The Juliet Club by Suzanne Harper Page A

daughter, Kate.”
    The fearsome witch of Kate’s childhood smiled warmly at her. “ Piacere . I am so pleased to meet you.” Then she waved one graceful hand at Giacomo and added, “And I am most pleased to present to you Giacomo Marchese. My son.”

Entr’acte
    â€œHe’s the son of her father’s sworn enemy!” Sarah said with undisguised glee.
    â€œSarah,” Annie began, a note of warning in her voice.
    â€œStar-crossed lovers!” Sarah snatched the paper from Annie’s hands and reread the passage with an air of triumph. “You have to admit, I’m already ahead on points.”
    â€œExcept that they hate each other,” Annie pointed out. “ Loathe each other. Despise each other.”
    â€œExactly! It’s perfect!” Sarah cried. “This is the way the greatest loves in the universe always start!”
    Annie crossed her arms and stared at her friend. “You are so gullible.”
    â€œWhat?” Sarah happily bit into a cookie. “Don’t be a sore loser. “
    â€œKate is made of sterner stuff than you imagine,” Annie said. “She took a vow to never fall in love, and she won’t. You’ll see.”
    But Sarah, her eyes gleaming, just took another cookie and didn’t bother to answer.

Act I
Scene VI
    â€œThe villa’s main building was erected in 1682, with the two additional wings added in 1703.” Kate was pacing through the villa’s garden on gravel paths with Lucy at her side, reading from a pamphlet she had found in the library. “The intricate design of the garden is typical of the Renaissance, with separate ‘rooms’ created by box hedges and a high wall surrounding the entire garden, shielding it from public view. Even within the garden, there are many hidden spots that a visitor may stumble upon as he or she wanders through the carefully planned landscape: secret bowers and grottos, sunken pools, a fountain tucked within a small grove of lemon trees. The highlight of the garden is the large and elaborate maze, near the rear of the property, where the manicured garden becomes woodland and the sense of being lost within the labyrinthine hedges feels both delightful and slightly dangerous—”
    Kate raised her head and looked around. “I wonder how far we are from the maze. That sounds interesting.”
    â€œWell, let’s rest for a second before we go looking for it.” Lucy sat down on a wooden bench in the shade and fanned herself with her hand. “Lord, and I thought Mississippi was hot!”
    Kate stretched out on the grass, flopping on her back and staring up at the sky, so bright and blue that it looked enameled. “We can stop for a few minutes, I guess,” she said. “There are acres of grounds to explore, according to this brochure.” But she said it in a desultory tone. They had risen late, since it was Sunday, and had eaten a large meal with the other Shakespeare Scholars that served as both breakfast and lunch. As Lucy had said, they were an intense group: The girls tended to have fervent eyes and lank hair, while the boys went in for black-framed glasses and long-winded monologues.
    There was Winnie, a solemn Swiss girl with heavy black bangs and hair that hung straight to her shoulder, so that she looked as if she wore a helmet; Jonathan, who managed to mention that he was going to Oxford five times in five minutes (and wore a brand-new Oxford T-shirt to underscore the point); Frank, from Florida, who carried a heavily underlined copy of Romeo and Juliet everywhere he went; Erik, a brooding Danish boy who always sat hunched over, his eyes darting about as if he were expecting an assassination attempt; and Cynthia from Connecticut, who had a supercilious drawl and said things like, “Well, of course , everyone knows that Edward de Vere was a fair poet, but one only has to look at his alliteration , which one might call