She nods. “I think that will be really special. Micah and Aidan will love it.”
“I, uh, don’t really know much about famous literature though. Or writing. That’s hopefully where you come in.”
“I can definitely help with that.”
We dig into the food while standing at the kitchen island.
“So what works do you want to reference in the speech?” she asks as she chows down on sesame beef.
“Aidan teaches classes on Shakespeare, so maybe that?”
“Great idea!” Kendall says excitedly. “Do you have a line from one of his plays that you like? Or one of his poems?”
I frown. “Wait, he wrote poems too? Not just plays?”
“Yeah, he wrote a ton of sonnets. Lots of romantic ones too.”
“Oh.” I let out an embarrassed laugh as I poke my chopsticks into my lo mein. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s okay. His plays are what most people know and pay attention to,” she says. “Which is totally understandable. Shakespeare’s plays are epic. I mean,Love’s Labor Losthas one of my favorite lines ever. ‘And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods make heaven drowsy with the harmony.’” She clutches her hand to her chest. “Amazing, right?”
I blink at how she just rattled that off the top of her head. “Yeah, wow.”
“There are tons of swoonworthy lines from Shakespeare sonnets too,” she says. “Like, ‘So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground.’” She chuckles. “That’s not really a lovey-dovey line, I suppose. It’smore about how all-consuming the passion and lust for another person can be. Still pretty romantic in my book.”
I gaze at Kendall, in awe of how she lights up as she talks about this.
She takes another bite of food and looks at me. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“You know all those lines by heart?”
Her full cheeks blush. “Yeah. I guess that’s pretty nerdy, isn’t it?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s impressive. You’re able to memorize random lines from Shakespeare like it’s nothing. Kendall, you’re a genius.”
She bursts out laughing. “Not even close.”
“I’m serious. How do you know all that?”
She shrugs. “This is what I studied in school for years. It’s what I teach every day. It’s not really memorization. More like I’ve just been exposed to the material nonstop for so long.”
“That’s still amazing. I couldn’t recite a single line from any book that I’ve ever read.”
She tilts her head at me. “Come on. Of course, you could.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know anything about books.”
“You know, ‘Oh Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”
I roll my eyes and laugh. “That doesn’t count. Everyone on the planet knows that line.”
“What was your favorite book as a kid?”
I finish chewing my bite of lo mein and gulp my water. “I didn’t read much as a kid. I was too busy with hockey.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess that makes sense.” She wipes her mouth with a napkin. “What about in college? We had a literature class together freshman year. What was your favorite thing we read?”
That familiar stab of insecurity appears. Kendall doesn’t know that I did next to no coursework in college. She has no ideathat my coaches had an unspoken agreement with my professors that I could half-ass my homework and they would give me passing grades so I could focus on hockey.
