Read an Excerpt
The Juliet Club
Chapter One
Act I
Scene I
That afternoon, Kate went home from school and found her parents sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen table. Her father was drinking a cup of strong black coffee and rapidly tapping his foot, a sign of either great excitement, too much caffeine, or (probably) both. Her mother was sipping the herbal tea that she claimed kept her mind sharp and her outlook serene. Despite the tea, she was looking at Kate's father over the rim of her mug with a familiar expression of barely repressed irritation.
Kate stopped in the doorway and looked from one parent to the other with grave suspicion. Although her father only lived ten miles away, her parents had made avoiding each other into an art form.
"What's going on?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"
"Wrong? No! Quite the contrary!" her father cried. "In fact, I have some wonderful news! Fantastic news! Amazing, stupendous, fabulous news!"
Her mother started to roll her eyes, caught herself, and took a calming sip of tea instead. "I never should have encouraged you to get involved in that community theater," she murmured. "Just tell her, Tim."
"All right, all right." Kate's father was so happy that he didn't even stop to give his usual lecture about Why Enthusiasm Is the Most Underrated Virtue in Our Modern Age of Cynicism. "You remember the writing contest I suggested you enter last fall?"
"Which one?" she asked. Her father was constantly handing her entry forms that required that she write an essay, a poem, a short story, or, if all else failed, an advertising slogan. "There was that haikucontest. And I remember writing a ten-minute play over winter break—"
"No, no, no, the contest sponsored by the University of Verona!" he cried. "Surely you remember? The university that's holding a series of seminars on Romeo and Juliet? One of which I was asked to teach? Because I'm considered one of the world's foremost experts on Shakespeare?"
He looked questioningly at his daughter and ex-wife. They looked blankly back.
"I don't know why I bother to tell anyone about my life, I really don't," he said, rather sulkily. "It's quite clear that no one listens to a word I say."
Her mother pursed her lips. "Well, you do say so many words, Tim. It's hard to keep up."
He opened his mouth to respond, but—just in time—Kate remembered dashing off ten pages on nature imagery in A Midsummer Night's Dream, right before the deadline. "Oh, wait. Got it. I stayed up until three a.m. to finish the essay. I fell asleep the next day in history." She frowned. "And I failed a pop quiz in chemistry."
"Petty concerns that will soon recede into the mists of time!" he said, waving a hand dismissively. "Minor problems that will soon be forgotten! Sacrifices that you will soon see were well worth making! And why is that, you ask?"
He waited. Kate obediently gave him his cue. "I don't know, Dad. Why?"
"Because you won!"
"Really? That's great." Kate opened the refrigerator to get a soda. Considering the number of competitions her parents and teachers urged her to enter, it would be strange if she didn't win a few here and there.
"Congratulations, honey." Her mother refilled her cup. "A humanities prize will make your college applications a little more well-rounded."
"Zounds, Emily, is that all you can think about?" Her father began pacing around the kitchen. "Her college applications? How prosaic! How pedestrian! How—"
"Practical," her mother pointed out austerely.
"But surely the more important point is that Kate gets to go to Italy!" He stopped in mid-pace to add, rather anticlimatically, "I told you it wasn't a waste of time to start reading the sonnets to her when she was eighteen months old!"
"I never said it was a waste of time," her mother said crossly. "I just thought picture books were more age appropriate—"
"Wait, wait, wait . . . I get to go to Italy?" Kate had only left Kansas three times in her life: to visit her grandmother in Chicago, to go to summer camp in Missouri, and to accompany her mother to a constitutional law conference in New Jersey that was, unbelievably, even more boring than it sounded. "Italy. As in Europe."
"Yes!" Her father bounced a couple of times, beaming at her. "Congraulazioni! We'll leave the day after school ends! We'll stay in an actual villa! And for four glorious weeks, we will experience the genius of Shakespeare and the splendors of la bella Italia!"
"You'll be there for a whole month?" Her mother's cup clattered into its saucer. "But what about thatclass in advanced rhetoric at the University of Kansas this summer? Remember, Kate? We signed you up ages ago—"
"Emily." Her father stopped bouncing, lowered his head, and frowned ferociously, a theatrical expression that Kate privately called his King Lear look. "This Is a Once In a Lifetime Opportunity." He thundered out the words, dramatically pausing between each one to make sure they heard the capital letters. This technique was invariably effective with his students (especially the freshmen), but Kate and her mother were far too used to it to be cowed.
"But she'll get college credit for the rhetoric class," her mother said.
"Which she will also earn for studying in the Shakespeare seminar," he countered triumphantly.
"Seminar?" Kate had a sinking feeling that she wasn't remembering the details of this contest with perfect clarity. "What seminar?"
"That's the prize: as one of the Shakespeare Scholars, you will have the distinction, the honor, the privilege of studying Romeo and Juliet in the heart of Verona, where the play is set!" Her father's eyes were shining as if he had just caught sight of Shakespeare himself. "You're going to learn so much, even though your class is going to be taught by"—his face darkened—"Francesca Marchese."
There was a brief, fraught silence.
The Juliet Club. Copyright © by Suzanne Harper. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
