Page 53 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
So I decide not to, at least for tonight. Compartmentalizing is something I’m good at; I’ve had a lot of practice in the past, not thinking about Merrick working late or not thinking about being denied a promotion or not thinking about all those overseas job offers I could have had instead of wasting away on insignificant stories under my husband’s thumb.
I know I’m supposed to be letting Old Helene go, but New Helene needs a break. It’s exhausting being independent and intrepid all the time. My brain is tired, my body is tired, and honestly, what I need is to just pretend for an evening that these last few days didn’t happen.
I wonder if Sebastien will let me.
SEBASTIEN
Whatever Helene was about tosay when she marched into the kitchen seems to evaporate in the fragrant steam floating from thestove. At first she was coiled with determination, one fist clutching a notebook and the other a pen. But then she blinked, and the steeliness that had been in her eyes gave way to something softer. Her grip on the notebook relaxes, and she sets it with the pen on the counter.
“Wow.” Helene approaches and leans over the pot, as if I hadn’t traumatized her with knowledge of a centuries-old curse only hours before. “That smells incredible,” she says.
I close my eyes as I gather myself. She’s so close. I can smell the hint of floral lotion on her skin, feel the shift in the air when her hair swings from side to side. I want to touch her. I want to say so much to her.
But instead, I only say thanks, erring on the side of caution until I have a better grasp on her state of mind. And until I have a solid grasp on mine.
She chews on her lip, like she’s considering what to say next. Then she shakes her head, as if pushing off a previous decision, and just smiles and says, “Except for French toast, I’m a terrible cook.”
I try not to laugh and manage to say “Oh?” as if I’m surprised. But I’m not. Historically, Juliet has been a lover of food, but not a maker of it. It’s peculiar how there are certain characteristics of hers that remain consistent through every reincarnation, while others change. Her core personality is always the same—clever, excitable, optimistic—but details like how she looks and what she’s interested in vary from lifetime to lifetime. Nonetheless, she’s consistently a miserable cook.
“You won’t believe how many times I’ve ruined frozen pizza.” Helene smirks to herself, as if at a memory. “Anyway, I can’t cook, but I’ll do the dishes for you, if you want. I actually find it meditative.”
“Really?” I’m happy to take her up on the offer. I loathe washing dishes.
“So, what’re you making?” she asks.
“Risotto. But, Helene, about earlier…”
“Shh. Let’s not talk about the gallery, okay?” she says.
I have to know, though, where we stand if we’re going to be inthis house together. I have to know whether I can release the chains around my heart, or whether I should keep everything under lock and key.
“It was a lot to lay on you—” I say.
Her fingers flit through the air like she’s casting a magic spell. “I know it’s the walrus in the room, but I’ve decided not to talk about it. Not yet, anyway.”
Helene seems to be looking at everything but me as she says this, her gaze flitting from pot of risotto to espresso machine to kitchen towels to tray of cannoli. My heart clenches, because I recognize the nervous energy from previous Juliets. I’ve seen this before, the stages she goes through when a situation is too big or too frightening to grasp.
First there’s a facade of bravery. Then there’s panic. Next is the need to do something, to gather as much information as possible. Then there’s retreat. That’s the stage Helene seems to be at now, the impulse to burrow like a small mouse deep into the ground and forget what’s happening outside for a while. Only after that will she emerge rested and ready to face hardship again. And then that’s when her optimism and real bravery take charge.
This, however, is the most fragile stage, and every Juliet handles it differently. I have to follow her lead, lest I scare the mouse deeper into her burrow.
“All right,” I say. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
“Exactly!” Helene beams. “I mean, I was thinking: We’re both coming at this with a lot of outrageous baggage. But we’re forgetting that none of it matters if the basics don’t work. So what if someone who looks like you has been my imaginary best friend for years? And so what if you claim you’re, like, almost seven hundred years old? If you and I, right now, don’t get along, it’s all moot anyway.”
I wince, because seven hundred years old makes me sound alarmingly decrepit. And I look as if I’m in my thirties, because I’ve physically aged only about a decade since I was Romeo.
In any case, I’m about to point out that her soul is essentially the same age as mine—seven hundred years—but I stop myself asI realize it would mean highlighting the worst part of the curse: that Juliet dies again and again.
Now I understand why Helene put her defenses up. It’s not just the eternal Romeo part that she can’t quite swallow. It’s the fact that, if she believes what I’ve told her, it’ll mean accepting her own death sentence.
Even though I’ve known it for centuries, it doesn’t make it any easier. No wonder she wants to hide in her burrow for a while.
“So what I propose,” Helene is saying, oblivious to the dread of eternity and inevitability swirling in my thoughts, “is that we set aside what wethinkwe know about each other, and actually get to know the other person in the here and now. We’re going to be in this house for a while together anyway. And then when this blizzard ends, maybe we’ll have figured out if we even like each other as people, because if we don’t, any grand ideas of ‘destiny’ don’t matter.”
It’s difficult to comprehend—because she and I areallbackstory—but what Helene is asking is completely reasonable. I may know all the Juliets of the past, but I don’t know Helene yet. And she may know her made-up version of Sebastien, but she doesn’t knowme.
“No talk of your stories or Romeo and Juliet or curses?” I ask.
