Deviation (Book #2 of the Taylor Series)

These Times of Woe

Surviving the first day back after Fall Break was proven futile for (3) reasons:

(1) I awoke not just to a bad hair day, but also to my mother, Ellie, yelling at Eve, my oldest sister, because she stayed the night with her boyfriend, which goes wholly against the word of God, amen;

(2) Eve's stupid car, Clementine, broke down on the side of the highway so I had to walk a mile to school in my white go-go boots and hot-pink trench coat. Tons of dudes kept cat-calling me out the windows of their rusted pick-up trucks, which I'm embarrassed to admit actually flattered me in a sick, twisted way, and;

(3) Mrs. Celeste, my drama teacher, just announced that our Autumn play is going to be, 'Romeo and Juliet'.

As I pull the brown paper bag out of my cheetah-print muff bag, I have to ask myself if I died in my sleep and, because I'm a lesbian, I've woken up in hell. But I know that can't be true because Jesus and I are tight. I'm the best singer in Choir AND I've played the sickest Virgin Mary every Christmas since I was thirteen.

Henceforth, I know I would've woken up in heaven and this most certainly is not it.

Gemma Rivera, the only other girl in the entire tenth grade that knows how to walk effortlessly in heels, claps her hands and lets out an excited squeak. Mrs. Celeste tells her to shut up with just a glance and an upturned nose.
(Note to self: Learn that trick for when Lauren wants to talk to me about how dreamy her boyfriend, Danny, is.)

She clears her throat before she clambers on top of her desk and sits criss-cross-apple-sauce. I duly note, on the brink of my hyperventilating, that she's learning the ways of her new husband and my World History teacher, Mr. Celeste, only she doesn't do it with quite as much gravitas.

Then she speaks up, "Romeo and Juliet, one of the oldest and most well-known love stories—"

I pull my mouth away from the bag just long enough to correct her, "Iconic, Mrs. Celeste, the word is iconic..." before I go back to having a panic attack.

"Too right, Julie." She says (for some reason) before she turns back to the rest of the class, which is full of kids that either sing all the popular songs and ruin them OR kids that want an easy 'A'.

(That was my cute little polite way of saying that nobody besides me and Gemma are paying attention to her.)

Realizing this, she glances back and forth between us. I think this is funny because we're opposite extremes, each other's foils, if you will. Gemma's super excited for possibly the most lame play ever, while I am having the only truly acceptable reaction to this horrid news.

"Romeo and Juliet... It's a masterpiece. And I hope I'm right in assuming that I don't need to explain the story or the characters to anyone." She smiles hopefully, I hyperventilate faster, and Gemma shakes her head and lets out a two-syllable giggle. "We've got the handsome and intelligent, Romeo; the sweet and hopeful, Juliet; Mercutio, the sexy and witty bad boy—"

I shake my head, willing the tears in my eyes to fall poetically down my soft, pale cheeks, and cry out, "Please, no!" though it's muffled by the bag.

Gemma gasps and turns to me looking even more offended than when I told her during our last production that it's pronounced, 'Crew-Suh-Bull' and not 'Cruck-EE-Bill'.

After only a second, she turns back to Mrs. Celeste with a devilish smile that I don't much appreciate considering I am a child of God. Then I realize why the look churns up a bad feeling in my chest. The words she says could make even a preacher doubt the existence of morals; they're so dirty; so disgusting...

I nearly upchuck into my bag.
"If Julie doesn't want to audition for the lead then I guess it'll have to go to me." She shrugs her shoulders all innocently as if she didn't just stab me in the back in front of everyone. She even pretends to be polite when she looks around at the nobodies in this class and adds, "Unless any of you want to audition..."