Edgar #2
I don’t want to live in this world, so close to Jules but unable to be with her. “We should break up.” The words burst out of me, so forceful I didn’t realize how hard I’d been working to hold them inside. “That way Jules and I could be together.”
Delilah narrows her eyes, and her voice drops. “Do you really think I want to be with you?”
I remember the way she looked at Oliver when I was still in the book and able to watch them together. Slowly I shake my head.
“You made your mother move here for me,” Delilah says. “And people are going to ask questions if you ditch me and the next day you’re dating my best friend. This isn’t forever. But it’s for now.”
I nod grimly. Then I slip my arm around her waist as if I actually like her, and we move down the hall in solidarity, if not in love.
Chess club is cancelled so we can be in homeroom for our guidance counselors to give us our SAT scores.
There goes my college career; my standardized test was taken by a guy whose knowledge consists of how to tame a dragon.
Once we are dismissed, I stand in front of my locker.
I take a deep sigh and prepare to open the envelope.
Before I can even peek at the score, however, another stranger comes running up to me. “Dude,” he says. “I got a 2280. I can totally work with that. I think if I have decent teacher recs, Harvard’s still an option.”
I frantically glance at him, looking for a clue to his name. Then I see it: on his backpack is a label reading RETURN TO RAJ PATEL.
“Raj,” I murmur.
“Yeah? Come on. Tell me your score already.”
“I haven’t even looked…but I was really out of it that day. It was almost like I wasn’t here….”
Raj grabs the envelope from my hand and pulls out the paper inside. “Edgar,” he breathes. “You are a god among men.”
“What?” I grab the printout and turn it toward me: 2400.
“You got a perfect score, man.”
My jaw drops. Oliver’s totally done me a solid.
Raj throws his arms around me. “Harvard 2020, dude! We could be roommates!”
He runs down the hall, sniffing out other students to compare scores with. I shake my head, still smiling a little. I wonder how on earth Oliver managed to pull that one off.
“Hey, Edgar,” a voice says—a voice I recognize, unfortunately. “I’m really glad I caught you.”
I turn to find Chris opening the locker beside mine. Of course we’re locker buddies. Who else would I want to see every morning but the guy who’s trying to make out with the girl I like?
“I want to talk to you about Jules.”
Can this get any better?
“What about her?” I ask tightly.
“She’s been really weird today. I mean, I thought everything went so well on Friday night—but now she kind of seems like she’s not interested.”
“Really?” I say, brightening. “Hey. You tried your best.”
“That’s the thing—I haven’t. I really think I can still turn this around. I just need another chance. She won’t turn me down if we go on another double date.”
“You want to go out with Delilah and me?”
“Yeah,” Chris says. “You guys are the perfect couple. Maybe it’ll rub off on her.”
The perfect couple, I think. Ha.
“So whaddya say?” Chris asks. “Minigolf? Today? After school?”
The last thing I want to do is watch this guy put his hands all over Jules again. But the first thing I want to do is spend more time with her.
“Can’t wait,” I tell him.
If it were the only activity left in the universe, I still wouldn’t join the drama club. I lurk near the door, hoping I won’t be noticed, but Ms. Pingree sees me and waves me forward with a beaming smile. “Ah, it’s our Romeo,” she trills. “Don’t be shy, Edgar!”
There is a gaggle of girls sitting in a semicircle on the stage; when I step into the light, they twitter like a brood of chicks. One girl sits off to the side, staring at her iPhone. When she glances at me, I smile, and I’m pretty sure she bares her teeth in response.
“As I was saying,” Ms. Pingree continues, “this is the most iconic scene in the play. What I’d like you all to channel is that moment you looked at a significant other and truly believed in love at first sight.
The minute you felt that the universe had been working all this time to bring you two together… ”
Uncomfortably I realize that every girl on that stage is staring at me as if I am food and she is starving. Suddenly I remember James’s dream.
If this is what it’s like to be a heartthrob, I think I preferred being anonymous.
“All right, let’s get to it.” Ms. Pingree hands out our scripts. “Romeo? Juliet? Center stage.”
Awkwardly I move into position, waiting alone in a circle of light. “Allie?” Ms. Pingree says. “There’s no Facebook in fair Verona.”
The mean girl gets to her feet. She comes closer, so close that I can see the sparkles flecked in her lip gloss. As soon as the teacher turns away, she stomps on my foot.
“Ouch!” I yelp.
“Sorry. I was aiming…higher.”
What did Oliver do to piss her off so badly?
“Any time you’re ready,” Ms. Pingree says.
