Romeo & What's Her Name

by Shani Petroff

  Kayla put the dress over the banister of the balcony and blocked me from Jill. “Just keep it hidden in the fabric.” I did as instructed, and Kayla went and took a seat next to Jill.

  “Okay,” Jill said, “let’s do this.”

  I took a deep breath and forged ahead with the scene, but I got through only about two lines before Jill jumped right up and interrupted.

  “Why are you looking down so much? And what’s with all the fidgeting? In the beginning, you should be looking out onto the horizon longingly, thinking about Romeo. And when he says, ‘she leans her cheek upon her hand,’ you need to put your cheek on your hand! Then when he finally speaks to you—you need to look at him! And try showing a little more emotion. This is supposed to be the guy you love. Let me see it. I want to know you’re pining away for him.”

  I could feel my cheeks starting to burn. I wished Wes wasn’t watching me. Any confidence I had before was quickly disappearing. “You’re freaking me out, Jill. Can I please just get through this once before you start picking on my performance?”

  She pursed her lips. “Fine,” she finally said. But I could tell she wasn’t happy. Luckily, she just sat back down and kept her mouth shut for the rest of the scene—even when I kept my eyes glued down and fumbled over the words.

  It wasn’t my fault I tripped over the lines. Shakespeare is weird. All those random words—thee, thy, thou, doth—and those were the easy ones.

  Kayla clapped for us when we were done. “That was a great first run-through.” She was a good liar when she wanted to be. If I hadn’t been there myself, I may have actually believed her.

  Jill’s reaction wasn’t quite as positive. Her hands gripped the armrest. “Yeah,” she said, trying to force a smile. “But we still have a long way to go.”

  “And no time to do it,” a voice boomed from the back of the auditorium. It was Ryan. He must have come in while I was “performing.” “I booked the auditorium until curtain call,” he said, a little bossy-sounding if you asked me. “You’ve got to clear out. My cast is ready.”

  Yes! Thank you, Ryan. Now I could practice by myself. I rushed down the steps of the stage and made my way for the exit.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Jill called after me.

  “Home.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “We’re going to run lines backstage.”

  I looked to Kayla. Without the script in front of me, that was going to be impossible.

  “She really needs to try on the costume,” Kayla said, coming to my rescue again. “I’ll run lines with her. Promise.”

  Jill clenched her notes tightly. “How about I go over the lines with her while you work on the dress? Then we’ll all be happy.”

  Letting Jill help wasn’t an option. So while I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, I didn’t have much choice. “I’d rather go over them with Kayla.”

  Jill’s eyes totally popped out of their sockets. “You what?” Her voice was a mix of anger and confusion.

  “It’s not that I don’t want you around,” I tried to explain. “It’s just that I can’t have you there. You’re making me nervous. I know how important this is to you. And I can’t focus with you standing over me. You understand, right?”

  “Fine,” she said, staring at me. “But you better not make me regret this.”

  I nodded, and Kayla ushered me away before Jill could change her mind.

  Wes winked as I passed by. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered. “We’ll totally kill it tonight.”

  Unfortunately, that was exactly what I was afraid of.

  12

  I did the scene aloud with Kayla for what seemed like three eternities. “You’ve totally got this,” she said. “You barely checked your phone the last couple of times, and that last read-through sounded great.”

  “You need a new definition of great,” I told her.

  “Look, you don’t need to be Laurence Olivier—”

  “Who?”

  “He was a great Shakespearean actor, but it doesn’t matter. What I meant was, you don’t have to give an award-winning performance. Everyone knows you didn’t have much rehearsal time; they’re going to cut you a lot of slack. You just need to get through the scene, and you can do that. Now come on, let’s get you in costume.”

  I kept reciting lines as Kayla pulled the Juliet gown over my head.

  “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name.” I was starting to feel overheated. “Can we open the door?” I asked as she laced up the dress’s bodice. “It’s stuffy in here.”

