Chapter 7
That day as I raced through the woods, my life spiraling quickly out of control, I made a decision. In the midst of insanity I came to a place of perfect clarity. I would not let life sneak by, slip through my fingers like the sand at Hobo Creek. I would call Beth and be Jo-Jo in her silly little play. I would have fun, just like she said. I would laugh. I would chase my dreams. I would get out. “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun.”
When Harold spoke those famous words I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. On the one hand, he sounded incredible. If I closed my eyes and just listened to the sound of his voice I had to agree with Beth that it was sexy. Whatever else I thought of Harold, I had to admit he surfaced from adolescence with a pretty impressive voice. It could have been Paul Newman or Sidney Poitier, or even Richard Burton if you added the English accent. But then on the other hand, it was Harold. All I had to do was open my eyes and there he was. Not Romeo. Not Sidney Poitier or even Richard Burton, who wasn’t that great looking either no matter what Elizabeth Taylor thought. It was a joke.
“Let’s rehearse the love scene between Romeo and Juliet,” she said, adjusting the brim of her baseball cap and pushing her sunglasses up with her middle finger. Her cheeks were flushed, not from the heat but more from excitement. She was really turned on by this stuff.
“Jo-Jo, with Juliet you have to remember her innocence and passion, this is her first love, her true love, so in this scene when you two kiss ...”
“When who two kiss?”
“When Romeo and Juliet kiss,” she said slowly and deliberately, emphasizing the word “kiss”, as though I was deaf or just plain stupid.
“Give me a break! Absolutely not. Not in this lifetime. Not with Korkala. I agreed to do a modern offbeat, Off-Off-Broadway take of some Shakespearean thing with crazy families fighting with each other, with deceit, deception, lies and all that jazz. I did not— let me repeat myself—I did not agree to get all kissy-faced with Korkala!”
“But you’re Juliet.”
“Oh no I’m not. Yuck! That’s your part. You’re the famous actress from New York remember,” I protested, as one bead of sweat was making its way from the nape of my neck downward under my tee shirt, followed by another and another. God, wasn’t it hot enough. Did she have to make things worse by adding intense stress to the situation?
“I was thinking I’d have the part of her mother or the nurse or the clown even. I’d make a good clown. I went out once for Halloween as one. I think I might even still have the costume. I’m not the Juliet type anyway.”
“Of course you are. You’re perfect for the part. You’re both Italian, dark haired beauties.”
“Oh please. Flattery will get you nowhere.”
I lied. I was a sucker for it. Compliment me once and I’m lasagna on your plate.
“You have to learn to let go Jo-Jo,” she said taking my hands and twirling me round-and-round. “Loosen up,” she laughed. “Let go of your inhibitions. Forget who you are. Become Juliet,” she said, as she let go of my hands and I, dizzy from all the spinning fell back and landed flat on my back. The world around me was still spinning, the blue sky above, a whirling blender. “I don’t know how to let go,” I said, breathless and feeling nauseous from all the spinning. “Besides you seem to have this problem. You have mistaken me for you. You think I’m an actress and I can assure you I’m not. And if you really thought about this, I mean really, really thought about this, you’d see how nuts it is. It’s a joke! Korkala and me? Romeo and Juliet? It’s just plain insane Jane!”
I protested. She ignored.
“You have to go deep inside yourself Jo-Jo to find Juliet. She’s there. Trust me. She’s there. I will help you find her. Trust me. Just trust me.”
I surrendered and did what she asked but in the end my anxiety over the love scene with Harold was unfounded because we never got that far with the play. Beth had us doing all these exercises she made up to help us “get in touch with our true selves.” Mostly we did a lot of rolling around on the grass and running back-and-forth across the yard barefoot and waving our arms over our heads. Sometimes we’d do what she called “primal screams” but that exercise was short-lived because one of the neighbors called the police during one of more “authentic” and very loud sessions. Beth, of course, explained to the officers that no one was hurt, that we were just play acting, having fun. One of the cops was young and handsome, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Beth. She took the opportunity to flirt with him as she chatted about life in a small town and how very little there was to do for someone like herself, coming from a big American city and all, and then I’m pretty sure she slipped him her phone number as they were leaving. It wasn’t long after that incident that Beth moved on to her next project of the summer and thankfully her offbeat, Off-Off-Broadway interpretation of Romeo and Juliet never made it past Act One, Scene One.