Chapter Two #3
“Shakespeare on Demand.” His eyes brightened.
“It’s a concept I’ve been playing with for a few years, even when I was working with the Bros.
I’ve been doing it about…four seasons now?
” He nodded in response to Emily’s pleased noise, obviously taking it as an invitation to continue.
“I love how Shakespeare works with different tropes in his plays—mistaken identity, women dressed as men, twins separated. I got the idea when I found this old bingo ball cage at an estate sale. I spin the cage, some tropes pop out, and I’ve got scenes rehearsed that match most of the combinations in there.
It’s fun, like a pop quiz too, you know?
Keeps me on my toes.” And there was that rakish smile—the one that had kept me up nights. I hated it.
“The audience seemed to like it,” Emily said, then she looked my way, trying to include me in the conversation. “Don’t you think the audience liked it?”
“Couldn’t tell you.” I shifted in my chair, risking Nina’s wrath, but couldn’t she braid a little faster here?
“Oh, come on,” Emily said. “You like Shakespeare. Didn’t you think—”
“Not anymore.” I hated the way my voice sounded: petulant and pouting. But I wanted out of this chair, out of this conversation. Out of this freaking state.
There was a beat of silence while Nina tugged at my hair, obviously working as fast as she could to get my hair finished.
But I knew Emily wouldn’t be able to let the silence stand.
“You’ll have to forgive Caitlin,” she finally said to Alex.
“The renaissance faire isn’t exactly her favorite thing these days. ”
I sucked in a breath as red crept in along the edges of my vision.
How very dare she. There was a tiny, rational part of my brain that knew she didn’t mean anything by it.
Emily was a peacekeeper. She wanted everyone happy, everyone getting along.
But right now, those words felt like a condescending pat on the head.
I was saved from replying by Simon’s approach. The braider had just finished Emily’s hair when her husband joined us. He nodded a greeting to the braider as she gathered her stuff to head back up to her booth.
“Simon, you’ve met Alexander, haven’t you?” Emily asked. “He has the new Shakespeare show.”
“Not in person.” Simon was holding a cashbox, and he shifted it to one arm while he stuck his hand out to shake Alex’s. “I saw the video you sent to Mitch, though. It was really good. I’ll try and swing by later today to catch it.”
Emily nodded toward the cashbox. “We charging tickets for the chess match now?” Her voice was teasing.
Simon looked down at the box he cradled as though seeing it for the first time.
“Oh. No.” His face was totally serious, and I’d forgotten that Simon lost his sense of humor when he was in Faire Organizer mode.
If I were running something with this many moving parts, I’d probably turn into a massive killjoy too.
“Jamie’s running late this morning, and he didn’t have time to grab the cashbox before opening the tavern.
I was going to try and run it up to him… ”
While he and Emily talked, Alex turned to me. “When did you come back?”
“What?” I answered in spite of myself. I didn’t want to talk to him, give him the satisfaction. But my mom had raised me better than that.
“To Faire,” he said. “I know you…well, I know you’d missed at least a season or two, after…
” His voice failed him while I raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to finish.
After. After he dumped me via text message with no warning.
After he broke my heart. Every girl has the One That Got Away. And Alex was mine.
I waited, but he didn’t—or couldn’t—give voice to what had happened between us. I decided to head him off. “This is my first season back,” I said.
“It’s my first year back too.” God, he was really committing to this stupid small talk. “Here, anyway. With this whole Shakespeare thing.”
“With your bingo cage,” I said. “Right.” I really needed him to leave. Now, before I started screaming. Couldn’t he see that?
“How about you?” Alex kept talking like I wasn’t about to lose my shit right in front of him. “Your hiatus,” he prompted. “You said this was your first year back. Why’d you leave?”
My mind suddenly went really, really quiet. Was he serious? “Why did I leave?” All I could do was parrot his words back to him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I remember. When you…when we…” I raised my eyebrows, once again daring him to finish the sentence, and once again he chickened out. “You told me once, back then, that this was your favorite part of the year. What happened?”
That was it: the question that made me snap.
“What happened?” I all but shrieked. “Are you kidding me?” Simon and Emily fell silent nearby, and behind me Nina had gone completely still.
Anger seized my chest as memories from that summer unspooled in my head, like a movie playing at double speed.
Alex pulling me behind one of the stages, desperate kisses under the hot summer sun.
Telling Mom I was spending the night at Nina’s, when I most definitely wasn’t.
The promises he’d made at the end of the season, and the way I’d blindly believed him, in love for the first time just before my eighteenth birthday.
The way his texts that fall became less frequent and less personal, until that final text that ended everything, right before a ten a.m. chem lab in late October.
Alexander Wright was the reason I no longer wanted to be anywhere near the renaissance faire.
After Alex, huzzahs hurt my ears, and bards were bullshit.
Courtly love was crass, and I wanted no part of madrigals.
He was the reason I stopped studying Shakespeare and changed my major to computer science.
He was the reason I no longer believed in love.
While these memories tumbled over themselves in my mind, the red at the edges of my vision crowded in until Alex was ringed in a halo of crimson. All pretense at civility fell away, and about damn time too. “You happened,” I choked out in the silence that had surrounded us.
That shut him up. His mouth sagged open and his eyes filled with emotion. Hurt? Sadness? I didn’t know. And I didn’t care.
Behind me, Nina swiftly pinned the little tiara to my head, giving my shoulders a squeeze. “Go,” she whispered.
I leapt to my feet and reached for the cashbox in Simon’s hands. “I’ve got it,” I said. “I’ll take it up to Jamie.”
Simon’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure you have time to…?”
I practically snatched it from his arms. “I’ll meet you at opening gate.
” I tossed the words over my shoulder to Emily.
I couldn’t even look at her. I couldn’t look at anyone.
Not right now. The walk to the tavern would do me some good.
Calm me down before I had to be happy Lady Guenevere, lady-in-waiting to the Queen.
Sure, Guenevere couldn’t vote, but at least she hadn’t had her teenage baggage dragged out in the open in front of everyone.
Enough, I told myself as I headed up the hill. I’d told him off. Maybe now he’d leave me alone. In any case, I was done thinking about Alexander Wright.