Page 41 of Turnabout Is Fair Cosplay
I gasp when I see the dilapidated bathroom. “This is an old house.”
“Built in 1942.” He joins me in the hallway.
“For who?” I poke my head into a bedroom that has even more construction tools than the deck outside.
“My grandmother.” He closes the door to what I am guessing is his room.
This little house is completely charming, even if it is in desperate need of some care. It has character. They don’t build them like this anymore. “What happened to it?” I tap the mural on the wall.
“It was always falling apart. Little old ladies have only so much…” Mike swallows and leans a shoulder against his shut door. “When my grandmother moved into assisted living, she found some renters, who added their own touches to the property.”
“Deferred maintenance?” I press my finger to a bubble in the drywall of the wave, and some plaster falls to the floor.
“You could say that.”
I dust my hands on my linen cover-up. “Are you the sole owner?”
Mike sighs. “Yes.”
“How do you”—I jab my finger against his chest—“get to criticize me for being a Del Mar princess when you own this? You could sell it tomorrow and have millions.”
“It’s a two-bedroom shack with completely stripped wiring and only one bathroom.”
“You could bulldoze this shack, split the lot—”
“I can’t sell it until the remodel is finished.” He runs a hand through his hair.
“Why?” I’m standing too close, but the hallway isn’t exactly spacious.
“Because it’s what they wanted. Now, if you don’t mind…” He shuffles past me into the spare bedroom and rummages through a collection of tools on the floor. “I have a deck to finish.”
“And the end of Sonnet 40 to recite?”
Mike looks up.
“The couplet. ‘Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows, Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.’ You didn’t finish.”
His mouth twitches. “You make Shakespeare sound like a city ordinance.” He pulls out a set of drill bits. “Do you know any others?”
“Oh, Mike. The least you could do is buy me a drink first.”
He scoffs. “That’s the last thing I’d ever do—pay to hear Shakespeare reduced to a boring courtroom argument from an uninspired, prickly lawyer.”
“I’m not a lawyer anymore.”
“You still sound like one.”
“Highly educated? Intelligent? Successful?”
“Conceited. Smug. Devoid of feeling.”
“Pouring emotions into words only makes you sound like an idiot. It’s the definition of overacting, but maybe that’s not covered for theater majors until graduate seminars.”
Mike grabs a new battery for his drill. “You don’t force the emotion on the words, Bea. You let them breathe and live the life they were meant to have. You taste them and enjoy the pleasure…” He trails off, passing a hand over his eyes. “The emotion comes because you feel the truth of the sentiment and cleverness of the words. Sonnet 40 is better than most monologues. It feels and sounds playful, but it is barbed wire, electrocuted with passion.”
My skin prickles and my stomach pulls taut at the familiar description. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. The man in front of me is not the author of the annotations. He can’t be. “Sounds painful,” I quip.
“And yet the pain is preferable to the alternative.”
