A Step Toward Falling Read online

  As if Lucas is trying to prove my theory right, we don’t talk the next week in school. He doesn’t ask for a ride and on Wednesday night, he doesn’t show up to Boundaries and Relationships.

  But here’s a surprise: Chad does.

  “Hey! How’re you doing?” Chad says, smiling at me and spinning around in his chair when I walk past him to get to an empty seat. “I was just thinking about you the other day.”

  I whisper, “Hi,” and then point up to the front. “I think Mary’s about to start.”

  Mary claps her hands and says, “We’ve got a new topic, everyone! Today we’re going to talk about expectations.”

  I look over at the empty chair where Lucas usually sits. Even Mary pauses when she registers the fact that Lucas isn’t here. This whole time—even with his injury—he’s never missed a class.

  “Who can tell us what that word—expectations—means?” Two hands go up. “Yes, Thomas?”

  “It’s when you expect something like a package in the mail.”

  “Good!” Mary says. “It’s something that you hope will happen but you also think it probably will happen. Like a package coming. That’s a good example, Thomas. Thank you. What are some expectations that people might have when they get in a relationship?”

  The question is confusing for this group. She’s jumped too quickly—from packages to relationships. No one says anything. They blink up at her and then around at one another.

  “Sheila, when you imagine having a boyfriend, what are some of the things you picture doing with that person?”

  Sheila doesn’t have to think about this for long. She makes a list on her fingers. “Go shopping at the mall, but not for candles. I hate candles. Go to movies. Eat tacos in restaurants. Maybe roller-skating, maybe not. Probably not.”

  “Great!” Mary claps her hands. “That’s perfect.”

  Sheila grins. “If it’s Justin Bieber, I might pick different things.”

  “That’s right. With different people, you might pick different things. Okay, Simon, how about you—when you imagine having a girlfriend, what do you picture doing with her?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  “If you had a girlfriend, what would you do with her?”

  “Touch her butt.”

  Chad laughs and gives Simon a thumbs-up. Mary gives him a warning look, though I’m not sure he sees it. “Okay, what else?”

  Simon screws up his lips to think. “Touch her tummy?”’

  “Okay. Do you picture doing things together, like going to the movies or out to dinner?”

  Simon shakes his head. “Movie theaters smell like poo. I don’t go to movies anymore.”

  “Do they always smell like that, Simon, or did that just happen once?”

  “It just happened once, but it was bad.”

  “Okay, fine. Thank you, Simon. Let’s look at the difference between what Sheila expects to do with a boyfriend and what Simon expects to do with a girlfriend.”

  She goes to the whiteboard and gets help from the group making two lists. I have to admit it’s a pretty good exercise: the woman wants to go out, the man wants to stay home and touch things that aren’t technically private parts but have obviously been driving Simon crazy for years. By the time the list is complete (now it includes “touch her shoulder, hug, smell her hair”) he’s red in the face.

  Mary asks, “Does anyone look at these lists and see any problems that might come up?”

  Not at first, they don’t. They squint to read the board. A few play with shirt threads or stare out the window. For them, the conversation got too hard with the first part of the first sentence, “When you imagine . . .” But slowly they seem to get the point she’s trying to make: men and woman expect different things out of relationships. Women are more public; they want to do things together and “show off their boyfriend.” Men are more private. They’d rather stay home together and not bring other people into the equation.

  I think about Lucas and me, sitting in the dark of the empty auditorium, saying something with our hands that neither one of us was brave enough to say out loud. Whatever was happening between us these last two weeks felt scary and unfamiliar because it also felt real. It wasn’t the head rush of a college boy asking for my phone number. With Lucas, it was completely different. We talked; we plotted; we disagreed. Up until the day of the audition, I had no expectations. I marveled at how much I liked Lucas but my brain made no time-warp leaps ahead. I didn’t imagine anything except putting on a decent show starring Belinda. Which he wanted, too. Our expectations were the same. Maybe we surprised each other with our inexplicable intensity. Without talking about why, we egged each other into caring more about this idea. We imagined the whole school would come and see Belinda. They’d be awed by her talent and her life would change forever. We both believed our classmates would think the same way we did, that they’d show up to audition for a play to be nice to a girl we all felt bad for. Now when I think about everyone’s busy schedules—the sports practices, the college apps, the AP exams—I don’t feel mad that no one came. I feel mystified that I ever thought they would.

  Lucas and I both wanted it to happen so much that we convinced ourselves it would.

