Whether it was a movie or a play, she always fell in love with the actor playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Twelfth Night was, in her opinion, Shakespeare’s masterpiece, and whenever she had the opportunity to see it, she did. Since the first time she’d read the play in high school, she had been in love with Sir Andrew, and now she was smitten with actors who played him.
For two weeks, she stalked Richard E. Grant, from the movie Twelfth Night, until she saw a production of the play at the local middle school. That was awkward, since Sir Andrew was played by a 7th grader, but only three days later, she saw a youtube video of a college production from 2001. She moved to Pittsburg to be near Jake Collins, who was now a paralegal. He was going to get a restraining order against her after she crashed his stag party, but she promised to leave him alone. After that, she cultivated the art of disguise.
Every few months, she encountered a new Sir Andrew and fell violently in love. Though it grew tiresome, she simply couldn’t help it. She even very nearly got married once, but three weeks before the wedding, her fiancé foolishly brought her to see a local production of Twelfth Night, probably trying to remind her of the night she met him. But the new Sir Andrew, ugly and scrawny though he was, tore her heart away from her fiancé.
And so her life continued for years, until she was so sick and tired of it all that she did her best not to go see Twelfth Night anymore. But her intense love for the romantic comedy was not easy to keep down.
One snowy evening, she was standing outside a movie theater. A new version of Twelfth Night had come out, but she was a dollar short on cash. A dollar!
“Please, sir,” she said, approaching a rather hideous-looking young man standing there. “Have you got a dollar?”
“Sir?” he answered. “Am I a sir? No, I’m Andrew.”
“Sir…” she began.
“Andrew,” he corrected her.
“Sir Andrew?!” she gasped.
“Yes?” he said, confused but wanting to please the fresh face before him.
“Sir Andrew Aguecheek?!” She was smitten. “Please,” she said. “Marry me and take me away from all these productions!” After all, she thought, when Olivia asked Sebastian to marry her, he agreed even though he’d never met her. But then, she was beautiful…
“Take you away where?” he asked, taking her hand. Her heart fluttered.
“Away,” she said, “away from all the other Andrews.” This was enough for him.
“I have a cabin in the mountains,” he said. “We don’t even get radio. And the City Hall is just down the street. We could get married now!”
“Oh, Andrew!”
“I suppose I ought to know your name,” he said as they set off.
“Call me…Viola.”
And they lived happily ever after.
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