Playing Juliet Read online

  “That would be so perfect,” Zandy said. Even though she was still whispering, I could hear the excitement in her voice. And then she added in the most despairing tone, “What if it’s sold out for next week?”

  “Tell Mrs. Mac. She’ll get him in somehow, even if he has to usher.”

  Zandy giggled softly. “It could work,” she said. “But what if . . .” She answered her own question. “Even if the theater is going to close, it won’t happen by next week.”

  “Yeah.” This time I was the one sounding sad.

  “What did Mrs. Mac tell you?”

  I squirmed uncomfortably on the floor. “Nothing.”

  “You did go see her, right?”

  “Yes.” Thank goodness I could at least say that. “But her door was closed.”

  “Closed?”

  We both sat in silence for a long moment.

  “Wow,” said Zandy. She reached down and squeezed my shoulder. “We’ll both go see Mrs. Mac tomorrow and ask her what’s going on.” She started counting off her morning on her fingers. “Eight o’clock, Dad. Nine-thirty, vocal lesson. Eleven o’clock, tennis. Can you meet me at twelve-thirty in the lobby?”

  “Sure.”

  I could feel the tension drain out of my body. Zandy had taken charge. She was so good at getting things done. She’d talk to Mrs. Mac and find out what was making everyone so jumpy.

  But something she’d said . . .

  “Eight o’clock, Dad?” I asked.

  “My father didn’t know his schedule so he’s going to phone again in the morning.” Zandy said. “I’ll ask him to go to Cinderella! then.”

  She rolled over on her back once more and the twirling began again, but this time slower, more peacefully.

  When you’re sitting in the dark and you can’t see who you’re talking to, you can say things you’d never say otherwise.

  “My mother said I spend too much time at the theater.” My voice broke slightly.

  There was a long silence as the twirling grew faster. Finally she let out a sigh. “I don’t know what you’d do if it closed.”

  “You’d miss it as much as I would.”

  “I’ve got my voice lessons. I could still sing at recitals and stuff.” Zandy leaned over the edge of the bed. “Have you told your parents you want to be an actor when you grow up?”

  No, I’d never said that.

  Ever.

  Except to myself and to the photograph of Juliet hanging on the wall of the lobby.

  I started to once. In third grade, Mrs. Warren asked the whole class what we wanted to be when we grew up. I knew I wanted to be an actor, but I’d never even gotten a callback. So I searched my brain frantically. What other jobs were there?

  “Maybe an archeologist,” I said. “Or a lawyer, like my dad.”

  A friend of my mother’s was volunteering in my classroom that day. As soon as she got home, she called my mom to tell her about the “charming” thing I’d said in class.

  No one ever mentioned archeology to me. But boy, did I hear about becoming a lawyer. My dad beamed at me all through dinner that night. I couldn’t tell him I only said I wanted to be a lawyer so no one would laugh at me. I figured he’d forget about it in a few weeks. Not my dad.

  I know he thinks his work is exciting, but when he talks about it, it sounds like he’s always working with really unhappy people. I don’t want to do that all my life. But if I told him the truth, he’d be hurt and disappointed. So I’ve never said anything.

  How could Zandy ask me if I’d told my parents?

  “I’ve got to go.”

  I started to get up but Zandy reached out a hand and pushed me back down. “No one at the theater ever talks about becoming an actor because it’s so hard to make it,” she whispered. “I know we’re supposed to be doing theater just for fun. But we all know there are a few kids who could go on and become professionals. Like Emily Chang.”

  I nodded and leaned back against the wall. Emily was not only a good actress—she was a triple threat: she sang and danced, too.

  “You know people are starting to talk about you,” Zandy continued.

  Even with a full moon, there wasn’t enough light in the room for Zandy to see how deeply I was blushing.

  “Your parents can’t help you if they don’t know what you want.” Zandy sounded worried.

  “They’re not that thrilled about me acting right now. If I told them I wanted to become a professional, they’d go ballistic.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. I could feel the bed move with total conviction. “If they knew you really wanted it, they’d help you.”