  We had been in the dressing room forever, and I felt totally cooped up. “Ow,” I said as Kayla gave the ribbons a tug.

  “Sorry, I’m just trying to get it to close. It’s a little tighter on you than Amanda.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “I didn’t say that was a bad thing,” Kayla said, pulling some more. “It just means I need to pull a little harder to get it to close all the way in the back.”

  “Okay, but I won’t be able to say the lines if I can’t breathe.”

  “But it will make your boobs look really good. You’ll have killer cleavage in this thing.” Kayla gave another giant tug.

  “I’d prefer not to pass out or have my lungs collapse.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said.

  I let out a gasp.

  “What? Did I really pull too hard? Are you okay?”

  “Look. Straight. Ahead,” I whispered.

  “Oh, Romeo! Oh, Romeo!” she said, and gave a little growl. “Talk about a view.”

  “Shhh!” I warned her. But she was right. I was having trouble breathing again, but this time it had nothing to do with the dress and everything to do with Wes Rosenthal.

  He was standing in the dressing room across from us, shirtless, and looking completely …

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  Hot.

  I’d never seen muscles like that. I knew I probably should’ve looked away, but I couldn’t. Sure, I’d seen Wes without a shirt when we were kids, but this was a whole new level. And while there’d been the occasional shirtless pic on GroupIt over the years, the live version was soooo much better. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was the dizzying, just-got-off-the-spinning-teacups-ride kind of handsome. I mean, he seriously looked incredible. He still had a hint of a tan from his Florida trip, and he had a solid six-pack. Six! I wondered what it would be like to trace my fingers around his muscles.

  “I think you’re drooling,” Kayla whispered in my ear.

  “Ha-ha.”

  “Thirty minutes to places,” Jill called as she made her way backstage. I quickly looked at my feet so Wes wouldn’t catch me staring.

  “Whoa,” Jill said when she saw him. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were still changing.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t care,” he said.

  Jill quickly averted her eyes from him anyway and turned to me. “Do you see this?” she silently mouthed to me. Did I see it? Of course I saw it! I was drunk off it. Although I was smitten before I saw him shirtless. This was just a cherry on top. A really nice, yummy cherry—but a cherry all the same. “We’re up first,” Jill said, gaining her composure. “Break a leg. And, Em, thank you again for stepping in.”

  “Yeah,” Wes said. “We’ll have fun out there. And you look great, by the way.”

  I looked great?! He really said that. To me! “Thanks. There are no tissues this time,” I said, and gestured toward my chest.

  “What?” Jill mouthed to me, and Kayla snorted.

  “Ohhhhkaaaay,” Kayla said in a singsong voice. “Time for Emily to finish doing her hair,” she said with a wave before closing the dressing room door in an attempt to save me. “No tissues? Seriously, Em?”

  “I panicked. He said I looked great, and my chest is practically up to my nose in this getup, so it was the first thing that popped into my head.”

  “Next time, you might just
want to stick with ‘thank you’ or ‘you too.’”

  “Now you tell me.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said, and pulled back a strand of hair from each side of my face and tied them together in the back. “You have more important things to think about now.”

  That was definitely true. In less than a half hour, I was going to be standing in front of an audience.

  The minutes flew by, and before I knew it, it was time.

  “You can do this. Remember, if you get stuck, just use your phone, it’s in place,” Kayla said as she adjusted the fabric on my dress one last time before I headed out on stage.

  I nodded. Like it or not, I, Emily Stein, was about to make my theatrical debut. Please let this go smoothly, I prayed.

  The lights turned on, and Wes began to speak. He really made Shakespeare sound good. Although he could have recited the Barney & Friends theme song and I still would have been impressed. But it wasn’t just Wes up there. It was me, too.

  Okay, I told myself. Time to act. Make Jill proud.

