Romeo, Juliet & Jim

by Larry Schwarz

  Romeo turned to her and grasped her shoulders. “I’m not mad at you. Never you,” he said. “I’m just angry that this is so hard.” He looked around. “What if we just hang out?”

  “Did you not hear Gabrielle? She’s going to turn the neighborhood upside down until she finds me.”

  “The tall Black girl, with the hair?” the guy at the jukebox asked them. “She was in here with crazy eyes, looking for a Juliet.” He had an American accent. “That you?”

  Juliet nodded.

  “Yeah, don’t doubt that she’ll be back. I can get you out of here, though,” he said.

  “What? Why?” Romeo asked. His voice was edged with malice. He stepped forward to place himself between Juliet and the stranger.

  “I don’t know. Sounds fun. Nothing going on here, clearly.” His eyes glinted as he offered them a half smile. There was an assured carelessness to him that bothered Juliet, though not in an entirely bad way. He was about their age but lighter than them somehow. Unworried. It was a trait that came off a lot of Americans, an amused joie de vivre that eluded French natives.

  Out the window, the spikes of Gabrielle’s hair extensions crossed Juliet’s line of vision.

  “Which way?” Juliet said, coming to stand next to Romeo. She took his hand and squeezed, hoping to convey to him that she thought they should take the stranger up on his offer.

  “I’m just going to check in here once more,” she could hear Gabrielle saying. “I have to know if she’s here.”

  Romeo’s shoulders were tense, but he remained immobile despite the threat outside.

  The American guy, who was still grinning at them like they were playing a game, looked from Romeo to Juliet with an expression that said, This is your only option. He started for the back of the bar. “Bike’s this way.”

  He was so at ease and casual about the escape that Juliet wanted to shake him. After she shook Romeo, of course. She pulled her boyfriend toward the back of the bar and slid through the door just as Gabrielle’s voice rang through the empty space, seeming to send dust motes flying with her volume.

  “Juliet!” she yelled.

  Juliet wondered if she’d been seen. She’d deal with it later. She, Romeo, and the stranger were back outside. And there, on the side of the Dumpster where they hadn’t been hiding, was a motorcycle. The stranger was already straddling the saddle, his arm outstretched with a helmet for her. His helmet.

  “Tuck your hair under here, it’ll help disguise you,” he said to her. His fingers brushed hers, and they were rougher than Romeo’s, like he’d been working on his bike just before finding them. “Then get on behind me.” He smiled again, one corner of his mouth turned up higher than the other. His eyes were espresso-colored, with a golden twinkle in the corners. Gabrielle would have lapped him up, as she liked to say. Juliet suddenly understood the expression.

  Looking at Romeo, he pointed to the sidecar. “You’ll ride there. Keep your head down.”

  Juliet strapped on the helmet, smelling what had to be the stranger’s sweat on the padding lining the inside. It wasn’t unpleasant.

  “Come on, already,” the stranger said, locking his dark eyes on Juliet’s. She shuddered, but not from fear.

  “I don’t like this,” Romeo said, sinking down into the sidecar like it was a cold, uncomfortable bath. But still, he pulled his hood up over his light hair and hunched his shoulders.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Juliet said. She tentatively reached her arms around the stranger’s taut waist. If her mother had had any idea that an hour ago she’d been in bed with Romeo and now she was entwined on a motorcycle with this gorgeous American, well, Hélène Capulet would die on the spot. But not without first shooting Juliet an icy look of disdain. Her mother hadn’t fought her way from the chaos of a well-off but dysfunctional family into a wealthy, if staid, life just so her daughter could make the kind of mistakes that made a person wonder if vice was hereditary. Henri had already proven a challenge.

  Taking her hands, the stranger made her grip him tighter. “Like this, unless you want to fall into the street.”

  “What’s your name?” Juliet shouted over the noise of the bike starting up. She felt the need to talk casually, so she wouldn’t dwell on how tightly she was holding on to this person. The muscles along his sides clenched as he revved the bike a few times.

  “Jim,” he said. “I’m Jim.”

  He kicked the bike up to speed and maneuvered past the fashion-shoot commotion on the street. Juliet kept her eyes closed, as if that would disguise her.

