My Life After Now

2

Forget About the Boy




As I walked away from Andre, I made the split-second decision that I was going to convince everyone that I was fine—no, thrilled—with the way things turned out. No way was I going to give Elyse the satisfaction of knowing that she’d gotten under my skin.

So when Ty wrapped his arms tightly around me and whispered, “Are you okay?” in my ear, I gave a little laugh and assured him that I was actually glad to have a role that I could experiment with and truly make my own. I must have been really convincing because he kissed me and said, “Lucy, you are a true actor. Believe me, if I hadn’t gotten Romeo, I wouldn’t be nearly as understanding as you.” He ruffled my hair and then leapt up on the stage in one bound, taking his place in the read-through circle.

See, Andre? I thought bitterly, I am a good actor.

But soon even I was having trouble believing that. I’d only paid attention to Juliet’s part during the summer, and it felt wrong to suddenly be speaking Mercutio’s words. They were foreign to me and clunked around in my mouth like marbles. While Elyse breezed through the complicated Shakespearean language like it was her favorite song, I stumbled and fell over each line.

And, on top of everything else, she had taken to flirting with Ty. She wasn’t even discreet about it. Playful touches on his arm, whispers in his ear, giggling like a maniac every time he said anything even remotely amusing. Right in front of me. All afternoon.

If it hadn’t been clear that Ty was completely uninterested in her, I would have given up on my vow to remain upbeat. It was like she was on a mission to steal my life.

I got home that night to find that my dads had left a dozen pink roses waiting for me on the kitchen table. The card read: A rose by any other name…Congratulations, Lucy! I plunked myself down in a kitchen chair, the sweet aroma filling my nose, and couldn’t help but smile. My dads were probably the only two gay men in the world who knew nothing about theater. I knew the only reasons they’d chosen that line were because it had to do with flowers, which was one stereotypical gay interest they actually did subscribe to, and my middle name was Rose. But their well-meaning cluelessness actually cheered me up a little.

I went into the living room, where Dad and Papa were curled up on the sofa in their matching Snuggies, watching The West Wing on DVD. Mine were the only parents of anyone I knew who were not only still together, but actually still in love.

“Thanks for the flowers,” I said, squeezing in between them.

“So?” Papa said, passing me the popcorn bowl. “Are we looking at Eleanor Senior High’s new Juliet?”

“Alas, you are not,” I said.

Dad paused the TV. “What happened?”

“Elyse St. James happened.”

“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry,” Dad said. That’s another thing I loved about my parents. They may not have cared about theater, but they cared that I cared about theater. “What part did you get?”

“Mercutio.” I shrugged. “At least I still get to die onstage.”

• • •

The next morning, I got to my locker to find it covered in pictures. Printouts from the Internet of random actors: Laurence Olivier, Keanu Reeves, Ben Affleck, John Barrymore, the guy who played Michael on Lost. All artfully arranged so that not an inch of the slate gray locker surface showed.

I stared at the collage, dumbfounded. Who put it there? What did it mean?

“What do you think?” Ty’s voice said, close to my ear.

I whirled around. “Did you do this?”

He stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his heels, a proud look on his face. “Yup. Got here early and everything.”

“But…why?” It didn’t come out right. I meant it as a genuine question—I was totally confused—but it sounded like I was accusing him of something.

Ty’s grin melted. “You hate it. I knew it was a stupid idea.” He moved to tear the pictures down, but I blocked his path.

“I don’t hate it. I just don’t understand it.”

“They’re all pictures of famous people who have played Mercutio,” he explained. “Max seemed to think you were pretty upset about not getting Juliet. I told him you seemed fine to me, but he insisted. So I thought it might make you feel better to see that you’re in good company.”

I turned back to the locker and looked at it again. Of course. John Barrymore played Mercutio in the 1930s movie version of Romeo and Juliet. The guy from Lost was in the Claire and Leo movie. Laurence Olivier probably played the role on stage—he was in pretty much every Shakespeare play at some time or another.

I reached for Ty’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “Thank you,” I whispered.

• • •

Two weeks went by. And slowly, I actually started to enjoy playing Mercutio. The role was pretty awesome—in the span of only four scenes, I was going to get to be funny, sexy, crude, and violent. And I was going to be killed in a swordfight.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. My dads actually may have unwittingly been onto something with that line, and I kept going back to it in my thoughts. It doesn’t matter what something is called, I reminded myself, it matters what something is. I might not be Juliet, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still be great.

Another unexpected upshot of my being cast as Mercutio was that I became friendly with the new guy Evan, who was playing Tybalt. Just by looking at him, you would never guess that he was interested in theater. He wore a baseball cap over his shaggy product-free hair, sported the same faded jeans almost every day, and played video games on his PSP during breaks. But he’d apparently been some sort of stage combat guru at his old drama club, so I guess I lucked out that he was the one who’d be killing me.

Together, we ventured to the massive basement prop room in search of swords. It took a while—we had to squeeze past large backdrops that seemed to have just been thrown into the first available spaces their set-strikers had found and toss aside sheets that were draped over the larger furniture pieces. But when we finally found the swords, we both went motionless, astounded by the sight before us.

“We’ve hit the mother lode,” Evan whispered.