  I looked out longingly and fantasized about Wes telling me he loved me. I even managed to lean on the banister and remembered to touch my hand to my cheek. And then on top of all that, I got out my first line without looking at my phone. Okay, fine, it was just “Ay me!”—but it was still something. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all. And Wes really did look adorable in his costume—the tunic, the puffy sleeves, even the tights. The whole getup sounded ridiculous, but somehow he managed to pull it off. His broad shoulders helped. And his calf muscles. And his perfect jawline. He was basically what I imagined a Greek god would look like. But I had to stop thinking about Wes. I had lines to say.

  “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” I recited from memory. All those run-throughs with Kayla must have paid off. I was actually remembering the words. “Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.” I made it through my first tough part without even glancing down. This was actually a little fun, if that was at all possible.

  “Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?” Wes said.

  His line was an aside, which meant I wasn’t technically supposed to hear it, or in this case, even know he was there, but when I heard his voice, I couldn’t help but look over. It was kind of an instinct.

  Wes saw me looking and gave me a little wink and a nod, and I felt a surge go through me. It was just the two of us up there. It felt really nice. I could picture us afterward laughing and dancing at the cast party, maybe even sharing a kiss. But I couldn’t think about that now. I needed to keep going with the scene. But then I made a mistake. A huge one. I looked away from Wes and out to the audience. There were a LOT of people out there. Every seat was filled. And they were waiting for me to speak. I looked back at Wes, but the vision of all those eyes on me kept playing over and over. I went to say my next line, but it was gone. There was no Shakespeare left in my brain. It had been replaced with pure panic.

  I needed to relax. To take a deep breath. I breathed in, but it was as if the air was caught in my throat. Why couldn’t I breathe? I actually felt dizzy. Duh, Emily. Of course I did. I was wearing a freaking corset. You couldn’t take deep breaths in that. I tried to regain my composure. I saw Wes watching me. He looked concerned. That was totally breaking character. I couldn’t ruin this for him. I could do it. I just needed to follow the plan. I needed to forget the idea of magically remembering every word Juliet was supposed to say and just read the lines from my phone. That’s what it was there for.

  I slightly lifted my arm, pressed my thumb on the phone to turn it back on—and it started buzzing! What the…? Who was texting me now? I glanced down at the screen.

  NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

  It was a battery alert. I hadn’t charged my phone during all of those rehearsals with Kayla. I was down to 1 percent. What did that mean? How long did I have? It couldn’t be much time. I had no choice. I had to race through my lines.

  “’Tis but thy name that is my enemy; thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,” I said at a crazy warp speed, before the alert popped up again. NO! I did not want to turn off my phone or switch to low-power mode. I just wanted it to work.

  I cleared the message and kept going. “Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part…”

  It buzzed again, and that annoying picture of the battery with just the tiniest sliver of power remained. Just show me my lines. Why had I been so stupid? How could I have not thought to charge my phone?

  I was a disaster. Speeding then stopping abruptly. But what other choice did I have? I just had to get to where it was Wes’s turn to speak.

  I swiped the alert away again. I couldn’t even remember where I left off. “Nor face, nor any other part belonging to a—”

  Then my heart stopped. Okay, not really. But my phone did, and at that moment, my phone’s dying felt almost just as bad.

  No, no, no, no, NO!!! What was I going to do?

  There were no more lines for me to read. Just whatever I could come up with, and that obviously was nothing!

  I couldn’t just stand there. Silence was deadly. I had to do something. And before I knew it I was humming. “Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm. Romeo, Romeo, Romeo.” Oh, I sounded dumb. Maybe silence was better. The whispers in the audience were starting. Think, Emily. Think. “Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.” I had no choice. I had to improvise. I had to make up the lines. I understood the gist of the passage: It was about Romeo and Juliet being enemies because their families were feuding … and that if they had different last names, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. I just needed to turn that into Shakespeare. Quickly.

  Shakespeare just added a bunch of ths and sts at the end of words and threw in some methinks and doths. I could do that, too. No big deal.