  But no one even looked, since Gabrielle had everyone in a tizzy looking inside the bar. Jim leaned into the turn around the corner, and he, Romeo, and Juliet sped away, undetected.

  WHENEVER TWO YOUNG lovers are forced to speed away from witnesses on the back of a stranger’s motorbike, one must stop to ask: Pourquoi?

  They’re two rich, beautiful teens with everything. Shouldn’t their families be thrilled they’re together? They’re a perfect match, an instant power couple—the tabloids would brand them Juleo, or Roliet!

  Sadly, that’s not at all the case, thanks to an ancient grudge. No one is quite sure exactly how it started, but it goes back to the days when the families lived in castles, and back when the French stopped wearing armor and started donning gowns and robes, cinching waists and peacocking about, fully plumed.

  Yes, both the ancient families, Capulet and Montague, one day long ago decided to make fashion their business. (Other families, too, but they were the best at it, or at least the most well-known.)

  Then someone stepped on someone’s bustle and all hell broke loose. It might sound frivolous—an ancient feud over fashion?—but they take it very seriously. So seriously that the grudge has endured through the centuries—property destroyed, lives ruined … some lives lost (or taken). That neither family is sure why the grudge began is no matter, because keeping it alive is a matter of principle at this point.

  So, yes, the rich, beautiful teens seem to have everything, but ages of cultivated hate and pride means they will always be denied what they want most: each other.

  CHAPTER 4

  ROMEO

  WHAT IDIOT GOT in the sidecar of a motorcycle piloted by a son-of-a-bitch American?

  What idiot did that, not knowing where they were going?

  What idiot let his beautiful girlfriend clutch the son-of-a-bitch American like they were the couple, while he, the idiot, rode in the sidecar?

  He didn’t like this.

  No, Romeo didn’t like this at all, that he and Juliet had placed their lives in the hands of some buffed-out American with an action-hero complex.

  And he really didn’t like that Juliet was pressed up against the guy, spooning her body into his with her arms tight around his waist. Meanwhile, Romeo was scrunched with his knees practically touching his chin, thanks to the case of beer on which he had to rest his feet.

  “Where you wanna go?” Jim shouted over the noise of the bike when they reached a red light.

  “Here’s good,” Romeo said. He and Juliet would get off the bike and split up. No parting kiss for them, but they’d be safe. Too bad he was so low to the ground Jim couldn’t even hear him.

  Juliet, though—Jim could hear her. How could he not? She could almost lick the guy’s earlobe. “Where would you go if you didn’t want to be seen?” she asked.

  The melodic lilt to her voice almost killed Romeo, it was so pretty. Jim must have liked it, too, because he grinned and nodded, probably imagining where he’d take Juliet if they could ditch Romeo. Jerk. When the light changed, he swerved to the left and kicked up his speed.

  Romeo had lived his whole life in Paris, as had generations of Montagues before him. He prided himself on knowing every intimate crevice of the city. He was a connoisseur of forbidden hideaways, places to take a lover where they’d never be seen or suspected.

  That was all before Juliet, though. His pursuit of conquests had ceased when he met her. The change had a
lmost killed his cousin and best friend, Benoit, who’d been particularly invested in hearing more about the Art Deco–tattooed woman. All the women, really. Once upon a time, Romeo and Benny would spend hours talking in detail about Romeo’s activities. Romeo would pull out the onyx lockbox given to him by his grandfather when he was only six. He’d told him it was a “coffre-fort de Rêves,” a dream safe, a place where he could store notes about his wildest hopes and fantasies.

  Romeo used it for storing the souvenirs of hopes and fantasies that had come to pass. Inside were matchbooks from every low-rent gem in which he’d shared moments amoureuses with the finest women in Paris. He had been with wide-eyed girls his own age who dreamed of being together forever and well-preserved older damsels who’d left him panting for more. Romeo could pluck a matchbook from the box at random and call up sordid details to make Benny’s jaw drop.

  But the night after he’d met Juliet … That night, without a second thought, he’d padded down to the living room to start a fire and emptied the box’s contents into the flames. He remembered how satisfying it had been to hear the pops and cracks of the matchbooks as they caught fire. He’d gladly tossed out his past, in anticipation of a future with her.

  Benny had thrown a fit when he learned the matches were gone. He’d been furious when Romeo had refused to speak again of the old dalliances.