Andre had warned us that there was a ton of swords down here because of a considerable prop donation after the local Renaissance Faire had gone belly-up a couple of years ago, but nothing could have prepared us for this. The prop room was stockpiled with swords in every size and variety imaginable, and they were everywhere. Propped up in rows five layers deep against the walls, sticking up out of large, cylindrical bins, even dangling from racks attached to the ceiling like silver chandeliers.

“Where do we even start?” I marveled.

A slow smile spread across Evan’s face. “Anywhere.”

I seized a sword at random from the nearest bin and stabbed the air. It felt too light, flimsy. I tried another. This one was painted black and didn’t catch the light the way I wanted. I kept choosing swords and they kept letting me down. “How will I even know when I find the right one?” I mumbled.

Evan looked at me in total seriousness. “The right one will find you,” he said.

“What is this, Ollivander’s Wand Shop?”

Evan stared at me, an unreadable expression on his face.

“What, you’ve never read Harry Potter?” I said.

He laughed. “Of course I have.”

“So what’s with the—” But I was cut off by the sight of two swords lying side-by-side, individually sheathed in velvet, and resting in their own clear plastic case. I carefully took one from its wrappings. As soon as my palm closed around the silver handle I knew I’d found it.

Evan picked up the other one, and I thought I heard a tiny gasp escape his throat.

These swords were the real thing, with sharp edges, not the blunt kind usually used in theatrics. The weight of it felt good in my hands, made me feel strong. I thrust my sword out at Evan and he immediately responded in kind. The instant the glistening metal collided, an almost indiscernible spark ignited and a pitch-perfect clang reverberated in our ears. Evan and I met each other with matching grins. We were sold.

We both thought it was weird that the school even had the swords at all, but they were amazing and we both loved them. So we agreed that we wouldn’t tell Andre.

From that day on, for a half hour at the beginning of every rehearsal, Evan and I worked on choreographing the fight. I couldn’t have asked for a better sparring partner—the guy was a fencing genius.

“I think he’s sexy,” Max said one day as he, Courtney, and I watched him from across the auditorium.

“Sorry, Max-a-million,” I said. “I’m pretty sure he’s straight.”

He sighed. “Of course. All the good ones are either straight or taken. Or both.” He jerked a thumb at Ty, who was up on the stage learning how to climb up Juliet’s balcony. His dancer’s body moved lithely, and a little shot of love radiated inside me as I watched him work.

Courtney smacked Max teasingly on the side of the head. “You’re crazy. A lack of gay guys is one thing this drama club does not have. It’s not their fault you’re just not interested in any of them.” She sighed. “I, on the other hand, really do have a tragic shortage of romantic prospects. At this rate, I’m going to be a forty-year-old virgin.”

I laughed. “What about Evan?” I asked, already plotting. “He’s kind of my friend now. Want me to ask him if he’s into you?” Short, shy, brace-face Courtney was entirely inexperienced when it came to guys. For as long as I’d known her, the only thing she’d ever wanted was to find her Prince Charming.

But she shook her head. “Drama club relationships are way too incestuous. And knowing me, it won’t work out, and then we’ll be all awkward at rehearsal every day. No thanks.”

“Hey, not all drama club relationships are a bad idea,” I said.

But I soon understood all too well what she’d meant. Cue problem number two.

It was a Sunday afternoon and I was sitting on my bedroom floor, attempting to pick out a Taylor Swift song on my guitar, when I got a text from Courtney:

Look at Elyse’s Facebook profile ASAP.

I signed on to the site for the first time in weeks, pulled up Elyse’s page, and tried to make sense of the words before me.

♥ Elyse St. James is in a relationship with Ty Parker.

I called Courtney.

“Did you see it?”

“I’m looking at it right now,” I said. “You know, I actually feel kinda bad for her. She must have a major inferiority complex if she feels the need to lie about having a boyfriend.”

“Lucy,” Courtney said slowly, “Facebook doesn’t just let you say that you’re in a relationship with whoever you want—the other person has to confirm it before the update goes public.”

Wait. That was true. But it didn’t make sense—why the hell would Ty give her permission to post that? Slowly, a new picture formed in my mind. A more ominous one.

“Lucy? You there?” Courtney asked.

“I gotta go,” I whispered. I hung up and immediately called Ty.

He answered on the first ring. “Hey, babe!”

“Do you have anything you want to tell me?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“According to Elyse’s Facebook page, you two are in a relationship?”

There was a long pause.

“Ty?” I said softly.

“I didn’t think you would see that,” he said. “You’re never on Facebook.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He let out a long sigh. “I swear I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he said. “I didn’t even like her in that way.”

“You didn’t mean for what to happen?”

Another pause. Ty didn’t want to continue this conversation—that was painfully clear—but finally he spoke. “Last Saturday we were at her house, working on the…more romantic scenes. And I don’t know how it happened, but at some point it changed from a stage kiss to a…real kiss.”

You have got to be kidding me, was all I could think. I knew the difference between stage kisses and real kisses. “So you’re telling me there was tongue.”

“Yes.”

“And…emotions.”

“Yes.”

“Was it just kissing, or was there anything else? I’m just trying to get the full picture here.”

Ty hesitated again. “There may have been some…touching. Over the clothes only,” he added, like that made it somehow better.

“Is it still going on?”

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“When were you going to tell me?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady, despite the tears that were silently running down my face.

“I don’t know. I guess I was waiting for the right moment.”

I hung up without another word.