs a black pen from the tin and draws a tiny New York skyline above my words. When she’s finished, she looks up at me and says, “Keep going.”

  We stare at each other for a moment, and it feels like she’s reached in and unlocked a place inside of me where I’d hidden dreams I never knew I had. A slow smile spreads out across my face like warm syrup creeping across the dimples in waffles.

  Charlotte adds a dream of her own before passing the book back to me.

  Act in a Broadway play.

  We stay up most of the night filling the book with dreams.

  Build something with power tools.

  See the Northern Lights.

  Dance on a table.

  Bury treasure.

  Sleep under the stars.

  Yodel from the top of a mountain.

  Pet a wallaby.

  Drive from one coast to the other.

  Eat ice cream in the middle of the ocean.

  On and on, our list grows.

  Fall in love.

  Find a cure.

  Charlotte takes the pen from me and taps it back into its cap. “Let’s see how many of these we can do before your next birthday.”

  Her smile was so fragile. I knew I’d screwed up. I’d hoped too big.

  There’s a sour taste at the back of my mouth from the lingering regret.

  There’s a small sound, like the rustling of dry leaves underfoot. I open my eyes and am looking into the face of a small boy with tight black curls and ears too big for his head. He’s covering his mouth with one hand and snickering through his nose.

  I sit up, surprised to see the boy, but more worried about Darby seeing me. A quick peek around the library reveals that she has finished reading to the group and is now sitting at a table not that far away, listening to a little boy in corduroy overalls read.

  “You sleepin’?” The little boy’s voice is too deep for his small body. He’s like a tiny old man.

  “I—uh—”

  “Did Miss Darby’s story make you sad?”

  I wipe away a trail of tears I didn’t realize was making its way down my cheek, unsure how to answer.

  “It’s okay,” he says, patting my arm. “Sometimes I cry, too.”

  My heart warms with his simple show of solidarity. “Thanks. I was—”

  “Oooooh,” he coos, noticing Jane Eyre in my hands, jabbing one plump finger at the open page. “You’re not supposed to color in books.” He looks around, visibly relieved when he notices that his teachers and Darby are otherwise occupied. “You’ll get in big trouble. Big.”

  I look down at my sad tree and broken heartstrings. “Big?�
�

  “Big,” he says, nodding with his whole body. “But I won’t tell. Do you like to read?”

  “Yes.” I can’t help but smile as his conversation continues to flit at hummingbird-like speed.

  “Me, too. My favorite is Where the Wild Things Are. I like the wild rumpus.” The boy puts his hands up, fingers curled like claws, and starts to growl and snarl.

  He’s cute, but loud, and of course, Darby looks over at the sound and sees us. The smile on her face crashes like a snowcap in an avalanche. Gone is sweet Darby, replaced by the scary She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Darby.

  She stands and fists her hands on her hips and I think for sure I’m going to get it, but when she speaks, her voice isn’t harsh. Instead, when she calls the boy, her voice is soft around his name like a giant marshmallow hug. It’s weird, and I can’t help but look around to see if anyone else is hearing this. “Marcel, what are you supposed to be doing right now, buddy?”

  Marcel sighs. “Reading with Jeremiah.”

  To me he says, diplomatically, “I hafta go.” He pats me one more time and takes a few steps away before he remembers something else he wants to say. He jogs back to me and levels me with his dark eyes that are too wise-looking for his gap-toothed smile. “If a story makes you sad, you shouldn’t read it no more. Try Where the Wild Things Are. It’s real good.”

  Would I feel better if I just never thought about Charlotte again? Am I trapping myself in my memories?

  Marcel gives me one more smile before darting away. He joins the boy at Darby’s table and challenges him to a game of rock-paper-scissors. Darby touches his dark curls with fingers so careful and light they could be butterflies, even while she glares at me with the weight of ten thousand pounds of hatred.

