Verona

There are two characters in Verona, Vonnie Wolf, 15, and Pitt Rooks, 14.  Vonnie reads Juliet’s “Come, night” speech as she memorizes her lines.  She sees Pitt and he tells her that he knows what she is doing.  He says that she thinks he’s stupid because he lives at the junkyard by the dump but he knows what she does with the director after rehearsal and he is going to tell the man’s wife.  She asks him what he wants and he says that nobody sees him.  Vonnie says she doesn’t know what she is doing and Pitt says he could kill the man.  She says she doesn’t want him to be hurt.  Pitt says either she didn’t want the man to touch her, in which case he deserves to be shot, or she wanted him to touch her which means she’s a whore.  Vonnie says she’s not a whore but she knows what loneliness is.  She reaches out to touch Pitt’s face but he pulls away, saying that nothing ever makes anything all right and she should not be sorry for him, ever.  He leaves and Vonnie sits on the step of her back porch, working on Juliet’s lines.  Pitt comes back and Vonnie says she was worried when he wasn’t at rehearsal because she thought he might be telling the man’s wife.  He says he didn’t tell and she says that when the man kissed her it just happened, partly because he was so sad and partly because no one holds her.  She says when she plays Juliet she is somebody.  She tells Pitt she didn’t think he would kill the man.  Pitt says he doesn’t know who his father is, but when Vonnie is on stage Juliet is real and Verona is real because Vonnie is not pretending like the others.  He says he is not real and Vonnie says neither one of them is real.  She asks if he will sit with her but he says he’ll just listen in the dark.