Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary

by PAMELA DEAN

  Gentian found this extraordinarily difficult to get through, given that she agreed with its basic sentiments. Becky told her to stop thinking of the last few lines as a philosophical speech and fling them straight at Viola, who had behaved very badly as far as Antonio knew.

  “Don’t you know any beauteous evil?” she said, exasperated.

  “Well, Junie, I guess, but I don’t expect better of her.”

  “Well, try it again. Pretend you’re ranting at Junie if it helps.” It seemed to; at least, Becky consented to go to lunch. They went on to their afternoon’s classes, and so back to the assembly hall for rehearsals.

  The scene was chaotic in the extreme. Gentian did not like crowds. She let Steph charge about among the masses of people, interrogating teachers and senior assistants, and then followed her to a corner where Mrs. Morgan was conducting the auditions for Twelfth Night. Then Steph had to explain that they wanted to audition as a group and had chosen some scenes with which to do so. Mrs. Morgan said she reserved the right to choose only some of them, but that frankly, given how few students wanted to do Shakespeare, she would probably be glad to take everybody.

  Gentian wished her scene were first so she could get it over with. But she did like Erin’s Viola, who was irritable and despondent at the beginning rather than swooning about and whining; and she liked Erin’s Viola’s Cesario, who was very brisk and ironic, even when talking about being Patience on a monument smiling at grief. Becky was a fine Maria; she too was rather ironic, seeing through Sir Toby but liking him anyway.

  Alma was an excellent Olivia, sighing and drooping, at first, quite as much as Orsino when he postured about how much in love he was. But she could be made to laugh, and to take charge of her household and an interest in Cesario; and her dry dismissal of Orsino’s importunities made Gentian laugh outright.

  Steph was quite amazing as Malvolio. It made Gentian uneasy. The footnotes and Mrs. Morgan had explained that Malvolio was in part a parody of the Puritans who had made so many playwrights’ lives a misery in Shakespeare’s time, and it seemed to Gentian that Steph sympathized with him greatly, not in his foolish excesses or gullibility, but in his position among people who did not share his beliefs and were inclined to make fun of them. Her Malvolio made Maria look bad; he made you wonder why, if she could put up with Sir Toby’s foibles, she couldn’t be more tolerant of Malvolio’s.

  Gentian disliked being made to think in these terms, but it would be intellectually dishonest to dismiss them. There was a break in their audition as Mrs. Morgan was called on to mediate some dispute elsewhere, and she used it, while the other Giant Ants chattered over the text, to ponder Sir Toby and Malvolio. Sir Toby was funny on purpose, and Malvolio accidentally; Sir Toby didn’t take anything seriously, and Malvolio took himself very seriously indeed. Gentian didn’t think she would like to live with Sir Toby, always having drunken revels when she was trying to do astronomy and probably breaking the telescope if she let him near it; but in the play he was far easier to take than Malvolio. Malvolio liked to lay down the law, that was his problem.

  Mrs. Morgan came back, and gestured to Steph to begin her second scene as the law-layer. Becky assumed her Maria stance, becoming somehow much rounder and much less solemn, and said to Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian, “Get ye all three into the box tree. Malvolio’s coming down this walk. He has been yonder i’ the sun practicing behavior to his own shadow this half hour.”

  Steph drew her tall, straight, thin self into a ponderous stoop and settled a look of judicious satisfaction over her face. “’Tis but fortune,” she said, in tones of busy persuasion, as if she were haranguing the Giant Ants into wearing makeup. “All is fortune. Maria once told me she did affect me—” She paused to smirk, and Gentian glanced over to see how Becky was taking Shakespeare’s cavalier treatment of pronoun antecedents. The “she” in question wasn’t Maria, but Olivia, for whom Malvolio worked and with whom he was in love, if you could call it that. Becky, however, was still being Maria, to whom such considerations were irrelevant.

  “And,” continued Steph, “I have heard herself come thus near, that should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect than anyone else that follows her. What else should I think on’t?”

