I know you don’t believe what I’ve been telling you. That’s okay. I wouldn’t believe me either.
Better go back to school for now. Sorry about everything. I love you.
H
Francisco:
So Hamlet threatened to kill the king and you didn’t think to warn anyone?
Ophelia:
Like who?
Barnardo:
The authorities.
Ophelia:
He
was
the authorities.
Francisco:
Interesting.
Ophelia:
What?
Francisco:
So you’re saying Hamlet ruled over you?
Ophelia:
No. Yes. Everyone. He was the goddamned prince.
Francisco:
And Gertrude?
Ophelia:
She definitely ruled over me. And so did Claudius, in case you’re about to ask.
Francisco:
You didn’t think to mention his plan to them?
Ophelia:
Why would I mention it to them?
Barnardo:
Because it was a plot to kill Claudius!
(banging on the table)
Ophelia:
It didn’t sound like a plot. It sounded like Hamlet talking, which he did a lot.
Barnardo:
And you’re saying you saw Claudius in the garden. Why didn’t you report it?
Ophelia:
It didn’t seem like anything at the time.
Francisco:
You keep saying that. A rather convenient answer.
Ophelia:
There were cameras in the hall outside the conservatory. You must have some video that showed who came and went that day.
Barnardo:
The, uh, tape disappeared.
Ophelia:
Talk about convenient.
“You went to visit Hamlet a couple of weeks after he returned to Wittenberg.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you go?”
Ophelia pauses and looks at the audience. “He needed me.” Ophelia’s gaze turns anxiously to the screen behind her on which only Zara’s name is floating.
“I’m not going to show any pictures of what went on,” she says, “but what would you say to anyone wondering about that night?”
“Well…” Ophelia begins. “It was… a frat party… girls go wild.” Her half smile fades. “If I could do it all over again, though, I wouldn’t go.”
After Hamlet went back to school, I was kicked off the lacrosse team. As far as my coach was concerned (and she
was
concerned), I had already quit. She said if she’d known about my lack of commitment to the swim team earlier in the year, she wouldn’t have taken me on this team in the first place. Then she gave me quite a lecture about not changing my life for a boy, even if that boy was a prince. I liked the coach and I liked the game, but I’d only joined to keep myself busy after my mom died. Still, I felt awful knowing I’d let everyone down by skipping so many practices.
I left the field and headed for the art studio, hoping to focus on a drawing I owed. When I got there, the place was mercifully empty, so I grabbed a sheet of white paper and a box of charcoals and perched on my stool. The paper was blank—so full of possibility. And I had no idea what to put on it.
I startled at a noise behind me.
“Ophelia!” said Ms. Hill, who was coming out of the supply closet. “I haven’t seen you after school in ages.”
I bit my lip and nodded.
She pushed strands of her wild red hair off her forehead. “Are you finally finishing your pieces for the portfolio?”
“What portfolio?”
“For art school.”
I frowned, not sure if it was dogged determination or blindness that was preventing her from seeing that I had trashed all my plans and that there was no turning back. I rolled the charcoal in my palm and said, “You know I didn’t apply to art school.”
“Not this year,” she said, her voice breezy. Then she walked over and sat on the stool next to mine. “But I also know Denmark State isn’t where you want to be. Or where you’ll end up staying. So let’s put the portfolio together in case you change your mind.”
Not knowing what else to do, I nodded. My life had been looking like a windowless room, but here she was, offering a way out. Satisfied, she leaped up and went back to organizing paints.
The assignment had been to draw something important to us, and the first thing that came to mind was Hamlet. That just pissed me off. There was more to me than him. Wasn’t there? I closed my eyes and thought about what I loved. I considered drawing my art supplies, but I already had a still life, and the portfolio needed variety. A portrait was the way to go, so I considered who else I could do. My brother? My father? Hamlet’s father? And then it came to me. My mother.
I reached into my bag and unzipped a hidden compartment, pulling out a crinkled magazine article about her death. There was a picture of the bullet-riddled, crushed limo she’d been riding in when the assassin attacked. I had stared at the image so often that it no longer stung. It was more like the pressure of getting your teeth drilled after a shot of Novocain. Anyway, next to the car photo was a picture of her and my dad from before Laertes and I were born, which I’d always loved because they looked so young and hopeful.
I was sitting and considering whether to do just the portrait or to combine it with the accident—an idea that made my stomach hurt, but I knew would get a reaction from a viewer—when the studio door opened. I snatched the article off the worktable and held it in my lap.
Sebastian walked in and in the split second that I saw him before he saw me, I wished myself invisible.
Sebastian was one of the people I used to hang out with most, but our relationship had always been complicated. And I just didn’t want any more complications at that moment.
Sebastian’s feelings for me had been obvious for a long time. I would catch him staring at me at lunch or even watching me during study hall. I had deflected his attentions, but I admit I liked them. He was sexy and cute and totally different from Hamlet. He was taller and more solid, his black hair was cut very short, and his dark eyes smoldered—a fact I knew because on one drunken night I didn’t look away but let him stare at me and I stared back, locking him with my eyes, sharing in the mutual longing. But the next day, hungover and back to my senses, I remembered that I was taken and acted accordingly. He had continued to follow me around like a puppy, a damn attractive puppy, but to no avail. Until Hamlet and I broke up last spring.
