Romeo, Juliet & Jim

by Larry Schwarz

  The irony was not lost on Jim that he and his father were joining Jennifer at the place where he’d only hours before been with the friends he may have just betrayed.

  * * *

  “Jennifer really wanted to eat here?” Jim asked. It wasn’t that the Eiffel Tower restaurant wasn’t nice. It was, very. Jim just thought Jennifer would want to dine somewhere exclusive and hidden that no one knew about but that she would tell them about. Somewhere where everyone was a little mean, like she was.

  James Redmond smirked. “I think even the most cutthroat of women can’t resist the Eiffel Tower. I don’t get it, but I suppose it is iconic.”

  They had a table near the window, probably the best one in the place. They sat down and ordered a bottle of wine—his dad chose it. He even asked about the humidity in the Loire Valley three years ago, as if he knew anything about what humidity meant for grapes. Jim didn’t think his dad had been outside in years, much less somewhere where things grew. But the sommelier answered deferentially and did that thing they did in movies, where he poured it and let his dad sniff it, then taste it, then nod approvingly. Jim wondered if his father really knew anything about wine.

  But then James Redmond held his glass aloft and said, “To family. I realize I haven’t always been the father you’ve needed, but just know I didn’t have the best example.”

  “Fair enough,” Jim said, not really knowing what else to say. His dad had never said I love you. They’d never played catch. Between his mother’s suicide and his father’s utter lack of affection, Jim was sometimes amazed that he wasn’t a serial killer. Though maybe you grew into that, he joked darkly to himself. To be fair, maybe his dad was due some compassion after being left as an orphan at a convent in New Orleans. “That means a lot,” he corrected himself.

  It did mean a lot.

  Jim took a sip of the wine, thinking it was good and this was good. He just wanted a way to keep his dad like this—acting almost like his dad—while still being friends with Romeo and Juliet.

  He could do that, couldn’t he?

  “Jennifer is coming, right?” he asked, not looking up from the menu. Could some of this newfound-father stuff be a softer side spurred on by his dad marrying Jennifer? Jim thought of the weird seduction test Jennifer had put him through. It wasn’t the best way to bond with your new stepmother, but then, it wasn’t like Jim had a lot of options in the family realm.

  “She’ll be along.”

  Jim skipped past the escargot and duck leg confit listed on the menu, just wanting a big steak. He wanted to fill the hollow pit in his stomach that ached with anxiety.

  “God, I could really use a good steak,” his dad said, prompting Jim to think that maybe he really was his father’s son after all.

  Jim had set his menu down and was about to say he wanted the same thing when a camera flash lit his peripheral vision. He turned to see a photographer snapping a shot of him and his dad. “Hey,” he said, on the defensive until he saw Jennifer strutting up behind the photographer.

  “Let’s get another one of the toast,” she said. She smiled at Jim. “Hi, Jim. Can you pick up your wineglass again? Neither of you have to say anything this time. Davide was late.” This she said with a scowl at the offending photographer, who was French enough to not care what Jennifer thought of him.

  “What are these for?” Jim asked. He didn’t mind. It was just weird. The last time he and his father had been photographed together was probably when he was a little kid and they’d been getting out of the car for his mother’s funeral.

  “Just to have for the business. Posterity,” Jennifer said. “It’s your company, too.”

  His dad nodded, holding his own wineglass aloft for what was sure to be a cheesy photo. “Like I said.”

  Jim smiled and did as he was told, holding up his glass and pretending to be absorbed by his father’s toast, even though his dad was just asking Jennifer if certain figures had come in on some Japanese deal.

  After Davide had snapped many shots, Jennifer sat down and poured herself a glass of the wine. She made her own toast. “To the Redmond men.”

  Jim couldn’t tell from the way she said it if the toast was one for business or for pleasure. Of course, if she was going to be his new stepmom, the transaction was probably a little of both. More business, knowing his dad.

  Davide kept snapping shots as Jennifer pulled a tablet from her bag and started swiping into a program.

