Chapter 2

When I reached home that evening, Landy was lying on the sofa, crunching a packet of potato chips I had just brought a few days ago.

“How’s your first day of school?” she asked. She had small eyes and a sharp nose to match her jaws. I had always believed that she is one of the most beautiful women in the world. In fact, for a long period of time, I had hoped I had the same countenance as her. I even desired to live her life: Carefree, with boys lining up to hold her hand.

I told her everything about Jacky and the embarrassment that he had caused me. Landy is the only person that I can pour my sorrows to. She will often drop by my house for a chat. My grandmother always opens the door for her if I am not in.

“So what, you’re going to avoid him for the next two years?” Landy said. “I bet he’s going to stick to you these two years.”

“You know I can’t talk to him.” I muttered. “I can’t harm him.”

“Makes sense.” Landy poured herself a cup of coffee and relaxed on the sofa. “Don’t you fall in love with him.”

“I’ll never!” I retorted almost instantly. “I mean … I …”

“Never is a very strong word. Remember your curse.” Landy reminded. “Remember. If you fall in love with him, you’ll harm him.”

I lay beside her and memories of how my mother died flowed back without mercy. “I know …”

We spent the next two hours trying to figure out how to stay away from Jacky. And two hours later, we slept on the sofa with no solutions in mind.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There was no way for me to avoid Jacky completely.

At classes, he would volunteer to sit beside me and I could not reject him. He would try very hard at starting a conversation, but I would always hint to him to shut up by giving him a silent glare. It often worked, but after a few minutes, he would be talking again.

During lunch break, we would eat together. He always offered to help me to buy the drinks. I wanted to tell him off, to say that I preferred to eat alone, but when he returned with my favourite drink, I gave in and just ate my meal in silence, trying hard to keep my eyes off him.

Rumours about us being an item surfaced after a few weeks. Jacky was especially concerned about disclaiming them. However, no one believed him. One day, he even threatened to beat anyone who spread the rumours and that was the first time I saw his trademark smile vanishing from his face.

“Why do you get so angry when people say something about us?” I asked him that day.

“I don’t wanna spoil your reputation. What if no one dares to woo you?” he answered matter-of-factly. “I don’t wanna destroy your future.”

“Then, why are you still sticking to me everyday?” I probed on.

It took him a while to register the question. “I …” he smiled once more. “I wanna help you. To see you smile.” He turned away, then whispered again, “To see you smile.”

“Why?”

“I want to do something meaningful while I can.”

Ironically, I frowned and brought the conversation to a halt. I told Landy about what Jacky said to me that night, and we spent over three hours pondering on what he meant. And, as usual, we managed to conclude nothing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Four months had passed since we started school.

I remembered that on a Tuesday morning, Mrs Goh, our Literature lecturer, suddenly declared, “Every year, we have a Drama competition organised by the Literature Club. Every class is encouraged to send a team forward. This competition, I believe, will help a lot in your Literature. So, I’m going to get this entire class to join.”

The students whispered protests, but Mrs Goh insisted. “Every one of you will help out in creating a play.”

Michael, one of the noisier guys, volunteered to be the scriptwriter. We spent the next fifteen minutes trying to find a suitable plot. In the end, we settled for the final scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It was the scene where Romeo would drink the poison and Juliet wakes up to find a dead Romeo.

However, there would be an interesting twist to it. They would speak in “Singlish” to add a Singaporean touch. And Juliet would drink the poison instead. We reckoned that would add points to our play.

“Okay, who’s good at acting here?” Mrs Goh glanced around the class. I was toying with my fingers, not concentrating on the discussion. “Let’s find a Juliet first … hmm, whose name starts with ‘J’?”

“Me!” Jacky raised up his hand in ecstasy. “Me, me!”

That idiot.

“You wanna be Juliet?” Mrs Goh mocked and the class erupted into laughter. “We need a girl, Jacky. It’s supposed to be a sad scene, not a funny scene where a macho guy acts as Juliet.”

Jacky giggled and announced, “Okay, I volunteer to be Romeo then.” Sighs of relief washed past several male students. “But, I have a request.”

“Which is?”

I looked up at Jacky. He was staring at my eyes. Oh, shit. I did not like that look. “I want Joanna to be Juliet. J for Joanna.” The whole class cheered as if Andy Lau had just sang a song.

That guy just would not let me study in peace, would he?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We had our first rehearsal in the school hall a few days later. It was unlike the normal tragic ending in Romeo and Juliet. We had to add in “leh”s, “lah”s and “oei”s into the dialogue to make it sound more Singlish. I wondered if it would reverse the scene from tragedy to humour.

