I was standing in the international foods aisle, holding cans of water chestnuts and bamboo shoots, when a young woman accosted me. “Professor,” she said to attract my attention. “I was in your Shakespeare class five of six years ago, and I enjoyed it very much.” Before I could say anything more than “thank you,” another young woman appeared and gave the first a hug. “Jennifer, I haven’t seen you since…” She noticed me and excitedly embraced me with a one-arm hug. “Since we were in your Shakespeare’s tragedies course. We took a lot of classes together, besties for a semester or two…. Looks like a stir fry tonight.”

I suddenly thought I recognized the distinctive voice, the Spanglish cadence. Jennifer  responded, “Alicia was a wild child, always talking, commenting.

Alicia agreed, “The literature classes were my favorites because I could discuss the texts rather than merely listening to a lecture. I remember the days you devoted to Hamlet; I loved your insistence on very detailed analysis.” She paused for a moment and then added, “I went away to law school and now I’m back with a law firm downtown. Professor, you’d surprised at how Shakespearean some of my cases have been: betrayal, jealousy, possessiveness, and from both sides. Plus, now there are same-sex and trans issues.”

“Oh, yes. Now I remember you, Alicia Fernandez, the student with shades of purple in her black hair. You always wanted to update the plays, rewrite the endings.”

“Gonzalez, Alicia Gonzalez.  I could be very disruptive back then. I was almost tossed from a history class for joking about the Puritans who settled in a new land so they could hate each other rather than their English neighbors.”

“Still true, today, Alicia. I like ‘disruptive.’ Wakes up the back row. I recall that you were unhappy with the tragic fates of Ophelia and Desdemona.”

Jennifer joined, “Yea, Alicia thought Hamlet was a nasty brat.” In the middle of Aisle 12 and a dozen soy sauces, the three of us were back in a university room. “Alicia said Hamlet was a ‘dick,’ who had seduced Ophelia with some bad poetry and a few trinkets from Walmart, then dumped her.”

Alicia picked up the thread, “Yea, Ophelia’s upset, kind of mourning the affair, and the oh-so-noble prince goes off on her as a whore. She was naïve but where was she to look for comfort. Surely not from Gertrude, and Polonius is only carping, ‘I told you what Hamlet wanted.’ So she broods about it and sings about the lover who disappears after he gets what he wants. There’s no ‘#Me,Too’ movement with a website and an 800 number. I was in tears for Ophelia, and Hamlet was hamming it up in a graveyard about how he was sadder than Laertes, jumping into her grave, vowing to eat a crocodile. Too, too much, and the class was roaring with laughter. You just took it all in stride, turning my modernizing into an equally updated spin on the claustrophobia of Elsinore and its toxic masculinity.

Jennifer added: “Eh, Tybalt, Mercutio, Romeo, Othello, Macbeth, and probably a few more lovers and kings. And Iago! I remember your asking us if we knew where our significant others were while we were sitting in class. How much does it take to imagine he or she in bed with your best friend?”

“Wakes up the back row,” I said. “One of my professors in grad school insisted that Shakespeare should be an experience not a seminar.” I paused briefly. “Ladies, it is always a pleasure to be remembered.  It’s rewarding to see that Shakespeare sticks with you.”

Jennifer gave Alicia a hug, smiled at me, and said “Good-bye.”

Alicia gave me a business card, “Alicia Gonzalez. Attorney,” and a hug and was gone. I was thinking that the prince had been destined to marry a princess, a happier ending than the demise of the entire Danish royalty.