Jonni and Sugar just barely made it into English class before the bell declared that passing period was over.
"Morning, ladies." The English teacher, Ms. Wilkes, sighed as she looked around the room. "We have a lot to do, so let's first start by turning in those vocabulary assignments." Students responded by flipping through their backpacks and binders. Jonni pulled out his handwritten assignment, giving him his first look at his new, and quite feminine, handwriting. He had even put a heart to dot the i in his name! Jonni passed the paper up to the front and looked around. A couple of people in here looked familiar. There was a boy who looked a little like Biff Meadows, though his body type was nowhere near as muscular, and it certainly seemed as if Sarah McMillan was the one on the other side of the room.
Ms. Wilkes walked to the front, where she had an open textbook at the ready. "Today, we're diving into the first act of Romea and Juliette, so get out your textbooks and turn to page 322." Jonni pulled out the English textbook and skimmed through the intro to the play. Definitely not the Romeo I knew, he mused. It seems it was a comedy, not a tragedy, where they all got along. He was just about to flip to the next page when he saw that the author profile had the portrait of a woman in it, a woman named Emilia Bassano. Who? This seems like a big difference... Of course, Jonni wouldn't have known that some scholars said Shakespeare was actually a Venetian woman, a controversial proposal in the midst of disputes over who really wrote his plays, or the fact that there would have been no need here for her to even take a pen name.
On the whole, Jonni thought, this play was good though the language was quite flowery. Just like everything else, it occurred to him. There were more than a few floral dresses being worn by his classmates and by his teacher. He looked back at who seemed to be Biff, who fortuitously raised his hand to ask a question.
"So why don't they fight so much? Like, this could be a tragedy."
"Well, Brittany, we're not very sure. Obviously Bassano thought the world needed another comedy with these two. The two girls fall in love..." Girls? Jonni looked around. Is everyone bi? No wonder lesbian comedy would have seemed normal here... It occurred to him that this play could never have been a classic if people hadn't been accepting of lesbian relationships for centuries. If Shakespeare had written this, it would have been censored.
Class plodded along, students taking turns reading the lines. He was bored, but he knew he needed to pay enough attention because there would certainly be a writing assignment on it.
“So, we’re gonna read this next section in pairs to each other,” Ms. Wilkes announced. Sugar sat right behind him, so before Jonni had a chance to see if there was someone else, his girlfriend had already gotten his attention. As they read the lines, Sugar put her hand out for Jonni’s and held him.
At first, like before, Jonni was a little uncomfortable with the intimacy. He tried looking around the classroom to see if anyone was watching, but they weren’t: everyone was too engrossed in their lines to be paying attention to Jonni. Shaking his head, he returned his attention to Sugar and his lines but, as he caught sight of Sugar, it was like he was suddenly in one of those old cheesy romantic movies from his old world—the ones where as soon as the female character gets introduced, a sudden wind picks up (no matter where they are) and the character’s hair sways delicately in the wind while they stand in a sexy pose.
Sugar was gorgeous. And she fought for him.
“I don’t think I can read any further, babe…” Jonni’s face was beet red. He was flustered. But he was happy.