  “Bro, those stories are my religion!” he’d wailed. “You’re really going to take away a man’s religion?”

  Romeo wasn’t sure Benny would understand even if he could explain, but of course he couldn’t. True love was as simple and complex a reason as could exist. Over the last month, Benny had floated a million different theories as to why Romeo had changed, but none of them came close.

  Much as Romeo liked to think he knew every last bit of Paris, he had no idea where they were right now. Jim had taken the bike past the hills and odd pastel houses of La Butte-aux-Cailles. Now the ill-maintained streets skirted buildings with chipped masonry and balconies that leaned dangerously off their moorings. The streets were vacant—no outdoor cafés, no shops, no kids playing outside. This wasn’t hidden Paris, this was dying Paris.

  Now that the threat of discovery was gone, a new kind of threat set off red flags in Romeo’s head. Who was this American? He could be angling to rob them—or worse. Romeo had to plan his next move very carefully.

  Jim turned the motorcycle onto the overgrown lawn of an old, crumbling stone church. He pulled around back, where ancient headstones sprouted from the ground at odd angles like stone weeds. Jim cut the bike’s engine but remained still. Juliet’s hands dropped to her sides as she pulled her body away from his.

  Jim turned in his seat, looking at Romeo but speaking to Juliet. Romeo’s body tensed as he prepared himself to spring from the sidecar. What he’d do next, he wasn’t exactly sure.

  “Frisk me,” Jim said to Juliet.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Your boyfriend’s looking at me like he wants to jump up and go all Napoléon on my ass,” Jim said. “You’ve already had your hands on me. So frisk me and let him know I don’t have a weapon.”

  Juliet looked at Romeo, a question in her eyes. Romeo really didn’t want her to touch more of the guy than she already had, but he knew it would answer his questions. He nodded his consent, and Juliet patted her hands over Jim’s leather jacket, starting at the top and working her way to his waist.

  “There is nothing,” she said.

  “Aw, come on,” Jim said. “That’s just insulting.”

  Juliet blushed.

  “Enough,” Romeo said, then told Jim, “Don’t move.”

  Romeo leaped as nimbly as he could out of the sidecar and gestured for Jim to stand up. Romeo was taller, but lean, while Jim had a compact, muscular build. Romeo patted his jacket aggressively, trying to let Jim know he wasn’t intimidated. He locked eyes with the American, daring him to make a move.

  “Dude, I’m one of the good guys, I swear,” Jim said. “You were the ones who needed a getaway car. I should be frisking you.”

  “Don’t,” Romeo warned.

  Jim raised his hands in a Who, me? gesture. Romeo took Juliet by the hands to help her off the bike. He let his hands linger at Juliet’s hip, as if to show Jim that she belonged to him.

  “Where are we?” Juliet asked. She walked in a slow circle around a gravestone, then tilted her head skyward, looking like a misplaced angel.

  “Seriously?” Jim replied. “The Ugly American knows more than the natives?”

  “I never called you ugly,” Juliet noted.

  “Oh, well, thank you, then,” Jim said, grinning. Romeo didn’t like the easy way he made eye contact with Juliet, like they’d known each other for years.

  Jim pulled three bottles of beer out of the case in the sidecar and handed one to each of them.

  Juliet blushed as she took the bottle. Romeo draped a possessive arm around her shoulders and held out his beer. “Got an opener?”

  “Of course,” Jim said. He strode to the closest tombstone and used its edge to pry off the bottlecap. He handed the beer back to Romeo, who tried not to show his annoyance at being schooled in bottle opening by the self-assured American.

  “As to where we are,” Jim started, as he spread his arms wide and walked backward, gesturing to the entire cemetery. “We’re nowhere. An abandoned church in an abandoned part of town.” He sat down on the grass and leaned against one of the ancient headstones, popping the cap off his bottle, too. “An excellent place for a drink.”

  Then he took a long swig of his beer, before pointing his bottle at the stones opposite him, a gesture for Romeo and Juliet to sit. Romeo looked down at Juliet. He wondered if she’d be spooked by the whole scene, but she had a giddy glimmer in her eyes instead. She rose on her tiptoes to kiss him.

  “Liberté, mon amour,” she whispered to him with her sly little grin.

