"Isabella, my fairest daughter, come forth to thy mother."
Bella knew what this conversation was going to be about, but she sat on the heavily cushioned bed without a word.
"Isabella, the gracious Lord Michael beseeches you for your hand in marriage."
Mike!!! thought Bella. Never mind. Definitely not what I expected from this conversation. She couldn't marry Mike, not if it were a choice between him and a spotted toad.
"I know not what to say," she said carefully.
"Oh, but he is divine!!! Verona hath never seen such a flower," gushed her nurse. "Isabella, he is like a man made of wax, that could only be dreamed of."
Lady Capulet smiled. "What say you to this suit, daughter?"
Bella bit her lip. It would enrage her "mother" now if she refused flat-out, but she could hardly say "yes" either! Delay, she thought. Just delay until the ball, delay until you see Edward.
"I shall look to like, perhaps, tonight at out festivities. For I know him not well enough to accept or refute his noble offer." There. That was a neutral enough answer.
"It's settled then," cried Lady Capulet gleefully. "You two darlings can become acquainted with each other at the masquerade." She took the nurse's arm, and departed.
Bella plopped herself down on the comfortable cushions. When would this bizarre dream end? Or, what if this maybe wasn't even a dream at all? I need to see Edward, she thought slightly frantically. This is all so, so strange. Last night I was wishing that he could play Romeo in the high school play, and this morning, I'm Juliet!! There had to be some explanation for all this. Indeed it seemed that there was an explanation, or at least phantoms of an explanation, dancing tantalizingly out of Bella's grasp.
She gazed musingly out the windows. Verona looked like everything she had imagined it to be when she was reading her script, and now she was actually in Verona. Maybe I'm lucky in that sense, if in any at all, she thought. It's not everyone that gets to become a part of 14th century Italy for a while.