The door of the penthouse apartment swung open, and Benvolio stumbled over the threshold. He was red-faced and sweaty from walking up sixty flights of stairs with his suitcase; an elevator ride would have afforded him too much time to think. For the past month, thinking only led to mourning, and Benvolio couldn't possibly take any more of that.
Leaving his suitcase at the front door, Benvolio began his customary beginning-of-year walk through the apartment. Nothing had changed from last year. The walls were covered with anything and everything: posters of movies, bands, swimsuit models; album covers; drinking game scoreboards; photographs of every shape and form. The last two years had allowed them to almost entirely paper the Rec room and their own rooms, which showcased items from slightly private to downright embarrassing. The cupboards were stocked with all types of junk food left over from last year, while the refrigerator was depressingly empty. The liquor cabinet had been so well contributed to in their first year by Benvolio's father and uncle that there was still plenty left over. Benvolio grabbed the nearest bottles and cracked it open. A long swig prepared him for the next sight he would encounter on his tour.
Still clutching the neck of the bottle, Benvolio inched out of the kitchen, towards the pool/air hockey/ping pong table. On the wall next to the billiards rack was the grimmest monument in the whole apartment: a blown-up, matted photograph. In front of a stone ivy-covered building stood three young men, each in their first year at Princeton University. One was athletic-looking with cropped strawberry-blond hair, sporting a polo shirt and a huge grin. The one next to him was black, also dressed demurely, with his impish nature betrayed in his thousand-watt grin, glittering eyes and short dreadlocks. But the last man was the one that made Benvolio's heart shrivel. This young man carried a mop of light-brown hair, sharp features and a rumpled oxford shirt. He stared at the camera with a wistful, barely half-smile on his face, as though he really were looking ahead to his short future. Benvolio wondered what he would have said if someone had told him that two years later, two out of the three people photographed would be dead. He wasn't even sure if he fully believed it now.
Mercutio's room was not strange at all to Benvolio. After all, this was where the trio would crash after every one of their parties had finished, muttering drunken you-guys-are-my-best-friends-ever's and describing all their night's exploits in disjointed, highly detailed narratives. The place was normally polluted with Mercutio's unwashed basketball gear, but in the state that they were normally in, the three friends could never detect anything out of the ordinary—that is, until the day after.
Mercutio had been at Princeton only because of his basketball scholarship. He cared next to nothing about his classes, and when asked what his major was, he would always reply with "Something to do with business, I don't even know." The Profs were willing to turn the blindest of eyes when it came to handing in assignments late, or not at all. As long as Mercutio could slam-dunk Princeton to the championships every year, his ticket through post-secondary education was all-inclusive and free. Such a waste, thought Benvolio, a familiar feeling of overall resentment clouding his soul.
Romeo's room, on the other hand, was practically uncharted territory for Benvolio. Not only was it the furthest back from the main hallway, but each time Benvolio walked in, Romeo would practically glare at him until he left. He could see why: the walls were covered with Romeo's diary pages. Romeo had fancied himself something of a philosophizer, jotting down his deepest thoughts in fancy prose, or sometimes rhymes when he was emotional enough. Choking back tears, Benvolio approached a well-worn sheet and read its contents. "Since I cannot prove a lover, shall I be determined to prove a villain?" Benvolio couldn't help it; his body began to wrack with sobs. Romeo had proved a spectacular lover, right to the end.
Romeo was at Princeton purely because of Mercutio, Benvolio, and Ted Montague. He was a genius, no doubt about that, but he cared nothing about his post-prep school career. It didn't take much convincing from Benvolio and Mercutio for Romeo to agree to join them at Princeton, and it was a small matter for his father to tip the board of directors in his favor with a few too many thousand dollars paid towards Romeo's tuition. Romeo's marks were consistently neck-in-neck with Benvolio's, even though he did practically no work and Benvolio studied like a fiend. Such a Goddamn waste!
Another swig of the bottle helped to muffle his emotions, and Benvolio slumped onto the couch in front of the flat screen TV. The next day was the first day of classes, and Benvolio needed to focus. What was he thinking, agreeing to live in the apartment alone the whole year? He owed so much to his uncle…Ted had insisted on paying Benvolio's entire tuition in memory of Romeo. Why did it still hurt so much? Benvolio laid back and closed his eyes. It had been more than a month since the whole horrible, messy incident had taken place. Predictably, Benvolio cried himself to sleep.