  You twit, thought Gentian. Just the kind of person who would get sued for sexual harrassment today. She watched Steph as Malvolio indulge in a daydream of being married to Olivia, Count Malvolio, leaving Olivia, who was perfectly capable of running her own household, sleeping while he called Toby before him and told him to amend his drunkenness. Toby and Andrew were infuriated by this display, and had to be restrained by Fabian’s pointing out that if they leapt out of cover and beat Malvolio up, the sinews of their plot would be broken.

  The plot was a letter written by Maria, whose handwriting was conveniently like Olivia’s. The letter informed Malvolio that its anonymous author “could command where she adored,” that is, was his employer; but, the letter went on, she simply asked instead that he do a number of things to demonstrate that he loved in return. The things he was asked to do, from wearing yellow stockings to being surly with the servants, were all calculated to irritate Olivia and get Malvolio in trouble. Steph read them out with a kind of greedy relish that ought not to have left much sympathy for Malvolio, but Gentian found herself getting more and more uneasy. After all, she thought, if you’re the kind of bonehead who thinks like Malvolio, but you don’t actually sexually harrass anybody, and then somebody writes you a letter like that, isn’t anything you do as much their fault as yours? No, that was simplistic. There was something else making her uncomfortable.

  They’re encouraging Malvolio’s faults, she thought. He has these faults and they’re encouraging him to indulge them when so far he really hasn’t, in the direction they’re pointing him. I know their idea is that he’ll come to grief through his own failings, but it seems dangerous to me. This is a comedy, so I guess nothing especially terrible will happen. But still. Maybe I just have no sense of humor?

  The scene with Malvolio reading Maria’s lying letter ended, and it was Gentian’s turn. The other Giant Ants took Sir Toby and Fabian and the officers. Erin’s Viola spoke faster than Becky’s, which threw Gentian off her stride at first, but she managed to say, “You mistake me, sir,” with the right air of innocent surprise, and to slow down with her monosyllables, and to deliver her rant with some genuine feeling. It was indeed a very strange sensation to look at Erin and think she knew her, but to find that Erin was really a stranger called Viola.

  Gentian said to the officers, “Lead me on,” in the tone of someone who has given up trying to account for the wickedness of the world, and sat down, faintly sweaty all over. Becky beamed at her. Steph nodded solemnly. Erin quirked her mouth. Alma jabbed her thumb up several times. I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you, thought Gentian in Malvolio’s words, and then blinked. Steph had certainly succeeded in getting her to look at matters through Malvolio’s eyes.

  Mrs. Morgan meanwhile had thanked them and sat looking through her notes. When even Steph had started to look edgy and worried, Mrs. Morgan said, still shuffling notes, “I don’t see any reason to keep you in suspense. I’ve already cast Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, and I think you all can take the roles you want. If you would like to find me a Sebastian and an Orsino, I’d be grateful. Otherwise, Gentian, you may have to be Sebastian and we’ll find somebody less accomplished for Antonio.”

  “I’d rather not,” said Gentian.

  “We’ll find a Sebastian,” said Steph.

  “I might still find one myself,” said Mrs. Morgan, hurriedly. “But if you have any ideas, come and see me.”

  They filed sedately out into the corridor, after which Steph threw her purse into the air and yelled, “Yeeeeehaaaa!” Alma joined her, and they hugged each other.

  “We didn’t try out for Paint Your Wagon,” said Erin. But she looked pleased too.

  Becky smiled at Gentian. �
�You’ll like it,” she said. “Really. Maybe they’ll give you boots and a sextant.”

  Chapter 16

  Gentian came home in a small glow of triumph and informed her family over dinner that she was going to be in the school production of Twelfth Night.

  “What about your astronomy?” said her mother.

  “How can you help with Dominic’s project if you’re rehearsing all the time?” said Rosemary.

  “Who are you playing?” said her father.

  “We don’t need Genny to help with the project,” said Juniper.

  “Have I got an Electra complex,” said Gentian bitterly, helping herself to salad, “or is Dad the only sensible person in this house?”

  “Taking your career choice seriously isn’t sensible?” said her mother.