  I was smiling when I climbed out of Zandy’s window. She always made me feel better.

  That smile would have lasted all the way home if I’d remembered to put the leather gloves back on. When I reached for the first bar of the trellis, I grabbed the rose vine growing behind it, hard, and pushed a thorn deep into my thumb. I couldn’t cry out, but the pain was so sharp, my thumb throbbed all the way home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Wilt thou spit all thyself?

  Shakespeare’s Pericles

  I overslept Saturday morning, but I joined my family at the kitchen table before I biked over to the theater. My parents won’t let me out of the house if I don’t eat first.

  “Tuna fish sandwiches for breakfast? Interesting choice,” I said politely as I sat down.

  “Some people eat lunch at noon.” My mother looked up from her newspaper and glanced at the clock. “But you’re welcome to fix yourself something else.”

  “Tuna’s SEE FOOD,” said R. J., opening his mouth to reveal a half-chewed glob.

  I decided to have the tuna anyway.

  Mom was talking half to my dad and half to the newspaper, so I was mostly concentrating on peeling the crusts off my bread when I heard her gasp. Mom is a very noisy newspaper reader but this was loud even for her.

  “Did you see how much that house on Brighton Street sold for? The one just down the street from the theater?” she asked.

  She passed the paper to my dad. He looked at it and whistled. “Anything for sale in that part of town is worth a small fortune.”

  I rolled one of my crusts up into a wheel before I asked, “How much would the theater sell for?”

  Dad laughed. “A very big fortune! That’s some of the most expensive land in the state.”

  “You children are lucky to have it,” Mom said. “It’s so beautifully landscaped.”

  My mother has to be the only person in the world who thinks the most important part of a theater is the plants that grow outside it.

  I rubbed the small dark scab on my right thumb. It wasn’t bleeding anymore but it still throbbed.

  By the pricking of my thumbs,

  Something wicked this way comes

  “I’ve been thinking,” I said quietly. “I may want to see what I can do besides acting at the Children’s Theater.”

  My mother smiled one of her aren’t-we-proud smiles at my dad. He smiled back as though he understood something she hadn’t said yet.

  “We thought you might want to try some new activities now that you’re almost a teenager,” she said.

  Was it going to be this easy?

  “I know a kid at the theater . . .” I started. My mother smiled again and nodded at me to continue. “She takes acting lessons in San Francisco, and I thought I might do that.”

  “Acting lessons? In The City?” By the tone of her voice, you’d think I’d said I wanted to poison the school drinking fountains or ride without a seat belt. “That’s an hour’s drive from here! How would you ever get there?”

  My mother snapped her paper shut, got up, and began to clear the plates from the table. “That’s just silly,” she said in a tight voice.

  My father turned his chair so he was looking straight into my eyes.

  “Beth,” he said in the persuasive, understanding tone he uses when he’s practicing talking to a jury. “We’ve encouraged
you to enjoy acting because it helps you build important skills—confidence, the ability to speak in front of people . . .”

  “That means they think you’re too shy,” piped up R. J.

  The kid’s annoying even without a mouthful of tuna mush.

  My father glanced at him in annoyance, but then he swiveled back to me again.

  “If you ever become a lawyer,” Dad continued earnestly, “all that practice speaking in front of people will be invaluable. But studying acting in The City is for someone who wants to become a professional actor.”

  He looked like he expected me to say something, but I didn’t. So he spelled it out for me. “Acting’s not that important to you, Scooter. It’s just for fun.”

  I took a bite of sandwich and chewed it very slowly. I didn’t taste anything. I didn’t say anything, either.

  “It’s impossible,” said my mother. “It’s too far away.”

  You can always tell how upset Mom is by the amount of noise she makes. The dishes clinking showed she was at her unhappy-with-the-idea-but-not-taking-it-too-seriously level. When she’s really upset, it gets much louder.

  “And you don’t need to go anywhere else to get the chance to act,” she continued. She was smiling again and the dishes slipped quietly into the dishwasher. “You have the Children’s Theater.”