  I start gathering my stuff, thinking I can make a quick escape, but when I stand Darby’s beside me. “Look, let’s not make this a big deal. I have, like, a ton of siblings at home, so child development is an easy A for me.” She glances over her shoulder, checking on Marcel and his little friends. “It’s not like I enjoy this or anything.”

  “Really?”

  Darby’s eyes squint like I’m some weird modern art she can’t figure out. “Really.”

  “Because you’re kind of good with them. You’re less, I don’t know, um, less terrifying.”

  Darby looks pleased—either with my saying that she’s normally terrifying or that kids bring out the best in her—I don’t know her well enough to say. But she quickly switches back into her sneer. “I’m an excellent actress.”

  She may as well have just shouted Juliet is mine in my face. “See you in class,” she says, turning on her heel and rejoining the kids. Marcel gives me a thumbs-up just before he annihilates the other little boy’s scissors with his rock fist.

  When I leave the library, I don’t go back to class. I go to the office and tell the nurse I don’t feel well. No one questions me. It’s a dead girl’s friend perk. I lie down on the crinkly paper on the cot in her office and turn my face to the scuffed white wall.

  I’m trapped by my sadness.

  “Congratulations! Today is your day.” I recite Oh, the Places You’ll Go to myself. “You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away!”

  I haven’t done a single thing on The List since Charlotte died. I haven’t tried anything new.

  I’ve done nothing.

  Nothing.

  Scene Eight

  [The den in Becca’s home]

  The house expands around me as I step inside that afternoon. The only sound is the hum of the air conditioner, desperately trying to fight off the heat of early autumn. I look up the stairs, but the idea of climbing them to my empty room is exhausting. My skin prickles with an unnamed fear, like the house feels haunted, except it isn’t. I’d never leave if Charlotte’s ghost were hanging around.

  I drop my bag on the couch and open the cabinet with the movies, rifling through them until I find the one I want. I pull out the cracked case with Charlotte’s favorite version of Romeo and Juliet. It’s a super old one directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

  My favorite version is the animated movie Gnomeo and Juliet. I like the singing. And the happy ending.

  I pop the movie in and flop onto the couch.

  When Dad comes home from school, he joins me.

  “Haven’t seen this in a while,” he says, reaching over and patting my leg in greeting. “Bad day?”

  I shrug.

  “Sad day?”

  “They’re all pretty sad, Dad, but time heals blah blah blah.”

  Dad scoots closer, and I lean in to him.

  Mom arrives home just as Romeo croaks. “I’ve got Chinese,” she calls from the kitchen.

  “In a minute, hon,” Dad answers.

  Mom finds us and sits on my other side. I can see her cutting nervous glances at Dad and wonder if she’s thinking about calling Dr. McCaulley for an emergency intervention. My stomach clenches thinking about how much Mom worries. I reach for her hand.

  Poor Juliet wakes to find dead Romeo. I watch the emotions play over the actress’s face, while I fantasize that Juliet is actually thinking, damn, fool! This was not part of the plan. Didn’t you get the freaking memo? As usual, though, she offs herself.

  Dad flinches as she jabs the dagger into her heart.

  And I wonder, just as I did when I watched all these movies with Charlotte, why do they all have to die?

  When it’s over, my whole body feels numb. Mom turns to look at me and gets this determined expression on her face as she says, “Becca, I don’t want you watching this stuff right now. I don’t think it’s good for you.”

  I nod. She’s probably right. It’s depressing as hell.

  “I agree, but that may be a problem, Mom.”

  “Why?” she asks, squeezing my hand between hers.

  I explain about Max and Darby and the gang of people sitting at my lunch table. I tell them about the comfort of the dark theater and fill them in on my talk with Charlie and how it would be a good idea to try to meet new people, get involved, not get committed to a psych ward.

  “That’s not funny,” Mom mutters at the last part, but she’s biting back a grin.