  The other diners were watching them now. A dinner in the Eiffel Tower clearly meant more to most of them than it did to Jennifer, who’d barely glanced out the window.

  “I thought you wanted to take in the view,” Jim’s dad said to Jennifer. But it was obvious that they were the same kind of person, because as Jennifer pulled up the Japanese deal numbers, his dad leaned toward her, looking at a spreadsheet like it was far prettier than anything in the city below.

  He wondered why he wanted his dad’s attention so much, when it was clear that James Redmond paid attention to the wrong things.

  But he sat still, ordered his food, and smiled when his father or Jennifer tried a joke about some business deal or other that made no sense to him.

  Just hours ago, yelling off the top of this very tower, he’d never felt more like he knew his place in the world.

  He’d felt young and alive and certain.

  But now … He was young. He was alive.

  And he was lost.

  CHAPTER 23

  JULIET

  SHE’D WANTED TO be Madeline again today but it was not in the cards. There was actual homework to catch up on, and she was staying around the house with a hidden goal of checking on Henri, just to make sure things were really okay. Since Thibeau’s party last week, she’d barely seen her brother. She’d been at school, he’d had “appointments,” and their paths hadn’t crossed. In truth, she knew she’d been in her Romeo-daydream bubble. Believing Henri was fine because he’d been fine at the party was a trap that was too easy to fall into. She needed verification.

  But even as the housekeepers, cooks, personal shoppers, and sundry other assistants funneled in and out downstairs, Juliet’s home felt big and empty and void of possibilities. She rolled over in bed, wishing for some new option to present itself.

  She could have invited friends over. Even Jim, who now knew her family. But Jim, well, she didn’t know what he did on the weekends exactly, but she sensed she shouldn’t ask him to hang out with her on his own. Most of the time when the three of them had been together, things had been fine, but here and there, she caught herself wondering if Jim looked at her too long, or made a show of looking away when Romeo kissed her. And the thing at the café, like he was testing Romeo’s knowledge of all things Juliet, that had been odd.

  She liked when it was the three of them. There was safety in numbers, probably.

  So, schoolwork. She’d been on a high since the previous weekend, and her focus had been a touch shot. She was way behind on her Balzac paper, and her chemistry labwork was just a series of scribbles.

  Ugh. Couldn’t homework wait? Right now, maybe what she wanted was Truffaut in the screening room. She’d ease into the harder stuff.

  She was halfway into a favorite when her phone screen lit up. Gabrielle. It read, Did I show you this outfit? (PMS-y, I need attention.)

  It was an image of Gabrielle at a party of some sort, dressed in what could only be described as a sexy owl costume. But it wasn’t Gabrielle’s outfit that caught her eye. Behind Gabrielle, Juliet saw the unmistakable form of Rosaline, dancing with Romeo. And not the formal dance from the Palais fashion gala. This was writhing. Romeo’s head was tilted back in what looked like ecstasy.

  Juliet texted, her fingers trembling: When was this?

  Gabrielle texted the date of Thibeau’s party. The night before she’d been with Romeo at Hotel Lemieux. Just last week, when everything had seemed perfect again.

  Juliet punched her fist into the couch cushion as Jules et Jim continued to unspo
ol on the screen behind her. Her attention had been shattered by this. She slapped the cushions again and again, her hair whipping around her face, but it wasn’t enough: She felt capable of burning down the world around her.

  Should she call him, write him, go over to his house and slap him?

  No. He’d just say the same thing he always did and would—that he had to. Yes, he just had to dance with a model like a dance in the bedroom was next.

  No, he couldn’t chalk this one up to something his parents had required.

  She didn’t even hear Henri come up behind her.

  “What’s that?” He picked up her phone from where she’d tossed it onto the cushion. She lunged for it, not knowing why. What difference did it make now if Henri knew? What difference would it ever have made?

  “Gabrielle?” He looked up at her with concerned eyes.

  “Yes, just some silly photo Gabrielle sent from a party.” She tried to toss off the words casually but her voice caught on “party.”

  “Who’s this in the back?” Henri’s eyes flashed in the dark. She couldn’t get a good look at them to see if he looked high. She was too wrapped up in her own problems to care right now.