Walking through campus the next day was so strange, almost a surreal experience. Everywhere, girls shrieked and engulfed guys and girls alike in their special brand of bony hugs. Guys shook hands, shoved their shoulders together and patted each other's back in a move now so natural that it only looked stupid to others. Benvolio avoided the main hallways; he had had many friendly acquaintances, but the only friends he really wanted to meet up with were not there. Still, every so often Benvolio would find himself being waved at by someone whom he barely recognized. He never waved back.
At least nobody knew about what had happened back in Verona Beach. Practically nobody at Princeton was from Florida, and the whole story had not been published in any national newspapers. Excepting that article in Time that had run a story on the Montagues last year with Benvolio and his Saber 9mm gracing the cover, of course. He reminded himself to tear up the school library's copy.
Benvolio finally arrived at the door to the lecture hall, where his first class would take place. On an impulse, he looked behind him, and nearly vomited. For there, standing blatantly in the middle of the food court, was some little first-year punk, throwing furtive glances at Benvolio and whispering very fast to his little friends. Quickly, Benvolio darted across the court, grabbed the kid and shunted him into the bathroom. The kid started to protest, but Benvolio shoved him against the wall.
"Shut up," he whispered. "Listen to me. How much do you know?"
"Know about what?" The kid was playing innocent.
"Do not make me hit you," said Benvolio. "You were flapping your lips off to those people about me and my family. Do you deny it?"
"I…" the kid swallowed hard, realization dawning on him that a Montague was actually threatening him. People who were against the Montagues tended to die; he knew that much. "I might have mentioned something."
Benvolio shut his eyes and sighed. "You idiot. If you know so much about me, how could you forget about the fights I got into during the summer?"
Fear clouded the kid's face. "You wouldn't."
"If only to keep you quiet." Benvolio shoved the kid towards the door. When he knew he was alone, he dropped onto the couch and laid his head in his hands.
Of course he would never shoot the guy. He hated himself for suggesting it; what had become of his oath to leave Verona Beach and all of its crap behind? But he wasn't sure if he could go back out there; how many people knew by know? How long would it take to spread throughout the school?
Looking firmly at his feet, he shuffled to class.
The rest of the week was no different. Benvolio attended every class and attempted to take in what was being said, but he could only stare blankly at the Prof. He tried to eat on campus at one point, but gave up the ghost and resorted to stocking up on frozen TV-dinners. He had a feeling that Romeo and Mercutio would probably be angry at him for wasting time like that, but he simply could not muster the energy to get involved in anything outside the building.
He was walking back from class one day, his messenger bag undone and slung over his shoulder. As usual, he walked with his head down, thinking only of the liquor bottle and couch that waited for him back at the apartment. An all-too-solid object right in his path halted him in his journey. A couple of books that weren't his hit the ground, the papers sandwiched between their pages fluttering in all directions. From the angle he was looking, Benvolio could see a pair of daintily beaded flats, dancing to avoid stepping on the papers.
"Idiota!" yelled a girl's voice; it was then that Benvolio looked up. A pair of despairing dark-brown eyes met his, staring out of an olive-skinned face framed by black wavy hair. "Dios…I'm sorry! Uh…"
Frantically, the girl crouched down and shoved the papers into a messy stack. All together, it looked like almost a hundred pages. Concerned, Benvolio dropped to the ground as well and stacked the books. He was about to hand them to the girl, but stopped when he saw how full the girl's arms were.
"I promised myself that I'd organize myself before something like this happened…" She sifted through the stack, then gave up and held out her hands for the books. Trying to smile, she attempted an explanation. "They were all organized by page, you see. I'm really sorry for getting in your way."
Suddenly, Benvolio forgot all about the couch and the bottle of Jack Daniels. He didn't want the girl to walk away. "Hey, um, I could help you reorganize them if you want. I mean, I'm not going anywhere…"
"No, no, there's no need for you to, it was my fault."
Benvolio laid a hand on her arm. "No, I want to help."
The girl hesitated for a second, and then shrugged. "Okay…would you like to…sit down?" She glanced around furtively before settling herself onto a bench. Benvolio sat beside her and handed her a book. He looked at her, wondering if she had heard of him, or knew his face. She didn't appear to.
