“What’s happening here?”
I turn slowly to face the door. It’s Cinny. She’s back. Standing beside her scary-looking bodyguard. Glaring at me.
“I was helping,” I offer warmly, confused by the disapproving look. “With the video.”
“Well, who asked you to?” she replies.
Huh? Oh, wait. She’s joking. I laugh.
“Again, who asked you to?” Cinny repeats.
Oh, God. She wasn’t joking. To add to this nightmare of a moment, no one speaks. I’m not kidding. Every freaking person in this godforsaken rehearsal room has perhaps become momentarily mute.
“We asked her to.” Robbie breaks the awkward silence. He steps around the tripod and camera setup. “Now you don’t have to run the number again. Your standby did it for you.”
“But I told y’all I was gonna be right back.” Cinny’s voice booms in the quiet rehearsal space.
“Should you not be thanking her?” Elias asks smugly. “Since you hate my choreography so much?”
“Sorry to interrupt.”
We all turn to see Nigel and Rashmi standing at the door, a confused look on both of their faces. Probably wondering why I’m standing front and center in the room and not sitting on a folding chair in the back, like I’m supposed to be doing.
“But,” Nigel continues, “Rashmi needs to take Jerzie downstairs to school.”
“I remember where it is,” I blurt. “She doesn’t have to take me.”
Never have I been so excited to go to school. I rush to the back of the room and grab my bag. I notice Cinny’s head turn to watch me as I glide past her. I’m careful not look in return.
I literally run from the rehearsal room and race down the hall, past the elevator, and through the door to enter the dark stairwell. When the heavy door slams shuts behind me, I lean my head against it, clearly not having learned my lesson from the first time. Maybe on some level I’m hoping Zeppelin returns to bludgeon me in the head again. I need something to knock some sense into me. What was I thinking? Why did I volunteer as tribute? Now Cinny probably hates me.
I lift my fingers to touch the spot where Zeppelin’s lips were pressed against mine. My eyes close at the memory of him. Once again, I’m floating. Floating as high as I was when we were dancing. With my eyes closed, I’m back in that magical moment where he was my safety, my wind, my antigravity—I know I can’t fall down while he is here.
Only...I have to. I need to remember my place. If he’s a Montague and Cinny is a Capulet, then who would I be in this story?
Ooooh. I’m the page. That’s who I am. Mercutio’s mute page, who never utters a word for the whole play. Cinny has every right to be upset. I am a standby. Her standby. And as a standby, I have my own script to follow. Out of sight. Out of mind. I’m not here to be a star.
And I’m certainly not here to fall in love.
“I’ll Tell Thee Joyful Tidings Girl...”
Aunt Karla is talking. She’s been talking for a long time, I think. The walk from the studio. The twenty-minute subway ride it takes to get to her street. Now we’re about a block from her house, and she’s still talking.
“You okay?”
“I’m great,” I mumble.
We continue our stroll through the quiet neighborhood in Brooklyn. Aunt Karla lives in this yuppie part of town called Clinton Hill—doctors, lawyers. Those types. She’s so not yuppie, but she’s lived here since before it got all gentrified. Back when it was Bed-Stuy official. Now the edge is rebranded. I guess the white people needed it to have a different name. Anyway. It’s sixteen years later, and it’s like Jay-Z says in “The Story of O.J.” I could’ve bought a house in Dumbo before it was Dumbo. My aunt Karla...she didn’t buy a house in Dumbo, she bought one in Bed-Stuy. Crazy.
“So then what do you think about all that?” Aunt Karla finally asks, breaking the silence as we move across a pedestrian crosswalk.
“Yeah.” I nod. “I get it. Yep.”
“Jerzie?” She stops, turns to me and crosses her arms. “I said ‘bippity boppity boo.’ Then I said ‘fiddle de dum and scallywag.’”
“Oh.” I scratch my head. “Is there a reason why you’re talkin’ like the fairy godmother from Cinderella?”
“Because you’re not listening!”
I stare at the dirty pavement. “Did you say anything important? Before all the nonsense?”
“Just about birthday plans. You have a birthday comin’ up.”
“Birthdays are lame.”
“Jerzie, what’s wrong? Did something happen at rehearsal?”
“I told you it was uneventful.” I kick a rock off the sidewalk and watch it skip onto the street as a Tesla zooms by soundlessly.
“But I need details. You met your idol. Tell me everything, Jerzie! Was she nice?”
I kick another rock. “She was okay. I guess.”
“Spill it. Right now. Something happened, and I need to know.”
I sigh.
“Fine.” She hands me her bags.
I fumble with them. “Why you giving me your stuff?”
She pops a squat right on the sidewalk, crosses her legs, and leans her hands back on the dirty concrete.
“Ew. What are you doing? You realize a person probably pissed there. And then died?”
“You might be right. Which is gonna make what I’m about to do even more disturbing.”
“What are you about to do?”
“Jerzie Jhames. I will lick the very concrete I sit on in five seconds if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
“Aunt Karla, don’t do that. You’ll get Hepatitis A, B, C, D. All of them.”
She sticks out her tongue and leans forward. “One.”
“Aunt Karla! I’m serious.”
Two men with jeans, hoodies, and briefcases slung over their shoulders step into the street to walk around us. They don’t even give us a second glance. Aunt K sitting with her tongue out on this street in Brooklyn is no concern of theirs. “You gonna get malaria,” I whisper. “Gonorrhea. Syphilis.”
“Two.” Her elbows rest on the concrete now. “Three.”
Oh no! Her tongue is inches away from bubonic plague.
“Okay, fine!” I grip her hand and pull her off the ground. I start talking. Fast. Beginning with me volunteering as tribute and ending with Cinny not exactly being happy about it. I leave out the kiss. It’s not like she needs to know that part anyway. Besides, it’s not like he kissed me for real. It was a scripted kiss. That’s different.