  Expectations are sad and complicated things.

  At break, I do something I’ve been promising to do for weeks now: I sit with Sheila and look through a Justin Bieber scrapbook she has brought from home. She has many of these, apparently, but is only allowed to bring in one at a time that she can share with one person each class session. This is Mary’s way of reminding her that certain conversation topics have to be limited. At an early meeting with Lucas and me, Mary explained it this way: “She should get to have one good Justin Bieber conversation a class. That way, she can learn it’s a fine topic in small doses.”

  Though Sheila is explaining every picture she points to, Chad pulls a chair over to my other side and starts talking.

  “Do you want to go to the vending machines,” he whispers, “and I’ll tell you about a cool party I’m having this weekend?”

  Even Sheila looks confused at his interruption.

  “Not right now, Chad,” I say. “I’m finally getting my chance to see Sheila’s Justin Bieber scrapbook.” What I’m doing is important, though Chad either never got that talk from Mary or else he didn’t hear it. He leans over and whispers, “I’m trying to rescue you. It’s our break time.”

  “No, thanks,” I say.

  After he has left the room, Sheila turns to me. “He’s rude,” she pronounces.

  Suddenly it occurs to me: these students understood this about Chad long before I did. That was the reason no one volunteered to act with him the first class. That was why he so often asked me to be his partner. No one else would do it.

  At the end of class, Chad disappears quickly and Mary walks out with me to ask if everything is okay with Lucas. I almost tell her, “I’m not sure—we had a fight,” which makes no sense because we didn’t. It just feels that way. Not talking in school. Not saying hello.

  “Well, tell him he’ll need to add a class at the end because he’s missed this one.”

  “I will,” I say. I notice she’s not asking Chad to add any classes for the ones he’s skipped.

  “We missed him today,” Mary says. “Tell him that, too.”

  Somehow what Mary has said, combined with the class activity about expectations, has made me think differently about all this. Instead of being mad at Lucas for ignoring me in school and skipping class, I call him when I get home and tell him I’m sorry that our plan didn’t work.

  “Yeah,” he sighs, like it’s been an hour since we talked, not six days. “I’m sorry, too.”

  It’s a little awkward, but I’m surprised—it isn’t nearly as awkward as I imagined it would be. After we’ve talked for a while, we agree that we don’t really have a choice. We have to cancel the show. From the sadness in his voice, it’s pretty clear—the reason we haven’t talked is that nei
ther one of us wanted to have to say this.

  “What should we say to Belinda and Anthony?” he says. “I don’t want her to think it’s her fault. You were right. She’s a really good actress. I was surprised.”

  After all this, it feels so easy talking to him that I surprise myself. “So were you, Lucas. Who would have guessed you’ve got a little Mr. Darcy in you. . . .”

  “What—I’m arrogant? Pretentious?”

  I pause and then just say it. “No—more the smoldering, sensitive stuff. You were almost as good as Keira Knightly’s Mr. Darcy.”

  “I could be as good as him. I just need the cape and the hair that looks like brown straw.”

  I laugh. “Watching you guys, I kept thinking, I wish we could pare this play down to three actors, or even two.”

  This time he laughs. “Anthony was pretty bad, wasn’t he?”

  “But he was so sweet.” We both laugh together, at the memory of him screaming lines that were impossible to understand. “Maybe we could find a different job for him.”

  There’s a pause. “I don’t think we should try to put on a two-person play, Em.”

  My stomach flutters every time he calls me Em. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “So how was class today?”

  “It was good. We missed you. Where were you?”

  “My dad and I had a fight and he grounded me. He says if I can’t get a football scholarship, I have to join ROTC. I guess I overreacted a little and told him to fuck off.”

  “What’s ROTC?” I’ve heard of it, I just don’t remember what it is.

  For a moment, he doesn’t answer. “Do you really not know?” he says softly.

  I have to admit, I don’t.

  “The army,” he says. “If I want to go to college, I have to join the army.”

  He explains that his older brother lost his football scholarship after an injury his freshman year and had to get a scholarship through ROTC to keep going. After he graduated, he spent eighteen months in Afghanistan. When he came home, he never talked about what it was like or what he’d done over there, but he was different.

  “Where is he now?” I ask.

  “He went back. He didn’t have any choice. If they pay for college, you have to sign on for four years afterward,” he explains.