Could he risk introducing himself? He supposed it would be the polite thing to do.
"By the way, I'm Ben…" Without knowing exactly why, he stopped himself from telling her his real name. "Ben Magli."
The girl smiled at him. "Maria Montoya."
In a split second, Benvolio decided something. His depression was over; he was going to honor the memory of Romeo, the romantic, and Mercutio, the partier, in a way that both of them would probably prefer.
"Great too meet you," he said, handing her another textbook. "Can I buy you a coffee or something? Just to make it up to you…"
Maria cocked her head to the side, considering the offer. Finally, she looked back at Benvolio and smiled. "Ok," she said. "I'd like that".
They chose a pair of plush armchairs in the Starbucks down the street and settled in. Maria daintily sipped a black espresso, while Benvolio gulped a heavily milk-and-sugared coffee. As time passed, the silence went from comfortable to strained. It was Maria who broke it.
"Thanks again for the coffee," she said, patting her mouth dry. "It tastes just like back home."
"Really? Where is that?"
Maria set her cup back down on the table. "Spain," she replied. "My family runs an international school for boys…a very expensive boarding school. It was pretty ironic that I was born." She and Benvolio laughed.
"So really, you could have your pick of any guy from anywhere in the world?" Benvolio tried to make his question sound innocent, but it was so blatantly spoken that he regretted it the second it was out of his mouth. Maria looked down into her coffee thoughtfully.
"I could try…the minute any guy realizes I'm the headmaster's daughter they back right off. And the only guy I didn't tell…well, that worked out nicely." Maria's voice positively burned with sarcasm.
Benvolio peered over the rim of his coffee. "What happened?"
Maria seemed startled to see that Benvolio was still sitting there. "Oh, it's nothing…I mean, it wasn't nothing, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to hear about it."
"But now you've gone and got me interested!" Benvolio put on a puppy-dog face. "Please?"
Maria rolled her eyes and laughed. "Ok, but you can't think I'm an idiot or anything."
Benvolio blinked. "Never."
"Ok." Maria took a deep breath before beginning. "Well, there was a new guy at the school, and I thought he was like everyone else, but then hestarted flirting with me—I work around the school sometimes—and I decided not to tell him my real last name. So we started going out. After graduation, my father found the two of us kissing and pretty much blew a gasket. It turned out that his mother was my father's first cousin."
Benvolio's jaw dropped to the floor; Maria laughed ruefully. "Yeah, I know. He was practically catapulted home; my parents would barely let me out of the house for a month."
"Wait…I don't understand. He was your, what, third cousin? How did you not know him?"
Maria shrugged. "My parents never told me that he was coming. Actually, they never even told me I had family in America. From some of the things he and my parents said, I got the feeling that he was in a mob family, and they didn't want me to get mixed up in it. I think my father was providing his father with loans or weapons or something messy like that."
A mob family? Benvolio felt like kicking himself. Here he was, promising himself that he would leave that life behind, and here he was, falling for the only other girl on campus that had American mob connections! Christ, couldn't anyone ever cut him a break?
Maria looked at him strangely. "Um, Ben? Are you ok?"
Benvolio realized he was gawking at her, and closed his mouth. "Oh, yeah, I was just really into your story. It's…really intense." He shook his head, trying to clear it. "So what are you doing at Princeton?"
"International university program. My parents are a bit overprotective; I managed to get them to agree after a while. And it was a while, let me tell you."
After a few more minutes of idle chatter, Maria glanced at her watch and jumped up. "I'm so sorry, Ben, I have a class in, like, ten minutes! I have to go!" She hurriedly shoved her things into her bag. Benvolio stood up and helped her get herself together. Then, she stopped, and looked into his eyes. "I really enjoyed this."
Benvolio smiled. "Me too. Would you like me to run into you again sometime? Maria laughed. "How about we plan it out next time?" She leaned it to give him a gentle peck on each cheek, and Benvolio felt something crinkly being pressed into his hand. "I'll see you. And thanks…again."
Against his will, Benvolio followed her shapely pencil-skirt-clad bum all the way out the door. Maria glanced back once, then pushed the door open and walked briskly down the street. It was only then that Benvolio remembered that she had given him something. Opening his hand, he stared at a series of numbers scribbled onto a napkin. A huge, goofy grin spread over his face. He had her phone number.