  “Max thinks the idiot director may just be using me to prove some point to Darby, knock her off her pedestal, you know? But what if—?” Something about being onstage felt right. Like fate had drawn me there. “What if I’m sort of good at it? What if I could learn to be good at it?”

  Mom tries to hide the way she wipes her eyes as she pulls me into a hug. Dad joins in, and they hold me and whisper how proud they are of me.

  I breathe them in, pocketing this moment.

  I’m going to try. I’m going to try to play Juliet. Probably. Maybe. I mean, what have I got to lose?

  Scene Nine

  [Sandstone High]

  Last night I read 106 pages—exactly the number of pages in my copy of Romeo and Juliet. I realize the Sandstone High production of Romeo and Juliet is not the same as a Broadway play, but it’s something. It’s a small way to honor Charlotte—a way to cross something off The List of Places to Go. Maybe Charlie’s right. Maybe this is fate giving me a hand.

  I keep my face in a book at school today. Or at least, I try to. I do notice Miles and Greg at a locker in the morning when I first arrive. I’d never seen them there before. Or maybe I’d seen them, but not seen them, you know, the kind of seen that gets written in fancy italics.

  Italics or no, I keep walking.

  In history, Kelli tries to get my attention, but I read like my life depends on it—thirty-two pages, which is more than my average.

  I go to the library for lunch.

  But I can’t read in Mrs. Jonah’s class, and when I walk in it’s obvious Max is waiting for me.

  “Becca, look—”

  I hold up a hand. I told myself I would go to the callbacks, even arranged for Dad to drop me off and pick me up after. But now, I can’t seem to tell him. Maybe because I’d rather no one know when I
fail. It’s why I’ve been avoiding everyone today. Well, that and I made an ass of myself storming out of the cafeteria—again.

  “You shouldn’t be so nice to me, Max,” I say, sitting in my seat. I try to ignore the invisible daggers of Darby’s glaring gray eyes from across the classroom. “No one else is. Why are you trying so hard?”

  His face goes from hard lines to soft curves. “Why are you trying so hard to hide?”

  I press my lips together. “I don’t have to hide. I’m the dead girl’s friend. I’m invisible.”

  “Not to me.”

  I think my light grasp with reality has finally snapped. “What?” People don’t really say that kind of stuff outside of books, do they?

  Max swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing delicately at his throat. “What I mean is that I’ve lost someone, too, Becca.”

  I shake my head. I didn’t know. Who has he lost? Why have I never paid attention to the living stories all around me?

  Max continues, leaning forward with his elbows on my desk. “So I can see you. And just like you, I can see Thestrals, too.”

  Oh, I’m certain I’ve lost it now. There’s no way he just—“Did you just make an allusion to a Harry Potter creature?”

  He grins, and my insides go liquid. He can see Thestrals—fictional, skeletal, horselike creatures invisible to everyone but those who have known death—Max sees them, too.

  I reach out to touch his left elbow. “I’m sorry for your loss.” It feels so good to be on the other side of these words, to be doling them out instead of swallowing them like bitter pills.

  Max’s small smile is shaded with pain, tinted with understanding. “Thank you.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to slow everything down. Then I open my bag and pull out a small red book with a gold inlaid title. I set it on my desk between us. Max’s smile is so large, I notice his right canine tooth is sort of crooked.

  “Break a leg,” Max whispers before Mrs. Jonah calls the class to order.

  …

  Darby and I wait in the hallway outside the theater. Most people have been dismissed for the day, but there are a few boys left to read for Romeo.

  Darby is back in her audition costume, dark skinny jeans, ballet flats, and a plain black shirt. Too late, I look down at what I’m wearing and wish I’d paid more attention when getting ready this morning. I’m wearing faded jeans with a hole in the knee (and not the kind you pay extra money for, but the kind that comes from falling down when trying to learn to roller blade with Charlotte), an old mathlete shirt of Charlie’s, and Charlotte’s raven-wing shoes.