Remy is running lines now. From Hamlet. She told me she’s making it her mission to become the English teacher’s Lolita. Which makes no sense because she’s trying out for Ophelia. Also, I’m not used to Remy getting spastic about anything. Especially some off-limits creep. But that seems to be what’s happening, and, honestly, it’s having an effect.
She’s carrying a worn copy of Hamlet around like she’s some kind of character in a Salinger novel. And not only does she swoon at him all the time, which is embarrassing, but when he’s not there, she talks about him. Incessantly. Like, we’ll be having a conversation about pickles and the next thing you know it’s on and on about Humbert Humbert.
Sort of like this:
Me: “I like pickles.”
Remy: “I like Humbert Humbert.”
Or, the other day:
Me: “I think it’s gonna rain. I’m gonna wear my rain boots.”
Remy: “I think you’re right. I wonder if Humbert will drive me home in the rain.”
And on and on and on. Name one thing. Anything. And Remy can bring it back to Humbert. It’s absurd.
There’s another thing, too. She stole all these pill bottles from her aunt. Without telling me.
Yup. Last week she skipped out again for a few days. I didn’t worry. I’m kind of getting used to it. She came back with the same “I decided to stick around at home for a while” excuse and then she disappeared into the closet, aka maid’s quarters. Where she disappears a lot.
What happens in the maid’s quarters stays in the maid’s quarters, right?
But it’s getting kind of out of hand.
And the fact that she’s keeping it secret? Or trying to?
That’s not a good sign.
Am I supposed to say something? Is that the idea? Or am I supposed to ignore it, just shrug and say “whatever” and keep a smile on my face?
And it’s all happening so fast I kind of can’t keep track of it. Like on Monday.
Get this.
Monday after class, I get back to our room. I hear Remy’s voice from behind the door. She’s talking on the phone, and from what I can gather, it’s to her mother. The one side of the conversation I can hear goes something like this—
“So there’s this new drama teacher, and—yes, Mom, drama . . . What? No, I’m not going on about that whole thing again. It’s just a school play . . . fine. So, I’m trying to tell you that I got a part . . . Yes, I auditioned. Aren’t you proud of—so what if I did let myself get carried away with it? Oh, yes. The family name. You know the Kennedy son did theater, right? Well, maybe he wouldn’t have been flying that airplane if he’d been starring in a play that weekend. Mom. I’m just telling you that—”
I feel guilty listening to even that much, so I turn around and make myself scarce, reading in the study room while Remy deals with whatever that is.
When it feels like enough time has passed, I head upstairs. No more dialogue. Nope. Just a few slams and crashes. I open the door and WTF. OMG. Gasp. Everything Remy owns or has ever owned is all over the place, like the place was ransacked by a burglar on a cop show, and she’s rifling through it all like it’s the end of the world. And talking to herself.
Like a crazy person. Or some kind of stressed-out rat, rummaging through her cage.
So I ask her what she’s looking for and she totally ignores me. She’s actually, honestly, kind of a bitch about it. Sort of like flippant. Then, she finds whatever the thing is, goes back into the ol’ telltale maid’s quarters, then comes right back in like nothing happened.
She breathes a sigh of relief and apologizes.
I just stare at her.
“Sorry. I was just kind of freaking out.”
“Yeah, um, okay.”
“It’s just . . . my parents. They’re being so fucking mean to me. About this play. They’re like—they called it embarrassing. They want me to quit.”
I feign ignorance. “Really?”
“Yup. They think it’s, like, beneath me. Or them. Or whatever.”
Then she goes to the bathroom and I watch her down the hall. And now, in the maid’s quarters, I start rummaging around. Here. No. Maybe here. No. Okay, how about over here.
And then I find it.
Something I have never seen before.
Okay, I’ve heard of this drug. I have. Everyone basically says it’s the greatest thing ever. Like, it makes you feel like you’re the greatest thing on earth and everything is just peachy. Better than peachy. Perfect. And it makes you feel like the world is perfect. Like everything is as it should be. Which is kind of like a Buddhist thing. Except in a pill. A Buddhist pill.
But this is also a drug they give pregnant ladies to recover. From giving birth.
So, yeah, not exactly no big deal.
And this is the drug she’s hiding in the maid’s quarters.
I guess this is a new level of pill-popping. One that makes Remy bitchy and spastic and rummaging and kind of mean. And isn’t that kind of the opposite of Buddhism?
I hear Remy down the hall and go back to a completely abnormal “normal” position.