  Freedom. Yes. To be sure, even in this quiet graveyard they weren’t really free, but at least, for a time, no one would find them. But it was dicey enough that the bars on Romeo’s cell phone were spotty. He was almost a phantom here, same as this American.

  “Liberté,” Romeo replied.

  Juliet beamed, then pulled Romeo down to sit on the lawn, across from Jim. Romeo used a headstone to pop the cap off Juliet’s beer, giving Jim a look that said, I can be macho, too. He sat against a tombstone with his feet planted on the ground and his knees bent, so Juliet could curl into the armchair made by his chest and parted legs. He raised an eyebrow at Jim and lifted his bottle in an unspoken toast. And, he hoped, an unspoken threat to never call Romeo “Napoléon” again. Jim mirrored the gesture and they both drank.

  “So, now you must tell us about yourself,” Juliet told Jim. “My boyfriend doesn’t seem to trust you, and I trust his opinion on everything.”

  “Wow, good girlfriend,” Jim said. “But there’s not much to tell. Life’s pretty simple.”

  “Yes, a simple life full of vintage Harleys with sidecars, all in mint condition?” Romeo gestured to the bike.

  Now Jim smiled openly. It was the kind of machismo-laden grin that seemed mastered only by Americans. He could probably run fast, too. “You noticed that, huh?”

  “My boyfriend has an unquenchable lust for fast, flashy things,” Juliet said. “I’m very lucky that extends only to his vehicles.”

  “I prefer my women beautiful and mesmerizing,” Romeo said.

  “And I like mine gorgeous and crazy,” Jim said. “At least according to my track record.”

  “Typical guy,” Juliet snorted. “Things go wrong and you say the girl is crazy. Maybe the blame’s on you? After all, is it not crazy to pick up strangers and hang out in abandoned cemeteries?”

  “Point well taken,” Jim agreed. “But either way, I think I’ve learned it’s best for me to stay away from women. At least for now. Present company excluded, of course.”

  “Of course,” Juliet said. “Though while I’m fairly sane, I’ve be
en quite rude. My name is Beatrix. This handsome backrest is Benedict.” She squeezed Romeo’s leg, alerting him to pay attention to her lie. He loved her even more for knowing to give fake names. So he pulled her in closer, relishing the gentle rise of her back against his chest as she breathed.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Jim said. “Even under the circumstances. You know, I’d really like to know what was going on back there. But I’m going to mind my own business.”

  “That’s not very American of you,” Romeo said.

  “Nah, but you’re not an entirely rude French person, so we’re even.” With his easy grin, he nodded toward his Harley and looked back at Romeo. “You have a bike of your own?”

  “A couple,” Romeo admitted. “I bought a Wattman for my birthday.”

  “Voxon?” Jim asked. “The electric? It’s supposed to run like a beast.”

  “A gorgeous beast,” Romeo said. “Looks like a scorpion.”

  “I’d love to take a spin on that sometime,” Jim said. “Seriously.”

  “And I would love to change the subject to anything but motorcycles. Or cars,” Juliet groaned. “I could start talking about fashion, but I don’t think any of us want that.”

  Romeo laughed, but not for the reason he knew Jim thought. As heir apparent to the House of Montague, Paris’s other oldest and most respected fashion house, Romeo could just as happily carry on an intelligent conversation about trending necklines as he could the best places to trick out a Harley. So Juliet’s comment was a ruse. She was playing a role: normal girl. Beatrix. The kind of girl who could just hang out, leaning against him, casually—almost wickedly—throwing the words my boyfriend into the conversation. Romeo could tell from her tone that she loved it.

  He did, too. Dangerously so. If it kept up, he’d start talking like Juliet about running away. And he had to stay grounded. He knew Juliet hated when he pulled apart her daydreams, but he had to protect the two of them.

  Still, couldn’t he be grounded a little later? They were, somehow, safe and free. The conversation had been steered at Juliet’s request away from motorized vehicles and onto skiing, which all of them loved. Jim swore Colorado was wildly overrated; he said Jackson Hole, Wyoming, was the only legit place to ski in the US. Juliet agreed but expounded on the virtues of Andermatt, Switzerland. Jim was saying Verbier was a superior spot in that country.