“No … cannot be … you cannot die one …” I cried without tears. Jacky lay on the floor with his eyes closed. His lips were trembling, threatening to laugh any moment. “If you die, I also die then!” He could control it no longer. He chuckled out loud, infecting the entire hall with laughter, as well.

And I always frowned when they laughed because it would prolong the rehearsal. Everytime there was a rehearsal scheduled after school, I would think of numerous excuses to skip it, but in the end, I would still attend the rehearsal.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When I told Landy about my role as Juliet in the play, she laughed for fifteen minutes. “You, Juliet? Juliet!”

I had not expected my best friend to react in that way. Actually, I was hoping for some understanding from her. I kept quiet and when she sensed my displeasure, she lowered her voice and said, “You don’t like it?”

“I don’t like it.” I answered. “I don’t like talking.”

“Are you going to ‘curse’ anyone in the script?”

“No. I’ll be following the script. No worries.”

“Then, it shall be fine.” Landy replied. “You will enjoy yourself. After all, Jacky is Romeo. It will create a romantic-”

“Landy!” I cut her. “Don’t start!”

My grandmother came out of her room and stared at both of us with her eyebrows lowered. She was three-quarters blind. She hobbled towards the kitchen with the help of her walking stick and muttered, “Is that Landy?” she did not wait for Landy to answer. “It’s late. Landy, don’t you have to work tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is my day off, granny. I’m going to have a nice, long chat with Joan-, I mean, Juliet!” Landy exclaimed and we broke into a string of laughter. I helped my grandmother to the toilet and then back to her room. When we were alone once more, Landy persisted, “That Jacky seems to be interested in you, Joanna.”

“Don’t give a damn. I will never like him, period.”

“Let’s try to analyse what he meant when he said he wanted to help you.”

With that, our girls’ talk lasted for more than three hours before we slept. And yes, you’ve guessed it; we did not come to any conclusions.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We were supposed to get a theme song for our play.

Almost everyone had his or her own views. Some preferred love songs, whereas others preferred classics. A few of us even thought that including a song in the play was a bad idea. After an intense discussion, we decided to browse through HMV at The Heeren to see if we could find a suitable song.

When we reached the place, everyone else rushed into HMV as if they were children at Toys ‘R’ Us. I sat at the edge of a fountain outside HMV. To my surprise, Jacky did not go in, as well. He sat beside me and grinned. “Not going in?”

I shook my head. The loud music inside the store always gave me headaches.

“Well, me too. Bad for the ears.” he said, slapping his ears. Then he laughed at his own joke. “Well then, I’ve dug out another secret of yours. Secret number ninety-one of Joanna Fung: She does not like music stores. It’s the same secret as mine. I don’t like music stores, as well.”

“Good for you.”

“Then, how did you get your music CDs?”

“Through a friend.” Notice the friend was singular. I have only one friend and her name is Landy.

“Okay, great, secret number ninety-two of Joanna Fung: She does have friends outside Junior College! That’s good! That’s very good! That’s damn really freaking good!”

“It’s not funny.” I mumbled and darted my eyes up. “I’m going up to the Adidas Shop to have a look.”

“Count me in.”

We went up and browsed for about ten minutes, then met up with our classmates. They had all decided on a theme song. It was “Only Love” by Trademark. Jacky and I both agreed on that, as well.

We all went back to school that evening for another round of rehearsal. The play was due in three months’ time. For the first time, we did the entire play without an N.G.

The song was played first, and then it faded out as I entered the scene to witness an unconscious Jacky on the floor. I walked slowly towards him and sat beside him, my tears dripping (the magical eye drops).

“Romeo … no … cannot be … you cannot die one …” I pressed my head to his chest and I could hear his heart beating. “You promised me so many things … so many things! You must not die … open your eyes, leh …” I tightened my grip and then yelled aloud, “No!”

The song played again for a while. When it faded away, I held up the cup of poison beside me and said, “What for I live when you die already …? If you die, I also die, then!” Then, I gulped down the ‘poison’ (it was chestnut water) and within the same second, I shook my head gently and lost my balance.

The chorus of the song played for a minute or so, loudly. Behind my closed eyes, I could feel Jacky moving a little, and then his voice came. “Juliet? Juliet! Juliet?!”

He must have found out about the poison when he groaned, “No, Juliet …”. I knew he had stabbed himself when he slumped onto my back.

Now I knew why he volunteered to be Romeo. He only needed to memorise two words and got to lie on a pretty girl’s back. Smart guy.

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