  “Well, all right,” said Gentian, running her fork through the salad. She could tell that Rosemary had made it: it had no cucumber, no green pepper, no tomato, and a great many radishes. Her mother silently handed her a bowl of chopped tomato, green pepper, and red onion, and cocked one eyebrow to show she still wanted her original question answered.

  “I figured I’d do astronomy after ten,” said Gentian, “which is mostly a good time, and maybe miss school in the morning sometime.”

  “Mostly, I assume,” said her mother dryly.

  “The Giant Ants’ll let me look at their notes.”

  “Well, as long as you don’t start bringing home those oily communications from your counselor. I don’t know how so fundamentally sensible a school can countenance so much psychobabble.”

  “Will you come see me in the play?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Junie, weren’t you going to try out for something too?” said her father.

  Juniper took a deliberate bite of spaghetti, and chewed it with extreme thoroughness. All this got her, Gentian was pleased to see, was the complete attention of her entire family.

  “I decided against it,” said Juniper. “I think I’ll have better things to do next semester.”

  Rosemary caught Gentian’s eye and made a face of eloquent disgust. Their mother said, “Isn’t it about time we met this young man?”

  “In a while, Mom.”

  “Make it a short while, please,” said their father. “This uncharacteristic concealment of what would generally be regarded as a triumph makes me wonder what exactly is the matter with him.”

  “He’s got green hair,” said Rosemary.

  “He’s covered in tattoos,” said Gentian. “Inartistic ones,” she added, since tattoos, like green hair, were probably insufficiently shocking to her parents. She thought it over. “He can’t spell,” she said. “No, wait, he won’t spell. He says ‘you know’ after every phrase. He doesn’t read.”

  Juniper said, with remarkable control, “I have to prepare him for my bratty sisters. He’s an only child, lucky him.”

  “I don’t see any need to meet him at all,” said Rosemary, with dignity.

  “No, you and Amber will just lurk outside the door and giggle instead.”

  “You needn’t think that every time you hear us laughing we’re even thinking of you.”

  Gentian tried to frame a neat phrase about how laughable Juniper was, but by the time she had it right Juniper had left the table and Rosemary was arguing with her mother about whether she could get a tattoo.

  Gentian went upstairs feeling rather flattened. Her part was a small one, but the play would still take a great deal of work. It was, she supposed, as well to be in it, if she wanted to see much of the Giant Ants. She sat on the bed and rubbed Maria Mitchell under the chin, feeling dissatisfied. Maria Mitchell bit her gently on the wrist, and when she jumped, Murr bounded off the bed and galloped into the bathroom.

  Gentian followed and fed her. “Where do you put all that food?” she asked, rinsing the water dish and refilling it. “Have you got a family of homeless cats in the attic? Are you in league with Daddy?” Murr, crunching steadily, paid no attention. “Or is it really that long since I fed you?” Maybe she should put another feed cat sign right beside the telescope, or on the seat of her adjustable stool, or inside the book of star maps.

  She made three and put one in each spot. Murr returned and sat on the telescope stool to wash her face. Gentian decided to do her homework. Saturn would be up for a while yet.

  When she finally looked at it, the seeing was still not good, and the northern belts were still spotty. Gentian made a few silly jokes to herself about acne, and moved on to Orion. Last time she had looked at Betelgeuse, a red supergiant and a very old star; now she looked at Rigel, a blue-white giant and quite young. It was not as striking a color as Betelgeuse, but it was brilliant and beautiful. Gentian spent a little time finding Rigel B, the giant’s blue companion. Then she spent a long time trying to split the companion, since it was in fact a close binary. This had been confirmed by spectroscopic analysis, and seen by somebody with a six-inch telescope in 1878. But sometimes even huge modern telescopes could not split Rigel B. Gentian liked it for this, though she thought most astronomers must find it frustrating.

