Playing Juliet Read online

  Copyright © 2015 by JoAnne Stewart Wetzel

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-183-5

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-929-9

  Cover design by Sarah Brody

  Cover image credit Thinkstock

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Jillian, Scott, and Graham,

  who trod the boards

  PROLOGUE

  The actors are at hand and by their show

  You shall know all that you are like to know.

  Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  There’s a play by William Shakespeare that’s so unlucky, no actor ever says the title out loud. They call it the Scottish play if they have to refer to it at all. For the past few weeks, two lines from that play have been running through my head, over and over again. To make it even worse, they’re spoken by a witch:

  By the pricking of my thumbs,

  Something wicked this way comes

  I shivered as I walked into the theater. Why did those lines keep coming back to me?

  The lobby looked perfectly normal for six o’clock on a rainy Friday night. A trail of wet footprints led across the red tile floor. I followed their damp path, took a program for Cinderella! from the tottering stack on top of the ticket stand, opened it to the third page, and ran my finger slowly down the cast list. The actors and the roles they play were listed in order of appearance. I found my name about a quarter of the way down:

  CAT. . . . . . . . . . . .BETH SONDQUIST

  My biggest part yet. Twenty-eight lines and a solo! Suddenly, I felt fine. And I knew why those gloomy lines from Shakespeare had popped into my head—just part of my usual opening night jitters.

  Cinderella! is my twelfth play. Not bad for someone who’s twelve-and-a-half. One of these days I might even be able to call myself an actor.

  I put the program in my backpack and glanced around casually to make sure no one else was in the lobby. Then I walked over to the back wall where a photograph was hanging slightly crooked against the redwood paneling. I straightened it and looked around one more time.

  The only people in sight were the teenage couple in the picture, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes. They’d been staring like that for almost fifty years. A brass sign on the frame read:

  ROMEO AND JULIET

  FIRST PLAY

  OAKFIELD CHILDREN’S THEATER

  I touched the last word in the first line.

  “Someday,” I whispered, and headed for the dressing room.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Pins and poking-sticks of steel,

  What maids lack from head to heel

  Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale

  This place is crawling with mice,” whispered the back of the Horse.

  I smiled in the darkness. Both the front and back of the Horse, six little Mice and I were all squeezed together in the left wing of the stage, waiting for our entrance.

  The stage manager said, “Cue one, go!” softly into his headset. The audience lights dimmed as the opening music to Cinderella! began. The back of the Horse bent over and gripped the waist of the front of the Horse. Since only the front of the Horse gets to speak, they switch places for every performance. The tallest Mouse adjusted the saddle blanket covering the line where their costumes overlapped. And the smallest Mouse, Molly, clenched her hands into fists and stared down at the floor.

  This was her first play.

  All the Mice wear bright pink circles outlined in black on the end of their noses. When Molly was putting on her makeup, I saw her clean off that circle and redraw it at least four times. I leaned over to her and whispered, “Great nose,” circling my finger over the tip of my own. She looked up, smiled, and took a step toward me.

  “Break a leg,” she said softly.

  Before I could return with a “Break a leg” of my own, Molly raised her voice. “I remembered it’s bad luck to say, ‘Good luck.’”

  “Shh! The audience can hear. We don’t want anything to go wrong on opening night.”

  And as soon as I said it, I realized that something was already wrong.

  “You’re standing on my tail!” I whispered, pointing frantically to where my fluffy fur tail was trapped under her black ballet slipper. In the dim backstage light, she couldn’t see what the problem was.

  “You’re standing on my tail!” I whispered even louder.

  A surge of music drowned out my voice.

  Molly stepped closer to hear what I was trying to tell her. Her other foot landed on my tail just as I tried to pantomime the problem by giving it a little jerk. The music paused and we both heard the rip as the tail came off in my hand.

  “Beth, what are you going to do?” Molly sounded terrified.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, patting her shoulder. “The stage manager always has safety pins for costume emergencies.”

  I managed not to step on anyone else’s tail as I backed out of the crowd of animals and headed for the dim blue light on Austin’s desk.

  Austin Santiago, the stage manager, was dressed in black, like all the crew members. He sat hunched over a copy of the script, talking softly into his headset, his dark hair sticking straight up as if it were standing at attention.

  I waved my tail in front of him until I got his attention and mouthed, “Emergency repair.”

  “What are you doing here?” Austin asked. “Actors are supposed to stay in the dressing room until it’s time for their entrance.”

  Busted! Now there was no way I could finish watching this play from the wings. Austin would be on the lookout for me. He ran a tight backstage. Austin’s only fourteen, which is young to be a stage manager, even at our theater, but he’s really good at his job.

  He picked up a battered black box from his desk, shook it, frowned, then looked into it.

  “Empty?” he said. “I thought I checked last night.” He looked into it again. “Not a single pin.”