  I couldn’t finish my sandwich.

  My bike clipped the edge of the large wooden sign that read LUCILLE BOW MEMORIAL PARK as I turned into the rack. The poor sign had been nicked so many times the right corner was worn away at the bottom. I always felt bad when I knocked into it. Lucille Bow was the person who gave all the money to build the Children’s Theater zillions of years ago. It seemed ungrateful to run into her name.

  Zandy was waiting for me in the lobby, sitting slumped against the far wall as though her bulging backpack had pulled her down to the ground. The handle of her tennis racket stuck out right over her head.

  “You look like a unicorn,” I said, sliding down the wall to join her. “Did you get a ticket for your dad?”

  “He won’t need it.” Zandy’s head was resting on her legs, so her voice sounded a bit mumbly.

  “Your dad’s going to usher?”

  “My father can only manage to see me for one day,” Zandy said, very clearly this time. “Sunday.”

  Our theater’s dark on Sundays.

  Zandy looked up, staring at the dust motes dancing in the beam of sunlight that shone through the window by the door.

  “I asked him to come tonight or next week but he can’t change his schedule,” she said to the dust motes.

  “Has he ever seen you perform?” I asked. I shouldn’t have.

  “No. Never.”

  She stood up, held her arm out as if she had a tennis racket in her hand, and took a couple of powerful swings at the floating dust. Then her arm dropped, defeated, to her side.

  I stood up, too, because I didn’t know what else to do. We were both staring at the dust motes.

  “Beth,” Zandy hesitated, then spoke very quickly. “My dad wants to take me out for lunch tomorrow. He said I could bring a friend. Do you want to come with me?”

  This did not sound like fun. But Zandy had helped me practice for every audition until I was finally cast in a play. She’s been my best friend for a long, long time.

  “I’d love to,” I said. “I love eating in fancy restaurants.” At least the second part was true.

  “Thanks.” She gave me a wobbly smile.

  We stood there for a while, not speaking.

  “So, you want to go ask Mrs. Mac about the theater closing?” I finally said.

  “Why bother?” said Zandy bitterly. “There’s nothing we can do about it. We’re just kids. No one cares what we think about anything.”

  She took another couple of swings with her imaginary racket.

  But she followed me down the hallway to Mrs. Mac’s office.

  The door was open. We knocked anyway.

  “Come in,” a voice called.

  We could barely see Mrs. Mac at first. She’s kind of short, and she’s usually hidden behind the mounds of scripts and scores and programs covering her desk. I don’t know how she always knows where everything is, but she does.

  Her head popped out around a pile of fabric samples. As always, two or three pencils were stuck in her thick black hair. She raised a hand in greeting and the samples started to lean perilously to one side. She caught them just before they tipped over.

  “The play went well last night,” she said, nodding at the small TV screen mounted on the wall above her desk. She watches every performance in her office.

  We nodded back. It could have been a bobblehead convention.

  Zandy took a breath, but I was so afraid to hear the answer to the question that she was about to ask, I blurted out something totally different. “I quoted a line from the Scottish play last night. In the dressing room.”

  Zandy looked at me, puzzled, but Mrs. Mac frowned, pulled a pencil out of her hair, and tapped it in her hand.

  “You believe in theater superstitions?”

  “I guess.” I looked down at the floor, embarrassed. I’ve been reading about them since I was ten and my mom started letting me surf the internet by myself. Dozens of sites warn you about the Scottish play, carrying a peacock feather onstage, or singing “Three Blind Mice” anywhere in the theater. I’ve read “13 Superstitions Every Theater Kid Should Know” so many times I think I’ve memorized it.

  Mrs. Mac set the pencil down on her desk carefully. “Some of the superstitions are based on common sense. It was unlucky to whistle in a theater when retired sailors ran the rope gallery that controlled everything hanging over the stage. They communicated by whistles just like they did onboard ship. The wrong whistle and the scenery could come crashing down on your head.” She looked at me directly. “But no sailors work backstage here.”