  When she had given up on dividing Rigel B, she looked at M42, the Great Nebula in Orion. It spread out hazily from the middle of Orion’s sword. Theta Orionis was a quadruple star, and even with Gentian’s telescope she could see the main star and three tiny ones below it, forming an irregular polygon called the Trapezium. People had reported various colors for the four stars. Gentian could imagine nearly any she read about; her favorite was Admiral Smyth’s “pale white, faint lilac, garnet, and reddish,” but she knew any redness was a result of contrast with the vast filmy nebula itself, for that was a thin elusive green. She traced it out slowly into the darkness; the longer you looked, the further the whorls and filaments spread against the dark and the light, and the deeper the whole object seemed. She tracked it as it moved east for a while, and then let Theta Orionis drift out of view so that she could trace the fainter and fainter tatters of gas out and out and out, until the vast glittering track of the Milky Way blazed into her startled eyes.

  It was late. She went to bed, still seeing against her closed lids the green wisps that were stars, coalescing.

  Wednesday was not only sunny, but warm, like spring rather than almost-winter. Gentian got to school in time for lunch, and for the unwelcome reminder by Steph that they were finishing up their Christmas shopping this afternoon.

  “Since it’s so warm,” Steph said, “we can just stay downtown. I want to go to the Museum Company.”

  “Okay,” said Gentian, a little mollified. The Museum Company was pricey, but she could look at its reproductions for hours. Steph could go off to every other store on the block and try on clothes till they closed, and Gentian would still be happy at the Museum Company.

  Gentian’s study group met that afternoon and plodded painfully through a few scenes of Act IV of Julius Caesar. Gentian was so appalled by the goings-on of the play that she scarcely noticed how her fellow students were fumbling their lines. Act IV opened with Antony, who was now, along with Octavius and Lepidus, in charge of Rome, poring over a list of people and deciding which of them should die. They traded them off as though they were dividing up a box of candy. Lepidus said his brother could die if Antony would consent to having Antony’s nephew killed too. Antony said, “With a spot I damn him.” Gentian had plenty of time to read footnotes while her study group struggled, and she read with astonished revulsion one that said Antony’s readiness to kill his nephew was supposed to contrast with Brutus’s reluctance, earlier in the play, to kill Antony himself. Since killing Antony himself would have assured the success of the conspiracy to kill Caesar and take over Rome, Brutus’s reluctance was seen by the commentator as a bad idea. Or, the note continued, maybe Shakespeare only wanted to show that Antony was a just and unsentimental man.

  Gentian almost choked on her tongue. If that’s unsentimental, she thought, give me the gooiest, rosiest sonnet Edna St. Vincent Millay ever wrote. What is wro
ng with these scholars? I’ll believe Shakespeare was that dimwitted when I get to the end of the play.

  After they had decided who should die, Lepidus went away, and Antony promptly said that Lepidus was a slight unmeritable man who had no business ruling a third of the world.

  Octavius said Antony had been ready enough to let Lepidus tell him who should die. Antony said he was older than Octavius, and explained that he was going to blame some of the nastier things they would be doing on Lepidus and then turn him out to pasture.

  Octavius said Lepidus was a tried and valiant soldier.

  Antony said that his horse was, too, and that he would treat Lepidus like a horse, adding that Lepidus had no new ideas. He then said that Brutus and Cassius were levying armies, and that they had better decide what to do about it.

  Octavius said they were bayed about with many enemies, and he feared that many that smiled had in their hearts millions of mischiefs.

  No shit! thought Gentian. What do you expect, you bonehead? Give me Brutus any day. Yeah, right, Brutus who stabbed his friend in the back. I’d trade the whole bunch of them for one paragraph of Jane Austen. She sat fuming and ignoring the rest of the reading, and finally escaped to her math class with an alacrity she did not often expend on that subject.

  By the time she met Steph on the front steps of the school, she was extremely sleepy. “I’ve got to have some tea,” she said. “I’m just dead.”

  “Too much astronomy?” said Steph. “We can stop at the bagel place.”

  Gentian got a large cup of tea with milk and sugar and a poppyseed bagel with chive cream cheese and a cup of vegetable soup, to fortify her for shopping. Steph had a cup of tea, black. Steph was worrying about the production of Twelfth Night and began talking about it while they were still standing in line. “I hope we didn’t overreach ourselves,” she said. “I didn’t realize the competition would be so thin. We need to find a Sebastian we like the look of. I wish you’d just agree to play him. We can find lots of Antonios.”