  “I’ll run down to the costume shop and bring some back.”

  Austin nodded and turned his attention to an urgent voice speaking through his headset. I left him to deal with his next emergency, glancing at the clock on his desk as I left. I only had fifteen minutes until my entrance.

  “Emergency repair,” I called as I entered the costume shop.

  No one was there.

  Our costume mistress, Mrs. Lester, was probably in the rack room. I stepped around the huge cutting table that ran down the middle of the room, opened the door, poked my head in, and called again. “Emergency repair!”

  No one. Just thousands of costumes hanging silently on the racks.

  Where was she? I ran over to the cutting table and grabbed the safety pin box.

&n
bsp; Empty.

  I looked on the table, on the floor. Not a safety pin to be seen. I glanced up at the monitor. The opening music was still playing. I had a little time left.

  Actors don’t fix their own costumes when the play is running, but I was out of options. Thank goodness I was wearing a leotard underneath. I stepped out of my black fur suit and headed for the line of sewing machines that sat against the rear wall.

  I turned my costume inside out and slid the tail between the thick fabric. I locked it in place under the needle, sewed the tail and the ripped seam together with a careful line of stitches, reversed, and sewed back over it.

  Stacks of boxes stretched from floor to ceiling on the wall to my right. I glanced at the labels on the top row. ANGEL WINGS, COWBOY HATS, FAUN EARS, TURBANS. I looked away quickly. Usually when I work down here, I try to make up a play that includes all the items stored on one shelf, but I had no time to waste.

  I reversed once more and sewed another line. That should keep it together practically forever, I thought.

  I pulled the cat suit out of the machine and started to turn it right-side out. That was when I realized that the tail was on the inside.

  I’d sewn it in backwards.

  Three times.

  To keep it together practically forever.

  I glanced up at the monitor that showed the stage. The performance had started. I had less than ten minutes until my entrance. I grabbed a pair of scissors and started to pick out the stitches. I was still tugging at the stubborn threads when the door to the shop opened.

  Relief flooded through me as Mrs. Lester appeared, carrying a large bolt of red felt. As always, her graying blonde hair was escaping from her ponytail and six or seven straight pins were stuck haphazardly in the front of her sweater. She started when she saw me sitting there in my tights and dumped the felt on the cutting table.

  “Beth!” she exclaimed. “Shouldn’t you be onstage?”

  “I need help,” I said and held up the mess I’d made.

  She took one look, picked up the pair of scissors I’d put down, and cut off the tail. Then she pulled a threaded needle from her sweater and started sewing. She paused for a moment to glance up at the monitor showing the stage.

  I did, too. About six minutes left.

  “Why on Earth didn’t you pin it?” she asked.

  “All the safety pins are missing,” I said. “The stage manager doesn’t have any, and I couldn’t find a single one down here.”

  Mrs. Lester shook her head but kept on stitching. “I’ve had so much on my mind. I must have forgotten to order new ones. Check the pincushion on the right-hand side of my desk. I think there’s enough there for the stage manager.”

  I hurried over to her tiny office. It was crammed as full as the rest of the shop, but I saw what I needed immediately. A giant red pincushion, dangling a long chain of safety pins, sat on a magazine in the middle of her desk.

  As I picked it up, I glanced down at the page it held open. Big black lettering across the top screamed EMPLOYMENT. About five ads, all for a costume mistress, were heavily circled in red. Two had stars drawn next to them.

  I was staring so hard, I didn’t realize Mrs. Lester had come in the room until I heard a sharp intake of breath. She reached over my shoulder, grabbed the magazine, and held it behind her back as she handed me my mended costume.

  By the time I’d zipped it up, the magazine had disappeared and Mrs. Lester was looking at me anxiously.

  “I don’t want you to worry,” she said. “No matter what you’ve heard.”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I didn’t know what she was talking about.

  My silence must have worried Mrs. Lester because she leaned toward me and kept speaking, obviously trying to reassure me. “This theater is not going to close.”

  “Close?” I could barely say the word. Those lines from the Scottish play were running through my head again.

  By the pricking of my thumbs . . .

  Mrs. Lester looked at me sharply. “You haven’t heard that the theater is closing?”

  I shook my head and tried to speak, but she wouldn’t let me.

  “It’s only a rumor, nothing to worry about. I won’t say anything else. Don’t ask me about it.” And she glanced up at the monitor and said the only thing guaranteed to stop me from asking any more questions: “If you don’t leave right now, you’re going to miss your entrance.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Here is that

  which will give language to you, cat: open

  your mouth; this will shake your shaking

  Shakespeare’s The Tempest

  I stared at her for a moment in bewilderment, then grabbed the pins and ran up the stairs. I couldn’t stop to think about what I’d just heard.