  “’Tis but my name that’s the problem, so I will doth give-est it up-eth to be with thou. Or you could give-est up-eth yours. I mean thou’s.”

  I could hear light snickers and giggles from the crowd.

  “Huh?” someone asked, a little too loudly for my taste.

  And then I heard it. A groan. An I-told-you-not-to-disappoint-me groan. A Jill groan. She was definitely going to decapitate me later. The only thing scarier than the thought of that was the look on Wes’s face. His eyes were wide, and he was staring at me as if I’d flung a baseball at his head.

  I gave a small wave.

  “Hi-eth, Romeo,” I said, figuring I’d jump ahead to the part where Juliet saw him. Anything to speed up the disaster I’d created.

  “Hi-eth,” he answered back. I couldn’t even fathom what he was thinking right now.

  “So glad thou are here-est,” I said.

  Some guy’s voice rang out from the crowd. “What is she saying?” he asked.

  But I couldn’t stop. The show had to go on.

  “Romeo,” I continued, “how did-est thou find-est moi?” Great … now I was speaking French.

  Wes seemed to have recovered from the shock of my curveball and recited the next line. “Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords.” Well, that was true. I certainly had peril in my eyes. I was dying a slow, embarrassing death on stage. “Look thou but sweet,” he continued, “and I am proof against their enmity.”

  He sounded so good. I wished I could keep up, but sadly, I had no idea what my response was supposed to be.

  “If they do see thee, they will murder thee,” a harsh whisper called out. It was Kayla. Thank God.

  “If they do see thee, they will murder thee,” I repeated.

  Okay, this could work. I’d just let her feed me lines. Wes said something else. And then I heard Kayla whispering again, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  “Can you repeat-eth that, Romeo?” I asked. “Thou voice-eth need-est to be LOUDER-ETH.”

  Someone in the audience snorted, and Jill muttered, “This isn’t happening.” Unfortunately for both of
us, it was.

  I looked out at the crowd. Some girl in the front row had her hand over her mouth. Samara Lowry was whispering something in Bridgette Riley’s ear, no doubt about me. And the entire audience had its eyes glued to the stage, waiting to see what I’d do next. The only good thing was that my parents weren’t there. I was smart enough not to tell them about this little train wreck of a performance.

  I stood there like a lump, waiting for my line. Finally, I turned toward Kayla and repeated, “I said, LOUDER-ETH.”

  She fed me the line again. Supercrazy loud this time. “I would not for the world.”

  It was so loud, the crowd heard it and started to laugh. Not the snickers from before, but those evil, full belly laughs people get when watching home videos of someone getting kicked in the groin. Wes was going to hate me for putting him through this. This torture needed to end.

  “Methinks,” I said, “I could use-eth a book-eth.” Come on, Kayla. Take the hint. “You know-eth. A BOOK-ETH where-est I can recite-eth beauteous words to thee … thou … whatever. I NEED THE BOOK-ETH.”

  As I was shouting that last book-eth, I got my wish. The script came sailing from off stage left and hit me in the back of the head. “Ow,” I unintentionally yelled, to the delight of the crowd. It weighed a ton.

  “Sorry,” Kayla whispered. “My bad.”

  I didn’t care. I’d get over the pain faster than the embarrassment I was suffering. I was just happy to have the script. At least I was until I realized Kayla hadn’t bookmarked the page I needed. It was the complete works of Shakespeare. There was no way I would find the right page. Not to mention that since the book was with me, Kayla couldn’t even feed me lines anymore. R&J wasn’t a tragedy. My life was.

  I was so flunking English.

  “Would thou like some help, my sweet Juliet?”

  Did Wes just call me sweet? I swung around to face him, but I wasn’t paying attention to where I was stepping and my foot went right off the balcony. Wes lunged forward to catch me, but why would anything go right for me? So instead of Wes stopping me from hitting the floor, I took him down with me.