Kyle
“Shall I hear more? Or shall I speak at this?” Benjy said in a stage whisper.
“ ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy,” said the pink-haired girl beside him. “Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet . . .”
Kyle leaned back in the auditorium seat, put her feet up, and watched Benjy in action. He and the pink-haired girl were rehearsing a scene from Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, for the Wesley Eastman Academy Drama Club.
She had to admit, it wasn’t awful. It was actually really not-awful. She’d read Shakespeare plays for school, and his dusty, archaic words had put her to sleep faster than cough syrup and Grand Marnier shots (her personal remedy for insomnia). But spoken out loud and acted onstage, they were kind of interesting. And smart. And weirdly psychological.
Her phone buzzed. It was a text from Bree, who was home alone.
HIIIII KY! :)))))
Seriously? Again? Bree had taken to texting her a lot lately. Today seemed to be a record, with twenty, maybe thirty texts. For some reason, Bree seemed to harbor the bizarre idea that she and Kyle were BFFs. Still, Kyle knew Bree was at the house by herself, waiting for her and Benjy to come home. The parents were off running some mystery errand in OC.
Kyle typed:
HEY BRIE CHEESE. EVERYTHING OK?
YESSSSSS!!!!! R U COMING HOME SOON LOL? :)))))
YES. MAKE U DINNER K?
K LUV U LOL!!!!!! :)))))
Kyle tucked her phone back in her pocket and turned her attention back to Benjy and the pink-haired girl, who were wrapping up their scene. Mr. Weaver, the drama teacher, wandered out from the wings, waving a dog-eared script in his hands.
“Fabulous! Super!” Mr. Weaver gushed. “But, India, if I may? It might be nice to see a little more of that youthful, let us even say immature je ne sais quoi from you. Remember, our Juliet’s only thirteen.” He clapped. “All right, then, why don’t we rewind and run quickly through Romeo and Benvolio, Act One, Scene One? Is our Benvolio here?”
“He’s out sick,” the pink-haired girl, India, said. “I’m taking off now, I’ve gotta go study for my SATs.”
Benjy glanced around the stage. “Hey, Javier, can you be Benvolio today?”
“No, man, I’m trying to keep this effing prop from falling down,” Javier replied, holding up a roll of duct tape. “Can’t you get someone else to do it?”
“Yeah, like who? Everyone left.” Benjy steepled his hands over his eyes and peered out at the audience. “Kyle, is that you? Hey, can you come up here and read some lines with me?”
Kyle sat up. “Dude, I’m just here to give you a ride home.”
“Come on. A favor. It’ll take like five minutes.”
Kyle rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Five minutes, okay?”
“Great, thanks!”
Kyle walked up to the stage, hoping that her slumped posture and scowling face were communicating her displeasure to Benjy loud and clear. She did not like being pressured into doing . . . well, anything.
When she reached Benjy, she thrust out her hand. “Okay, what am I reading?” she snapped.
Benjy handed her a script and pointed to a highlighted section. “There. You’re Benvolio. I’m Romeo. We’re cousins.”
“Is Benvolio a girl?”
“No, a guy.”
“No way. I’ve gotta play a guy?”
Benjy grinned. “That’s why they call it acting, Kyle.”
Kyle sighed. “Fine. God! Let’s just get this over with.”
“Five minutes, I promise.”
Kyle glanced at the highlighted words on the script. “Tell me in sadness who that is . . . I mean, who is that you love,” she read out loud. The words felt awkward on her tongue, all twisted and convoluted. “What the fuck? What does that even mean?” she asked Benjy.
“Romeo is in a funk because he thinks he’s in love, and Benvolio’s trying to get him to talk about it,” Benjy explained. “Come on, pretend you’re bullshitting Kass or Kamille into spilling their secrets. You’re good at that, right?”
“Ha-ha.” Kyle turned her attention back to the script. “Tell me in sadness who is that you love,” she repeated, more slowly and earnestly. Okay, this time she’d nailed it.
“What, shall I groan and tell thee?” Benjy said.
“Groan! Why, no. But sadly tell me who.”
“Bid a sick man in sadness make his will. Ah, word ill urg’d to one that is so ill! In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.”
“I aim’d so near when I suppos’d you love’d,” Kyle said lightly.
Aim’d so near. Ha-ha, that was clever! Like Shakespeare was comparing Benvolio’s mental guessing games to shooting an arrow at a target. Kyle was beginning to like this play. Or at least, not hate it.
The five minutes passed quickly, and she actually found herself enjoying the process of reading through lines. Even though subbing as Romeo’s boy cousin for the high school drama club wasn’t exactly a glamorous Hollywood gig. She’d always imagined her acting debut on an HBO miniseries, or maybe a cool indie movie that would premiere at Sundance, so she could walk the red carpet wearing something completely inappropriate and flip off the reporters. Still, this experience didn’t completely suck.
“Hey, you totally impressed Mr. Weaver,” Benjy told Kyle on the car ride home. “He gave me a flyer to give to you. It’s for this production he’s directing over at the community center this summer. He thought you should audition for it.”
Kyle’s mouth curled up in a half smile. Cool. So the old drama teacher thought she was good?
“Yeah, well, I’m really, really busy this summer,” she said out loud. She wasn’t about to let Benjy know that she might be interested in trying out for this play, whatever it was. She probably couldn’t get a part, anyway. She didn’t have acting experience, like that India girl. “Besides, you were supposed to be ready to be picked up like an hour ago,” she bitched. “My mom made me come get you because she and your dad had to go to Irvine.”
“What’s happening in Irvine?”
“The fuck should I know? Anyway, we have to go straight home and heat up dinner for you, me, and the Bree. I swear, she was texting me like constantly this afternoon. She needs a hobby, like maybe a new puppy to take care of.”
“You know this, right? She had to write an essay for school last week about her ‘personal hero.’ She wrote about you.”
“She did what? Why?”
“Ask her to show it to you. It was like, ‘My big sister Kyle is the smartest person I know, blah, blah, blah.’ ”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“I’m serious.”
Kyle stopped at a red light behind an idling yellow Ferrari. The traffic this time of day was insane. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, thinking about Bree’s crazy essay. And smiled. So maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, having one person in the family who appreciated her.
She glanced over at Benjy. Or two people in the family. He had been kind of not-lame to her this academic year, helping her with her homework and encouraging her to get into acting and so forth. And in general keeping things sane in the midst of all the insanity: Kamille’s over-the-top fame-whore wedding, Kass’s soap-opera pregnancy, being trapped in the living room while the parents were having gross old-people sex, etc., etc.
“What?” Benjy grinned. “Why’re you staring at me?”
The light turned green. Kyle slammed her foot on the accelerator and sped up, relishing the look of fear on the Ferrari driver’s face as she passed him. “I was thinking that your haircut makes you look like a girl,” she told Benjy. “A really ugly girl.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Come on, let’s get home and microwave some shit.”
Kyle was in a good mood all of a sudden. Which usually didn’t happen to her unless she was on something. Hmm, maybe she didn’t need pot and tequila and all that crap to make her life not completely suck? Which was a revelation.