Sebastian and I had gone to see the Poor Yoricks alone because none of our friends liked the band enough to pay scalpers’ prices to the sold-out show. Everything started out fine, but then when the equipment was being set up for the main act, the recorded music was really loud, so we had to lean in to hear each other. I was close enough to feel his heat and to smell the gel he used to make his hair perfectly messy. Something shifted, and I wanted so much to lean in and kiss him right behind the ear. Well, he must have felt the same, because at that moment, he inched forward and stroked my bare arm. A chill passed over me and I was about to touch my lips to his skin when over his shoulder, I caught a guy lifting his camera phone and pointing it at us.
I leaped back and ran, weaving through the crowd.
“I’m sorry, Ophelia,” I heard Sebastian calling after me.
I waited for him by the door. “It’s not you. But—I can’t have this in the papers.”
“You’re not with
him
anymore, so what do you care?”
Sebastian rarely called Hamlet by name, and at that moment, it upset me even more. “I love
him
, okay? We’re having problems right now, but we’ll get over them. We always do. And that’s not why I came out with you.” It kind of was, and we both knew it, but at least Sebastian didn’t argue the point. “I like you, and I can’t risk messing up our friendship. Or having my dad see what I do when he actually lets me go out.”
Sebastian rocked back on his heels, his face red. “So, you wanna leave?”
I looked at the stage, where the microphones were being set up. “No. But we can’t.… Just friends, okay?”
His shoulders had drooped, and he followed me back toward the stage.
In the art studio doorway, Sebastian stopped short when he saw me and asked, “Don’t you have practice?”
I shook my head. “Kicked off the team.” Saying it aloud, I was even more embarrassed than I had been before.
“You’re kidding,” he said, pulling his bag off his shoulder and setting it next to his easel. “That sucks.”
“Too much missed practice.”
He pursed his lips, holding back a comment about Hamlet, I’m sure, and said, “Well, it’s nice to have you back in here.”
I rubbed my forehead and said, “Thanks.”
“Keren and Justine are grabbing coffee. Wanna go after we work for a while?”
“Can’t.”
“Is
he
waiting for you?”
“
He
is back at school,” I snapped. “My dad told me to come straight home today.” Sebastian cocked his head, measuring his next move, I’m sure, but I added, “I’ll ask if we can all go out tomorrow.”
I know he caught the “all” I had carefully added to the phrase. He stooped to grab paint off a low shelf, and we both went back to work.
I spent the next while trying to catch up with my studies and my friends and trying not to worry about Hamlet. I figured if he was out of the castle, it was safer for everyone. I had finally begun to breathe, eat, and sleep normally when Horatio called.
Skipping all pleasantries, he opened with, “Hamlet’s bad.”
“What is it?”
“You have to visit. He’s dying here.”
“Well, it wasn’t so hot in Elsinore for him, so how much worse can it be?”
“He can’t sleep. He won’t go to class. He just sits around scribbling weird crap in journals and then burning the pages. He’s set off the fire alarm a few times, which is starting to piss off the other guys. He keeps saying he has to go back and finish business. I hope it doesn’t mean what I think it means. I keep reminding him how much he hated being around his mom and the Claw, but he won’t listen to reason.”
“The Claw?”
“It’s what we’ve taken to calling Claudius. It’s about the only thing that gets him to lighten up.”
I smiled. “I like that.”
“Can you come today?”
“Today? No. I have to—”
“He needs you.”
“Tomorrow. I think. I have to talk to my father.”
“Your father? Seriously, Ophelia, Hamlet’s right. You gotta get out from under his thumb.”
My cheeks burned. “Screw you, Horatio. I know you asked permission to go places right through the end of high school. I’ve already put so much on—” My phone clicked. Call-waiting. “I gotta go.”
“Ophelia—”
I hung up on him. Then I felt bad because he and I never ended arguments like that. I’d apologize when called him with my plans.
“Hey,” I said to Sebastian, who was on the other line.
“Hey. There’s a gallery opening tonight. Wanna go with me?”
I hesitated. It would be good to go out, to be with someone else, but I needed to talk to my dad about Wittenberg. And I didn’t think going out with just Sebastian was a good idea. “I, uh… I need to be with Hamlet right now,” I said.
“But he’s at school.”
“Yeaaah. I think I’m going there this weekend.”
There was a pause. “Oh. Got it.”
He hung up.
A few minutes later, my phone rang again. “What’d you do to Sebastian?” asked Lauren.
“Do? Nothing. I told him I’m going to Wittenberg.”
“Wittenberg? Ophelia, come on. You can go a weekend without him.”
“You and I went out last weekend. And the weekend before that.”
“Two in a row? Wow. You’re right. Time to disappear again.”
“You don’t understand. He’s really—I think he might—”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Lauren sighed. “Of course not. Fine, Ophelia. We’ll be here when you want us. God knows why, but we will.”
All I was doing was disappointing people. But I couldn’t fix the situation, since I didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t share my problems with anyone because, even if I did have any information, which I didn’t, I didn’t really trust anyone. The whole thing was turning me into a lunatic.
* * *
That night over stir-fry I told my dad I was going to Wittenberg. He put down his chopsticks and began, “There’s a Swahili saying: ‘When elephants fight, the grass gets hurt.’ You, my dear, are bound to be the grass in all this. Perhaps you ought to stay out of Hamlet’s fight. Perhaps you ought to stay away from Hamlet altogether. Let his return to school be an opportunity. They say, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ I say it’s worth giving absence a try.”
“
If
the object was to make him fonder, I might agree. But I can’t imagine that’s what
you
would want. An even fonder Hamlet?”
He smiled at my small verbal victory.
I sidled up to him and put my arm around his shoulder. “And as for my being grass among elephants, stop worrying. I’ll be fine. Hamlet isn’t fine and that’s what matters right now.”