  But A.V.O. Didn’t it go back to that? Wasn’t that how she knew Rosaline was just a blip on the eternal timeline she and Romeo would have?

  Or was that just a handy phrase Romeo could use anytime she was mad?

  “You and Romeo,” Henri said. “I always suspected.”

  She’d forgotten her brother was here. How did he know? Juliet felt horror curl up her arms and legs and in her stomach, but instead of denying anything to Henri, she grabbed his arm and said, “You can’t tell Maman. Or Papa.”

  Henri put his hands on his hips and looked at her for a long time. Anger mounted in her heart. Was he really going to out her? After what she’d done for him?

  “Juliet, what on earth would make you think I’d do that?” Now he sat down on the couch and patted the seat next to him. As Juliet sat, he looped an arm over her shoulder, squeezing her tight. When they were little, it was Henri’s go-to pose for family photos. After all these moments worrying about him, she realized she hadn’t felt like the little sister in some time. But now, at least, her big brother was back.

  Juliet shrugged beneath his arm. “Je ne sais pas.”

  Henri fumbled in his shirt pocket for his cigarette case. He lit two and gave her one. She inhaled deeply. Juliet didn’t smoke often, but she was French and a Frenchwoman amid personal disaster didn’t fall apart outwardly; instead she inhaled her darkness via the Gauloise and let it fill the void left by a heartbreak. (And, yes, Frenchwomen were also dramatic.)

  Watching the smoke curl up toward the ceiling, she asked, “How did you know?”

  Henri smiled wanly. “I saw the way you looked at him at the Palais party. When you were stuck with Pierre.”

  Juliet let out an ironic laugh. She’d thought she’d been so clever.

  “I don’t judge you,” he said. “But know this. He is a drug. Your drug.”

  The orange embers of her cigarette crackled in the darkened room. “Isn’t all love a drug?”

  Henri nodded as he picked up the remote and paused the Truffaut film on a scene of Jules and Jim leaning into each other. “Yes and no. When you can’t have someone all the time, the moments with them are the high, and the moments without them are the despair when you can think of nothing but them.”

  He wasn’t wrong. She almost wished Henri had wanted to out her love affair to their parents. Him telling her the truth was far and away worse.

  Juliet did despair when she wasn’t with Romeo, couldn’t talk to him, couldn’t hear from him, couldn’t have him. But she’d never before thought that was something to blame Romeo for. It was their situation and the circumstances that caused it. Not Romeo himself.

  But maybe she’d been lying to herself this whole time.

  Didn’t she deserve to be wanted and craved and sought? Why should she obsess over someone who wasn’t obsessing over her?

  She squeezed her brother’s hand. She was restless and the room suddenly felt like it fit her uncomfortably, like a shoddy pair of jeans that had been cut incorrectly. “Thank you, mon frère.” She rose to leave.

  “Where are you going? We can finish the movie,” Henri said. He looked hopeful, like he wanted her to stay. But she couldn’t.

  Or she wouldn’t.

  “I just need some air.”

  * * *

  She texted Jim: Can we go out on your motorcycle?

  She didn’t know why she didn’t text Romeo instead. Maybe she just wanted to prove he wasn’t her drug, that he was a habit she could quit. She tried to rationalize texting Jim instead of confronting Romeo. But the truth was, she just wanted to see him. Jim. As much as, maybe more than, she wanted to see Romeo right now.

  Jim didn’t ask questions, just said yes.

  He arrived within a half hour. Juliet hadn’t changed her clothes since the morning. She’d cried away her makeup and her eyes were puffy. She didn’t really care.

  “Maman,” she called, and then waited.…

  Hélène emerged from her parlor, with Serge and Patric, her beauty techs, in tow. “Juliet, I was just thinking that maybe you’d like to do something with your hair…” She trailed off, seeing Jim in his leather jacket, standing in the entryway.

  “I’m going out,” Juliet said, wanting her mother to see her disheveled appearance and to be horrified by the idea that she was going out with an attractive man in such a state.

