Bittersweet Serendipity

Chapter 10 - Acting and Aching

As soon as we get home, I flop my things down on the couch and hurriedly rush to my room to change my clothes. Sadie decided not to come home with us and went on a date with Nathan instead. It's not long until the press gets enough photos of them to perceive that they're together. Well, they're still dating, but it does not necessarily mean that they're together, right? Unless my best friend admits it, I'm not going to believe anything the media proposes about them. Besides, she's my best friend; she'd tell me everything.

"The scripts are on the table. You could scan them, if you'd like," I shout from the room as I get a glimpse of Jay sitting on the couch. I change into a loose, comfortable shirt and cotton pyjamas, not even minding to tie my hair and leaving it in a very scraggly curtain of mess on my head. I slip on my pair of flipflops and head to the kitchen. "Tea?" I offer.

I hear the ruffling of papers from the living room. Must've been Jay. "Yeah, sure. A cuppa tea would be lovely," he says. A couple of moments and more ruffling papers later, he asks, "So, I say all of these with feelings, right? Where do we start?"

"Act Two, Scene Two."

I put the kettle off and pour warm tea into two cups, one for me and the other for him. I set them all on a tray and saunter back to the living room. I pick up my own cup that was white and gilded with blue, inhale the aroma of the milky tea, and take a swig of it. "Oh, goodness," I exhale as the flavour of the tea erupts and disperses in my mouth. "That really hits the spot."

Jay surprisingly agrees. "I'll say. You could be a professional tea barista, you know. I'd go get a drink from you any day." The heat of the tea spreads to his cheeks and his whole face, reddening. I laugh as the tips of his ears become tinged with pink. He takes another gulp of the 'Elixir of Life,' as he bluntly puts it, and shake his head in complete awe. He clears his throat. "So, let's get you to work now. 'ROMEO returns.' Ah, yeah, I'll just --," he moves backwards, getting closer to the wall, and walks forward again. "Right, um. 'He jests at scars that never felt a wound.' And then you appear 'in a window above.'"

"Yes, Jay, I know. I can read," I roll my eyes. He stares at me, as if waiting me to speak. "No, that's still you speaking."

"Oh. Oh, right. Blah, blah, blah -- 'See how she leans her cheek upon her hand./Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand/That I might touch that cheek!'"

I breathe in. Time to get the cameras rolling. "'Ay me!'" I say in my Juliet-est tone, all airy and totally feminine, like the in-love and naive girl that she is.

The curly-haired man standing in front of me says Romeo's lines quite articulately. His voice rings in my ears. Who knew he could speak with this much maturity? I think. He captures Romeo, converting him into someone real. He messes up a few of his lines -- as expected -- but he tries to maintain his composure after nervous laughs leave his mouth.

"O' Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?/Deny thy father and refuse thy name./Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,/And I’ll no longer be a Capulet,'" I say. The lad gapes at me, and I goad him with my eyes to speak his next lines. And with the quivering that is present in his voice, he delivers a near-to-perfect Romeo once more. The way he is so nervous composes the Romeo in him and it ironically works.

We practise our perspective lines for what seems like hours and my legs are starting to wobble in exhaustion. At least we're near the end of Scene Two. "'Tis almost morning. I would have thee gone./And yet no further than a wanton’s bird,/That lets it hop a little from his hand/Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,/And with a silken thread plucks it back again,/So loving-jealous of his liberty,'" I say with all the singsong-y voice left that I could muster.