Chapter Thirty-Nine – Harley
Even though she was out of sight, the applause and catcalls at the conclusion of her song lifted Harley’s spirits. She wasn’t sure which of her family members sat in the audience.
She’d been so scared when she got the text to hide. If Nardo got to her…she didn’t want to imagine. Rory stayed at her side until Daddy arrived. That was when he explained Mr. Ned Grevenberg went by a new name: Deader than Dead Fuckberg.
Shocking, but more relieving than Harley ever expected. Then, Daddy said she’d have to suffer Nardo through the play so CJ and his brothers wouldn’t get in trouble. She’d agreed. For weeks, she’d pretended everything was fine. She could suffer one more night.
She regretted Nardo was under eighteen. Daddy promised he’d send him away after tonight and told her not to worry about Nardo ever bothering her again.
Now, after her triumphant opening song, she sat in the little room Ms. Mendez gave to her as ‘the leading lady’, psyching herself up.
Honestly, she’d been a little disappointed when she didn’t see CJ after she finished the opening number, but backstage must’ve bored him so he’d taken his seat in the audience.
Harley also wondered if Mommie decided to come, though she doubted it after her drunken accusations about Daddy and Aunt Kendall having an affair. Harley hoped it wasn’t true, but life was strange and, after the past few months, it wouldn’t surprise her.
Her biggest hope was that everyone found peace and happiness.
Mommie and Daddy made each other so unhappy nowadays and Uncle Johnnie was just mean and miserable.
Daddy and Aunt Kendall together wasn’t the worst turn of events in Harley’s estimation, although she could never admit that to her mother. It would hurt her too much.
If her father was around, maybe she’d tell him there were rumors floating around the club and see his reaction. Unfortunately, Daddy had left Harley with Aunt Zoann and she hadn’t seen him since. The best surprise of the evening was CJ backstage.
Although Harley wished he’d auditioned, he probably would’ve changed classes, especially if Nardo had gotten the role of Mercutio and insisted on rewriting the script.
The play had gone through so many iterations, it had frustrated her.
She’d auditioned to play the classic role.
Nardo convinced Ms. Mendez to turn it into a hip-hop adaptation.
Now, it was a hybrid of everything, but Harley fought for some of the more famous lines to remain as is.
Another huge change was the play’s length. Originally, it was supposed to be as faithful a rendition as possible for high school students and nearly three hours long, since shortened to seventy-five minutes and tweaked to include the French song.
Monsieur Montague was both a perfectionist and a stickler for rules. Harley hoped he liked her song and she passed his class.
She’d worry about that tomorrow. Tonight, she should be practicing her lines, though proximity to Nardo might make her forget them anyway.
No, absolutely not. Andrews and Doucette blood flowed through her.
Most importantly, she was a Banks. Her father’s daughter.
She’d make it through with her head high.
Daddy, Aunt Zoann, Lolly, and CJ were in the audience.
She’d do it for them. She’d stand strong and make amends for all her many wrongs.
Ms. Mendez opened the door. “Two minutes until your big entrance, Harley.”
She frowned. “Did Nardo change his lines again?”
Act one, scene one was supposed to start when Benvolio entered and end with Montague, right before Romeo arrived.
Harley wanted scene four included, but Sam Darrien, also known as Mercutio for the night, balked at what he needed to memorize, especially those forty-three lines and over three hundred words of one particular passage.
Now that she thought about it, Harley would’ve balked as well at that big block of text.
Ms. Mendez actually set up a debate in one of their classes and allowed all the students with major roles to argue their cases. In the end, she made the final decision.
This production had been so chaotic with all the many changes.
One day, it was this and the next it was that.
Harley had to scramble to adjust while dealing with Nardo and Pillar of Earth.
It took so much out of her. She wished she’d never auditioned for the lead role.
It wouldn’t have been as time consuming.
She’d wanted to put distance between her and CJ after she’d turned down his proposal to go steady last summer.
“Did you hear me?” Ms. Mendez said, touching Harley’s shoulder.
Harley shook her head.
“I said Nardo didn’t change anything. We just can’t find him.”
Panic hit Harley and she straightened. “Where’s my daddy?”
“In the audience with your grandmother and a few other members of your family. You don’t want to disappoint them, do you?”
She didn’t, but suppose Nardo was intending something? No. Daddy was in the audience. He would protect her. However, she had another problem. “How am I supposed to do my lines without my Romeo?”
The ones she’d longed to do in the first place and convinced her to audition. Of course Nardo would ruin this for her too. He’d always hated whatever she liked.
“What happens when I call for Romeo?”
“Improvise.”
How? She needed Romeo for this act.
“Remember, it was one of the techniques we studied and practiced?”
“I do, but I wasn’t good at it.”
“Do the best you can. I’ll grade you fairly, I promise. Nardo’s desertion isn’t your fault. As long as you give it your all when you’re on stage. Fair enough?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Harley said morosely. “Is CJ in the audience?”
“Probably. Are you ready, hun? We’ll have a very restless audience and bad reviews if we don’t get a move on.”
Ms. Mendez already warned everyone she’d deduct from their grades because of timing, both to recite their lines and also on the speed of the play. Either too fast or too slow was bad.
Harley stood from her chair and smoothed out the fabric of her skirts.
“I’m ready,” she said, a lie but she wasn’t about to fail the stupid class at this late date.
It was why she’d come to school today. She needed to orient herself to her surroundings so she could at least recite some of her lines.