I look at Allie and offer her a half smile as a truce. “I should warn you, I kind of suck at this.”
She narrows her eyes. “What don’t you suck at?”
Ms. Pingree clears her throat. “Now, remember, you two—you are in loooove. You lay eyes on each other and the stars collide! You complete each other!”
I pick up my script and stumble through Romeo’s lines. “Uh…‘Lady. By yonder blessed moon I swear / That tips with silver all these fruit-tree trops’…I mean, tops…” I glance up. “Who wrote this crap, anyway?”
Ms. Pingree’s face falls. “The Bard,” she whispers.
Allie snaps her gum. “ ‘O, swear not by the moon,’ ” she says flatly, “ ‘the unconstant moon…’ ”
“Inconstant,” Ms. Pingree corrects her. “As in something that’s changeable. What Juliet is worried about is that Romeo’s love might be fickle.”
“Reeeealllly,” Allie says, raising a brow. “Probably Juliet thought that he was going to kiss her and then humiliate her in the cafeteria in front of half the school.”
Ms. Pingree frowns. “That might be a stretch, but if it helps you get into character…”
Allie shoves me with both hands: I stumble backward as she shouts her next lines into my face. “ ‘…that monthly changes in her circled orb, / Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.’ ”
“You know,” Ms. Pingree says, “Juliet’s a little gentler in this scene….”
Allie rounds on her. “I think you’re wrong.
I think Juliet is pretty pissed that Romeo just blew her off.
Besides, she didn’t really like Romeo all that much.
It was just that he was new and more interesting than the hundreds of other lame guys fawning over her.
But what she’s really thinking is that Mercutio is way hotter than Romeo and he’s in college and drives a vintage Mustang! ”
I stare at her, speechless. I don’t know if I’m supposed to bow in submission or call the local asylum and have her committed.
“You know what?” Allie shouts. “I can’t work with idiots. I quit.” She hurls her script at a mousy girl wearing a sweatshirt with a glittery cat on it. “Break a leg, losers.” Her high heels click the entire way out of the auditorium as she leaves in a fit of perfume and fury.
Ms. Pingree looks like she’s about to throw up. Her hands flutter at her sides.
“Um, does that mean we can leave?” I ask.
“No, no,” she says after a moment. “The show must go on….Claire, you’ll be our new Juliet.”
The girl with the cat sweatshirt scrambles to her feet, standing too close to me and breathing heavily. Her braces catch the stage lights when she smiles. “Let’s start at the kiss,” she suggests, and she throws her arms around me and plants a wet, slobbery one on my lips.
He just had to join the drama club, didn’t he.
Last year in school I took a Greek mythology course.
There’s a story about Tantalus, a guy who pissed the gods off so much that he was cursed to the deepest level of hell, stuck in a pool of water with a fruit tree hanging overhead.
But every time he reached for the fruit, the branch would move out of his grasp.
And every time he tried to take a drink, the water receded.
So basically, he was surrounded by everything he wanted and needed but couldn’t have.
That’s exactly the hell I’m in on this double date.
I’ve never really been a fan of miniature golf. For some reason the courses always seem to be cracked or sloped weirdly or are full of kids throwing tantrums. Not even Tiger Woods could get a hole in one.
I’m the only person here, though, who even seems to care about the inaccuracies on the course or the fact that the water in the windmill pond at hole number 5 is a frightening, toxic green.
Delilah hasn’t smiled once, and is dragging her club around like it’s a ball and chain.
Jules, who considers sports to be one of the great downfalls of modern society, is doodling on the scorecard.
Chris, on the other hand, seems able to golf below par when he’s not even looking.
Which is entirely the case, since his eyes are glued to Jules’s butt.
“I can’t believe we have nine more holes,” Delilah says.
“Your enthusiasm, sweetheart, overwhelms me.” I grab her arm and lower my voice. “You’re the one who said we’re supposed to act like a couple.”
She sighs and holds my hand with about as much romantic intent as a nurse taking a patient’s pulse.
“I think it’s your turn,” Chris says to Jules.
She steps up to the tee, wiggling her hips as she tries to line up her ball. “Ugh,” she says. “I know I’m never going to get it in.”
“Here…let me help.” Chris puts down his club and walks over, fitting himself tightly behind her and sliding his hands down to her wrists.
“Ouch,” Delilah says, and I realize I’ve got her hand in a death grip.
“It’s all in the swing,” Chris continues, swaying back and forth with Jules in his arms.
Dammit—she giggles.
I can’t stand here and watch this. It feels like my head is going to explode. And it doesn’t really help matters to know that Jules is doing nothing in her power to stop this.