  If Hélène was upset, she tried not to show it. Juliet hadn’t taken into account that—in front of handsome young men—no one’s appearance was more important to Hélène than Hélène’s. “D’accord,” she said. “I won’t expect you for dinner. Au revoir, Jim.”

  Poor Jim looked so confused by the exchange, but he managed a good-bye as Juliet practically dragged him outside.

  “Take me to that out-of-the-way place we went the first day we met. With him.”

  Jim didn’t ask questions and she didn’t try to explain. She just put on the bike helmet and held fast to Jim’s waist. This time, she didn’t notice how his shoulders felt against her body. Her mind didn’t wander at all. She willed all thoughts from her head and just clung to him, leaning into the curves and turns, trembling as the wind blew up into her helmet. Each strand of her hair pulled against her scalp. She closed her eyes and let the speed wash over her.

  When they got to the cemetery, Juliet hopped off like she was an old pro, then reached into the sidecar and found the beers she’d known would be there. Popping the tops off two, she gave one to Jim and then drank what had to be half of her own in one gulp.

  She didn’t love the taste, but she did love the feeling of warmth that churned through her, making everything a little fuzzier.

  “Will you tell me what’s going on?” Jim said. He drank some of his beer but was mostly looking at her as if he might have to restrain her.

  “He’s betraying me. He’s seeing her,” Juliet said, pacing back and forth in front of the tombstones.

  “Who, Rosaline?” Jim said. And when Juliet whipped her head toward him, she could tell that he knew he’d made a mistake.

  “How do you know about her?” Juliet said. “Did Romeo tell you? Is he proud? Do you admire him for having us both?” She stomped her boot into the ground as if daring Jim to lie to her.

  Lifting both hands in the air in defense, Jim said, “No. She just showed up at this warehouse thing. He danced with her. He might have kissed her. Really, she kissed him.”

  “What? He kissed her, too?” She felt faint as her knees wobbled.

  “It wasn’t the way he kisses you,” Jim said, looking past her into the sky. The clouds were blazes of orange and red, the dipping sun almost burning. “But he loves you. I talked to him about it. I believe him.”

  “Oh, you believe him. And he says he loves me,” Juliet said, throwing her empty bottle so that it shattered against a sma
ll round headstone. “That’s easy to say. And say and say and say. But maybe what he loves is having his secret cake and eating it, too.”

  “That saying has never made sense. Of course you eat the cake that you have,” Jim said. “It’s the whole point of cakes.”

  “Just … never mind,” Juliet said. “I can’t believe he kissed her.” She kicked the toe of her boot into the base of a tombstone, sending a dusty chunk of dried mud to the ground.

  “Kisses don’t mean anything. He’s doing it to protect you.” Jim was behind her, with a hand on her shoulder.

  She spun around. “Protect me from what? I never asked to be protected. I asked to be his love. I’d have risked things for him. Now I know why he never wanted to.”

  She pulled at her hair, almost wanting to rip it from her head. Jim was in front of her in two steps and grabbed her wrists, gently prying her fingers out from within the long strands. Now his face was close to her own. He had no traces of the familiar grin she’d grown used to.

  “That’s not it,” he said. “He’s right to want to protect you. You even told me how there are people who want to do you both harm and who want to see you fail. Aren’t your companies both going to be bought?”

  She scowled at him. Why did he have to be so calm and rational about this? And why was he bringing up their businesses? He sounded just like Romeo, and right now she wanted to hear nothing that sounded like Romeo.

  Even though she liked the way his warm, strong hands felt around the cool skin of her wrists, she yanked her arms away. “What does that matter to anyone? How do we hurt anyone by being together?”

  “I don’t know, but everything is leverage,” Jim said softly. “And it’s easy to say it doesn’t matter, but I know you don’t want to hurt your family. Or lose them.”

  Ugh. Why did he have to be right?

  She ignored Jim. She didn’t want to talk about family.

  She opened a fresh beer and took a sip so it made her body vibrate, then moved a step closer to Jim.

  She was going to do what she wanted.