The Boston Girl(28)

I asked about Juliet; in some scenes I thought she was wonderful but in others I thought she was an idiot.

Mr. Boyer timed it so that on the last day of class he read us the last scene, and even though we all knew what was going to happen, there were gasps when Romeo picked up the dagger and tears when Juliet woke up and found out he was dead. When he got to the last word of the play, I felt like a dishrag.

Mr. Boyer motioned to Ernie and handed him a pile of papers and announced, “Mr. Goldman will distribute these for your Final Examination.”

He had never mentioned a final examination before. We must have looked scared to death.

“There is no cause for worry, my friends,” he said. “All I ask is that you pose One Question that has most Intrigued or Confused you about the Play.”

That seemed easy enough and everyone finished up in a few minutes. But when Ernie started to collect the papers Mr. Boyer stopped him and said—actually, he never just “said” anything. If he wasn’t reading the play, he usually pronounced or declared—but this time he lowered his voice like he was telling us a secret.

“One more thing, my friends. Please be so kind as to answer your own question.”

Everyone went right to work, but I froze. “Was Juliet a great heroine or a foolish little girl?” I couldn’t just choose one or the other and I didn’t see how I could say she was both at the same time like I did with Paul Revere.

Other people were turning in their papers and I still hadn’t written a word. I was starting to panic until out of the blue I remembered my father saying that Jews answered questions with more questions. So that’s what I did.

“Was Juliet a better poet than Romeo? If Juliet found out about Rosaline, would she still love Romeo? Should Juliet have given Paris a chance? Why is love so dangerous for Juliet? Why are Juliet’s parents so blind? Was the Nurse Juliet’s friend or enemy? Would Juliet have killed herself if she had been twenty-five years old instead of thirteen?”

We sat and watched Mr. Boyer read our papers. He nodded, he smiled, he shook his head, he frowned, he laughed a little, and he sighed a lot.

When he was finished he said, “Congratulations to you, one and all, on Completing the Course. Each of you will receive the Highest Grade I am permitted to bestow. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I send you on your way. A Sweet Sorrow.”

I waited to be the last one to leave the room to tell him thank you and to ask what he was teaching next term and if I could take it.

“I am flattered,” he said, but he was retiring. I had taken the very last class he would ever teach. “That explains my unorthodox methods,” he said. “I am now Beyond Reproach. But I would like to give you an assignment, if I may.”

I said yes, of course.

He told me to go and see the play “on its feet.” You know, onstage, in person. He said he was sure I would understand Juliet if I saw her walking and breathing and speaking her poetry. “You might even come to love her.”

I’ve seen Romeo and Juliet maybe twenty times since then: movies, Broadway, even high school performances. Remember when I took you to see it in the Berkshires, under the trees? I do love Juliet now, but every single time I understand something different about her. That’s probably why Shakespeare is a genius, right?

Stumbling into Mr. Boyer’s class was one of the best accidents that ever happened to me. When I started teaching, I remembered how he talked to us, and you know what? If you treat every question like you’ve never heard it before, your students feel like you respect them and everyone learns a lot more. Including the teacher.





I figure God created Margaret Sanger, too.

The Saturday Club was changing. Younger girls joined, older ones married and disappeared, including Helen, who moved to Fall River, which was a real schlep in those days. Filomena was still working for Miss Green, but she had stopped coming to meetings. Gussie said that Morelli was teaching art in Boston; I don’t know how she found out these things, but she did.

Irene and Rose were still Saturday Club regulars and best friends from Rockport Lodge. They shared a room in the South End and Rose got Irene a job as a switchboard operator at the telephone company where she worked. Irene always had some juicy stories about conversations she listened in on. “Rose never does it, but she’s too good for this earth,” Irene said. “If I didn’t eavesdrop I’d die of boredom.” Irene always made me laugh.

But one Saturday when I was on my way to the meeting—it must have been in the spring because it was light outside—I saw Irene running toward me and I could see that something was wrong. My first thought was that Rose was sick. For such a big, strong girl, she always had a cold or a headache. But it wasn’t Rose.

In one breath, Irene told me that Filomena had come to their room that afternoon, pale as the moon, and asked if she could she rest there for a few hours. But after a little while, she started having terrible pains in her stomach.

I said, “Why didn’t you get her sister Mimi? She’d want to know if Filomena was sick.”

Irene cupped her hands around my ear and whispered, “She said not to go to any of them. She did something to herself so she wouldn’t have a baby.”

I’m not sure I ever heard anyone say the word abortion, but I knew exactly what Irene was talking about.

When a woman “lost” a baby, there were two different ways of talking about it. The first one was sad. People would say, “Poor thing,” and tell stories about how it happened to their cousin or their best friend who had wanted a baby for years.