  Sometimes people outside the theater say, “The show must go on!” like it’s some kind of joke. It isn’t. It’s the most important thing of all. I had to become a cat and make people laugh before I could think.

  Or panic.

  The music for the Frog’s dance was just ending as I reached the wings. Austin gave me a thumbs-up sign when I dropped the pins on his desk, then started to cue the lights for my entrance.

  I walked over to the curtains masking the side of the stage, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly, clearing my mind of everything that had just happened. Cat, I thought as I waited for the applause for the Frog to die down. As Cat, I could do things I’d never be able to do in real life. Cat.

  I sauntered slowly onstage into the glare of the lights, swinging my tail, and said my first lines as though nothing had happened: “Here Parmesan, here Mozzarella, here Cheddar!

  Come out little mice. Let’s play Lunch.

  You can be It.”

  While I’m upstage trying to catch a Mouse, Cinderella is downstage, being kind to an ugly Old Hag who’s really her fairy godmother in disguise. My best friend, Zandy Russell, is the Old Hag. She’s got a great voice, so she gets all the big parts—like the Fairy Godmother—that call for someone who can really sing.

  The script calls for us to exit at the same time. Zandy leaves by climbing down one of the trap doors in the floor of the stage. To the audience, it looks like she’s disappearing magically because her exit is covered by a big cloud of violet smoke.

  When the technical rehearsal began and all the special effects rolled out, I realized the Cat was running offstage because she was scared silly by that big purple cloud. So I showed her fear. The director liked what I was doing so much she encouraged me to work up the action even more. Now I’m onstage alone for almost a full minute after Zandy leaves. Tonight was the first real test of how well I could act without lines.

  The audience started laughing when I jumped in fright at the smoke, kept laughing as I tried to run away from it, then started to clap, still laughing, as I slowly slunk off the stage.

  That applause was just for me.

  The prop master was standing in the wings, waiting to hand Cinderella a tray stacked with dirty dishes. He held his thumb up and grinned.

  “Cin-der-elllll-a,” the Stepmother called from the wings. But the laughter was still so loud she had to wait and call again.

  I stopped to listen until the laughter died down.

  Emily Chang, who plays Cinderella, came offstage in answer to the Stepmother’s call. She leaned over and whispered, “Good job,” before she picked up a tray from the props table and went back on. On the other side of the stage, Austin gave me a small salute from the stage manager’s desk.

  I floated all the way to the dressing room.

  I opened the door and took a deep whiff of the familiar odor: makeup and old socks. It smelled wonderful.

  Zandy sat at one end of the makeup table that ran the length of the room. She waved at my reflection in the mirror, pointed at the chair next to her, and went back to tucking her dark brown hair under a headband. No matter how big a part she’s had, Zandy’s always been my best friend.

  The two high sch
ool girls who play the Ugly Stepsisters, Pam Thompson and Tina Peers, were doing their homework at the other end of the table. Pam wore a lime green dress, a purple wig, and a huge fake nose. Tina was in shocking pink with blue hair. She reached up and scratched her nose carefully around the big wart, which matched the color of her wig.

  I shook my head in sympathy as I watched them.

  All that homework!

  I wasn’t looking forward to high school. I hated to think of doing math problems in the dressing room whenever I was offstage.

  And then I remembered . . . that rumor Mrs. Lester had talked about. If it was true, our theater could be closed by the time I was in high school. I shook my head again to clear away that ridiculous thought. The Oakfield Children’s Theater couldn’t close. It had been here forever. Though why would Mrs. Lester be looking for a new job if the theater wasn’t closing?

  By the pricking of my thumbs . . .

  This time I knew the lines from the Scottish play had nothing to do with stage fright. Something wicked was threatening my theater. I needed to talk to Zandy.

  “I beat you back, E-lizzy-beth,” she said as I sat down beside her.

  She dug a big white glop out of a jar of cold cream. As she smeared it on her face, the wrinkle lines of her Old Hag makeup melted into gray circles. She picked up a tissue and began wiping the goop off one cheek.

  Some of the little Mice were playing a game under the costume racks. The last thing I wanted was for one of them to overhear me and start to worry. So I leaned over close to Zandy, but even then I couldn’t bring myself to put what I’d heard into words.

  Zandy had gone through three tissues before I spoke.

  “Mrs. Lester’s looking for a new job,” I said softly.

  “Rats.” She finished mopping the last bit of cold cream off her face. “We’ll miss her.”

  She wet a sponge and smoothed the base for her Fairy Godmother makeup on her right cheek.

  “Zandy . . .” I glanced at my reflection and broke off. The painted whiskers on my cheeks wiggled earnestly every time I spoke. A strand of my hair had escaped, its light blonde color standing out against the black fur of the Cat’s headdress. I tucked it back in and realized Zandy was staring at my face in the mirror, too.