Had she stayed home, she might not have been able to set foot on school grounds this evening, worried about Nardo’s plans.
She followed the teacher to the cross-over, giving herself a peptalk the entire way and halting at the biggest set piece. The famous Capulet balcony that was actually a window in Shakespeare’s play, but whatever.
Ms. Mendez clipped a microphone on Harley’s bodice and placed an earpiece in her ear to help her if she forgot her lines, then put a headset on her own head.
“Harley is about to enter the balcony,” the teacher said. “Start the prologue of Act Two. Lower the stage lights and begin moving Juliet onto the stage.”
“Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie, And young affection gapes to be his heir,” the Chorus started as the stage darkened and the balcony began its slow roll to center stage.
By the time Stevie uttered, “Tempering extremities with extreme sweet,” Harley and her balcony were in place. Romeo was supposed to speak and–
“He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”
Harley squinted, equal parts relieved and confused.
CJ?
That Romeo sure sounded like him. The stage was still dark, to give the set designers time to place all the artificial foliage. The lights wouldn’t come on until Romeo finished half his speech.
“What the fuck is that other line?”
Definitely CJ. Thankfully, he was far enough away that her microphone didn’t blast his question. He didn’t sound as if he had his own.
So where was Nardo?
“I fucking hate Shakespeare,” CJ grumbled.
Harley giggled. “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?” she prompted.
He was silent for a moment and then drew in a breath. “It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou her maid art far more fair than she.”
Another pause, longer than necessary. Her timing was going to be so off, but suddenly she didn’t care.
“I don’t fucking remember the rest, Harley,” he told her. “And when are the lights coming on?”
She wore a microphone; she couldn’t tell him he had five more lines to go. Nor could she send him away or ask him why he was onstage. Speaking anything other than what her role called for was an automatic zero.
“Be not her maid, since she is envious,” Harley said.
Murmurs from the audience rose up, and she cringed. Technically, she’d merely spoken out of turn, but still in the world of the Capulets and Montagues. She hoped Ms. Mendez didn’t fail her.
“Her vestal livery is but sick and green,” Harley recited.
“Yeah, fuck. Right,” CJ whispered, then raised his voice again. “And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. It is my lady, O, it is my love! O, that she knew she were! She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?”
The spotlights flickered on, one on her and the other on her Romeo—CJ. He wore Nardo’s cap and doublet. Although he still wore his own leather Chelsea boots, the knee-high stockings covered the bottom half of his jeans.
“Two minute intermission, folks.” Ignoring the rising chatter , Ms. Mendez rushed to the side of the balcony. “Is this a—”
“Joke?” CJ finished, sighing. “Nope. Nardo left. I didn’t want to leave Harley hanging.”
“You’re ruining my production, CJ,” the teacher grumbled.
“I know some of the lines,” he protested.
“Not all of them,” Ms. Mendez said.
“Harley needs a Romeo, Ms. Mendez,” CJ argued. “I’m it.”
“Mic him,” the teacher ordered, glared at him, and marched away.
Grinning, CJ winked at Harley. “I guess you making me suffer through Shakespeare is paying off.”
She nodded, a little dazed that he’d come to her rescue.
Lex ran to CJ and he smiled at her. She blushed to the roots of her green hair.
“You’re so tall,” she breathed, her fingers fumbling with the small device.
“Do you need me to bend down, Lex?”
She gasped. “You know my name.”
“Yup. You know mine, don’t you?”
Giggling and blushing again, she nodded and stared at him.
“Can you mic me, bae?”
“Yep. Er, yup. That’s so cool. You’re so cool. I’m going to use that forever. Is that okay?”
“It’s fine,” CJ told her. His smile deepened and he pointed to his chest. “Mic me,” he told her in a firm, no-nonsense voice. “We don’t want to ruin Harley’s big night any more than it is.”
“Okay.”
He stood patiently while Lex finally clipped his microphone, bending so she could place his earpiece. She hugged him, squealed, and ran offstage.
“Harley, take it from your speech,” Ms. Mendez said into their earbuds, out of sight once again.
Not wanting to delay any longer and worried about her grade again, Harley followed the teacher’s instructions.
“O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?” she started with all the emotion in her. That particular line, one of the most romantic and iconic of all time, always stirred her. “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?” CJ responded.
His confidence eased her and allowed Harley to recite her lines as if they’d rehearsed together. He flubbed several of his parts, or outright forgot them, but he was still as brilliant as ever.
When Act Two, scene two ended and the spotlights flickered off, Harley and the balcony rolled backstage. CJ followed.
“I have to talk to my Dad and Uncle Mort,” he said the moment he was mic free. He held out his hand to her and helped her as she walked down the hidden steps of the set piece.
“The play isn’t finished, CJ. We have three more acts and three more scenes.”
“What?”
She nodded.
“Pssst.”
Looking over CJ’s shoulder, Harley saw Uncle Val standing in the opened exit door and beckoning to CJ.
“We need Romeo, Harley,” Uncle Val said.
“The play isn’t finished, though.”
“For him, it is. He got to take care of something.”
Ms. Mendez rushed from her office, with Diesel following her out.
“If you can sing a closing song, you’ll get an ‘A’ for the semester, Harley,” she said as Diesel looked at CJ and nodded toward Uncle Val.
“Okay,” Harley said.
CJ kissed her cheek. “I’ll call you in a little while, bae.”
Diesel smiled at her, then led CJ away.