had done them all afternoon, racing down to:
“O that I were a glove upon thy hand, that I might touch that cheek.”
My turn. My line: “Ay me!”
I know, it sounds lame. But I said it like I wanted to die. Because that’s how Juliet feels right then. But had it been too much?
Bobby went on, “She speaks.”
Out in the auditorium, someone giggled.
Bobby continued.
“Oh, speak again, bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white upturned wond’ring eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.”
Me again. My first real line in the scene. The one everybody knows—usually wrong: “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?”
You probably thought Juliet was asking where Romeo is, right? Wrong. She has no idea he’s anywhere around. He’s just been thrown out of the party her father was giving. He’s gone. She’s asking why the guy’s name has to be Romeo, and the next lines make that clear.
“Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
“Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?” Bobby asked the invisible balcony where Juliet was supposed to be standing. Me:
“’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s a Montague?—”
“Thank you,” Mr. Gillinger said. Like he was saying “Thank you for shutting up now, please.”
“Auh?” I said. I was kind of surprised. That was an awfully short audition.
“Let’s see. Next. Vivian Brandstedt. Also Juliet, right?” Mr. Gillinger said.
I got down off the stage. I was done. I could leave. But I wanted to see what the rest of my competition looked like.
I went to the far back of the auditorium and moved into a corner seat.
Vivian Brandstedt slithered up onstage and began to play Juliet like she’d been the hottest babe in Verona. It was funny, except that Vivian really was a hot babe, so nobody thought it was funny but me. Certainly Bobby didn’t. He fluffed his lines twice. Of course, it was hard for him to talk with his tongue hanging out of his mouth like that.
Mr. Gillinger let Vivian go on all the way to the end of the scene. He even read the nurse’s offstage lines to keep the thing going to the point where Juliet says,
“Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
And Vivian wasn’t bad. She just read it like she was tossing Romeo down her panties and her room key.
Why, why, why hadn’t Mr. Gillinger let me read the whole scene? Was I that bad, or was I so good that he didn’t need to see any more of me? Or was Juliet pre-cast like Romeo?
There was a noise down at the end of the row and a shape came toward me. Drew Jenkins.
He sat down beside me and whispered, “You were good. You get it.”
Then he got up and went back down to the front row where he’d been.
I was absurdly grateful. Drew Jenkins, for reasons nobody could understand, was total BF best friends with Bobby Ruspoli, and if Drew liked me, maybe Bobby did, too. And maybe Bobby would say so to Mr. Gillinger and maybe—or maybe Drew had inside information. Maybe “You get it” meant “I just saw Gillinger’s notes. You’ve got the part,” not just “You get who Juliet is in this scene.” Or maybe Drew had some kind of weird hold over Mr. Gillinger and was going to make him cast me—Drew was kind of mysterious for a sixteen-year-old geek. He knew all kinds of things. Maybe he had something on Gillinger, like an old arrest for marrying his own ego.
I forced myself to stop thinking like that. I didn’t want the part because Bobby Ruspoli liked me, or even because Mr. Gillinger did (which would be amazing, since Mr. Gillinger thought he should be directing on Broadway and didn’t like anybody). I wanted to play Juliet because I was the best actor who read for it, not because some guy hanging out with some guy thought I was good.
Which is not to say I wouldn’t have taken the part under any conditions. Play Juliet in Swahili? I’ll learn it.
But if I wasn’t going to think about whether Drew’s opinion counted with Bobby and Bobby’s opinion counted with Mr. Gillinger, or whatever, what was I going to think about? I was going to think about why I hadn’t been allowed to finish the scene. Of course.
Had I said “Ay me,” too loudly, or not loudly enough? Had I sounded convincing when I said “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” Did I even sound like I knew what it meant? Yes, I had. No, I hadn’t. Yes, I—
He likes me, he likes me not. He likes me, he likes me not. That was what it came down to, and I couldn’t stop obsessing even though I knew it was all out of my hands.
Two more girls read for Juliet that afternoon. They were both awful. I’m not just saying that. They were awful. One read like she was reciting a recipe: “Take one part Romeo and one part Juliet and stir until done. Then separate and—”
And the other was total emo.
“O Romeo, Romeo WHY ART THOU CALLED ROMEO?”
(Which is not the line, right?)
“DENY thy father and REFUSE thy NAME;
Or if thou wilt NOT, be but sworn my LOVE,
And I’ll no LONGER BE A CAPULET.”
When she was done, and the stage was awash in her saliva, Mr. Gillinger stood up. He looked over the fifty or so of us sitting there, people from his drama classes, people from outside the high school who’d come down to read in the middle of the day—a half-hundred theater junkies, hanging on his every word.
He seemed to be enjoying it. I always thought this moment, when his opinion was the only thing that counted to a roomful of people, was the real reason Gillinger had decided to teach drama. Or maybe it was just the only reason he had left, after so many years of doing it. Anyway, I’d been watching him direct for a couple of years now and something about the set of his once-handsome head always said “God, I’m good.” He didn’t even need to open his mouth to be arrogant.
Gillinger sighed. “I’m not seeing what I want here. I’m not seeing what