We’re supposed to walk over to this stupid Hamlet rehearsal, but to be honest, I really don’t want to go anymore. At least Grease would have been fun. And there would have been singing involved. And now it’s all about talking to skulls and jumping into graves and freaking out on your mom.
Remy will, of course, end up as Ophelia. If I’m lucky I’ll get to be Gertrude. You know, the mom who marries her brother’s killer and then pretends everything’s okay, no, really, don’t worry about it. I think in modern times Gertrude would wake up, put on her Juicy jogging suit, blend herself a nice vodka milk shake, and move to the OC. But not Ophelia. Ophelia would never move to the OC. Ophelia is the one who gets to be beautiful and crazy and jilted by Hamlet until she crawls up a willow tree, falls into the river, and drowns, and then Hamlet loves her again.
Sidebar: Why do guys always fall in love with girls after they kill themselves? Wouldn’t it work a lot better to fall in love with a girl before she kills herself? And then maybe she wouldn’t even have to kill herself? It always seems like guys fall in love with girls who a) don’t notice them or b) are dead.
It honestly seems like a guy would never like a girl just standing in front of him, being in love with him, no matter who she was. Even Angelina Jolie.
But Remy is not behaving like Angelina Jolie. No, no slightly aloof, regal glances here. She is, instead, falling all over herself for Humbert.
So far he’s kept things professional. Oh, sure, he’ll give her acting direction and talk about iambic pentameter. But he’s not whispering sweet nothings into her ear or anything slurpy. I just hope he can keep his weiner on straight in the face of whatever Remy has planned.
Exhibit A: Remy comes back in the room and now it’s all rainbows and buttercups. Now she’s happy as a clam and getting dressed for rehearsal like it’s her own personal date with Humbert Humbert.
“You know he can’t like you, right?”
“Who?”
“Humbert Humbert. He’s not allowed to like you. Even if he does. Or did. He can’t act on it or anything. He’d lose his job.”
Remy looks at me through the mirror, she’s holding up a cool Bohemian-print dress that might as well be a shirt. It’s the kind of thing that looks like you forgot your pants. It makes me involuntarily gulp.
“I know. I just want him to notice me, kinda.”
“Um, if you wear that pants-optional outfit, I’m sure he’ll notice you. As will everyone else.”
“C’mon, don’t you think he’s cute? A little?”
“I think he’s old a little.”
I could ask her right now. I could ask her about the pills and the maid’s quarters and the whole elaborate charade.
But somehow I don’t.
Somehow I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll break this thing we have. This thing I don’t totally understand the existence of in the first place.
“Can I ask you something, Willa?”
“Maybe.”
“How come you never talk about your mom?”
“My mom? Why are you asking?”
“Because she’s famous. Famous for being logical. Which sometimes you are.”
“I’m not anything like her, actually. And besides, economists aren’t famous.”
“Okay, world-renowned.”
“Better.”
“So . . . ?”
“Honestly, I haven’t seen her in, like, ten years. I haven’t talked to her on the phone for about two years, and I kind of like it better that way. I used to really care about what she thought, like it bothered me, like I had to be perfect. Then my dad brought me to a headshrinker, and the shrink said I didn’t have to care anymore. He said I could just write her off. Even though she’s my mom.”
“Really?”
“Yup, really. I couldn’t believe it. It was like, ‘I can do that? I don’t have to care what she thinks? Wow!’ And then I felt better. A lot better, actually. That headshrinker kind of saved my life. I really liked him. He kind of looked like John Denver. Like he had blond hair and this sweet smile and a big pie face. You sort of expected him to start singing any minute.”
“I wish I’d had that.”
“What?”
“A shrink that looked like John Denver.”
She puts on the non-leg-covering vestige.
“See? It’s not so bad.”
“People are starving for pants in India. And you, you throw away your pants like garbage.”
“Would you say they’re pants-starving?” Remy smirks.
“I would say you’re pants-starving. As in . . . you are dying for Humbert Humbert to get in your pants.”
She turns, assuring me.
“Don’t worry, mon amie. I won’t bring him to Paris with us.”
“Very funny. Wait. Were you thinking of bringing him to Paris?”
“Not really.”
She grabs her bag as if this is all so blissful and there is absolutely nothing that could possibly be wrong. We head out across the green. But don’t think I don’t notice that Remy ducks into the maid’s quarters again on the way out. And grabs that bottle . . . pretending not to grab that bottle.
I guess she thinks she needs sustenance for her pants-free date with Mr. Old.