  “I know it’s silly to worry.” I glanced down at the floor, unable to meet her eyes. I felt like such a geek.

  “What’s silly is to worry without doing anything about it.” She picked up the pencil and stuck it back in her hair. “If you believe in the jinx, you must believe in the cure. For a mention of the Scottish play, the speaker is supposed to go outside.” She pointed to the door in her office that opened to the sidewalk. “Turn around three times and . . .” she paused for a long moment, as though she were unsure of what came next, then asked, “did you say the name?”

  I shook my head. “I just quoted a line.”

  “So three turns should be enough. Widdershins,” she added. “Counterclockwise.”

  I waited to hear the rest but all she said was, “Then knock on the door and beg to be let back in.”

  “That’s all?” I asked.

  She nodded, so I went outside, turned around three times, knocked on the door, and said, “Please, please, let me in.” Zandy opened it for me and I stepped back into the office.

  “That should lift the jinx,” said Mrs. Mac, rescuing the pile of fabric samples from falling one more time. “Now, is there anything else that’s troubling you?”

  You could tell from her voice that she expected us to leave.

  But we were there on a mission. Zandy looked at me hesitantly, then said, “We heard a rumor that the theater is closing.”

  Mrs. Mac didn’t answer immediately, so I prompted her. “That’s totally false, isn’t it?” My voice rose on the last word.

  “Not totally,” Mrs. Mac said finally. She pulled another pencil out of her hair. Two taps on her desk, and she pointed it at the door to the hallway.

  “Would you please close the door, Beth?” she said.

  My stomach flopped. Mrs. Mac was supposed to deny the theater was closing. Ever.

  I walked over, pushed the door slowly until I heard the latch click, then dragged my way back as if I was walking to my own execution.

  Mrs. Mac slid the pencil back in her hair and waved her hand at two photographs hanging on the right wa
ll.

  “You know Lucille Bow built the Children’s Theater almost fifty years ago?”

  Of course. We both looked at the pictures. One showed Mrs. Bow standing with a bouquet at the curtain call for Romeo and Juliet. In the other she was seated among a sea of kids in the front row of the audience. In both shots she was wearing a fur stole and a little hat with a big veil. “She built it for the children of this city, but she didn’t give the building to us. We rent it from her,” Mrs. Mac went on.

  “Didn’t Mrs. Bow die a long time ago?” I asked at the same time as Zandy said, “Is the rent very expensive?”

  Mrs. Mac smiled and answered us both. “She died about twenty-five years ago and her nephew inherited the lease. He wasn’t very interested in us but we continued to pay our rent to him.” She turned to Zandy. “It’s only a peppercorn rent.”

  “Peppercorn?”

  I’d just refilled our pepper grinder about a week ago. Either I hadn’t heard correctly or I could pay the theater’s rent for the next hundred years and my mom wouldn’t even notice.

  “A peppercorn rent means someone pays a very small amount. It could be one peppercorn,” said Mrs. Mac. “In our case, it’s a dollar a year.”

  “Then why does anybody think the theater is closing?” Zandy asked, grabbing the stack of samples that were threatening to topple off the desk once more.

  Mrs. Mac took the pile from Zandy and placed it on the floor. “We have a fifty-year lease,” she said as she straightened back up. “But it was signed over forty-nine years ago. It expires in six months, at the end of September.”

  “Can’t we get a new one?” Zandy and I spoke almost simultaneously.

  Mrs. Mac smiled. “The city is working on getting it renewed,” she said. “It’s taking longer because Edward Fredericks died just before he was going to sign the new lease. Then his widow inherited the theater.” She looked down at her desk, picked up a yellow pencil, and put it down again before she leaned back in her chair. “Mrs. Fredericks may not have signed the lease yet, but the city expects that it will all be settled in a few weeks. I’ve talked to her,” she added. “And you’ll be happy to know she loves theater, asked lots of questions about ours, and is planning to visit us very soon.”