  We’re silent for a little while because all of this is sad and there’s not much either one of us can say. I wonder if he told Debbie about this fight. I wonder what she said. I can’t ask, of course. For now I’m just glad I called him—that we can talk and be normal again, like the real friends we’ve become. “It’s good you said no. Even if he got mad, I admire that.”

  “You do? Why?”

  “You’re not afraid of saying what you think. You’re braver than I expected.” My heart is beating. I’m treading into dangerous territory here, but I can’t help myself. Even if he’s been too chicken to talk to me for the last week, I still admire other things he’s done: caring about Belinda, and doing the right thing. I can’t imagine anyone else on the football team trying as hard as he has.

  “So, listen, about that thing with Debbie walking into our auditions.”

  As much as I wanted to talk about this last week, I’m now terrified at what he might say.

  “I guess she came into the auditorium earlier, before Belinda and Anthony. She saw what we were doing. That holding hands thing.”

  She did? I don’t say anything. I’m shocked that he’s saying it straight out like this.

  “She wasn’t very happy about it.”

  “What did you say?” I steel myself for the worst: I told her it didn’t mean anything. We were upset because no one showed up. Even if he says this, I tell myself it will be okay. I like him so much I can understand the bind he’s in: we’re connected in ways that make us feel older, but the reality remains that we are still in high school, at opposite ends of the social hierarchy.

  And then he says, “I told her the truth. That I like you.”

  He stops there. I wonder if he can hear my heart beating wildly over the phone. “And then what?”

  “She didn’t say much. Well, yes, she did. She said I was a jerk. And then we broke up.”

  “You did?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Now I really don’t understand. Why didn’t he call me, then? “What was your plan? Were we going to not talk about this for the rest of the year?”

  “I don’t know. I kept getting nervous every time I saw you, so, yeah, I guess that was my plan. Just to be really awkward whenever you were around.”

  “Okay. Should we just go with that plan or should we think of something else? Like maybe going out for coffee some time and getting to know each other. Except I hate coffee, so whatever. Hot chocolate.”

  “See, this is why you worry me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because with Debbie, it was easy. Debbie never wanted to go out and talk.”

  I think of telling him about class today, about Sheila and Simon and their list of expectations. “What did Debbie want?”

  “She wanted to eat lunch at our table and have a boyfriend to sit next to. Plus she doesn’t have a car so she needs rides to parties.”

  Is he serious? Was that their whole relationship? “I’m weird because I’m saying let’s go out and talk? That’s not that weird, Lucas.”

  “No, it’s just harder. You already know stuff I never talk to girls about. Like, ever.”

  “You’ve never been friends with a girl before?”

  “No. I mean—not really. Have you?”

  How could I tell him I’ve only been friends with every boy I’ve ever known? If he is bad at talking—and he isn’t, I assure him, he really isn’t—I’m bad at everything else. Finally I just say it. “Listen, I’m terrible at dating people. I’ve been on maybe five dates my whole life, and that’s counting lunch with lame Chad.”

  He laughs at that. “So College Boy is lame?”

  “Very. I mean, I’m sorry, but yeah.” I feel some need to explain my confession. “I haven’t dated a lot because my friend Richard and I were planning to fall in love when we get to college.”

  “Huh. Not with each other?”

  “No, he’s gay so not with each other. Then he started dating someone and changed the plan, I guess.” I wonder how this sounds to him. “That’s how people like us get through high school. We expect to have a much better time when we get out.” Maybe I sound like a snob. Or even more of a loser than he already thinks.

  We’re quiet for a while and then he surprises me. “But you’re so pretty.”

  I feel like I might die. “Well, thanks, Lucas, but I’m not high-school pretty. I don’t wear a pound of makeup or walk around in a string-bikini top. My charms are more subtle.”

  “Don’t worry about the makeup. You shouldn’t wear makeup. Guys don’t really like that. The bikini top’s not a bad idea, though.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m just saying, don’t close all the doors. Explore your options.”

  “Fine, I’ll wear a bikini top if you’ll wear a Speedo around all day. How about that?”

  “Yeah, probably not.”

  “So should we just skip the coffee idea? Since I don’t like coffee and you don’t like talking, it seems like maybe it won’t go well.”

  “Here’s the thing, though. I should probably grow up and learn how to talk to someone over coffee, and you should definitely grow up and learn how to drink coffee. So I’m coming around. I think we should do it.”

  I smile. “Okay.”

  “You want to try next Wednesday after school? Then I could give you a ride to class.”

  Suggesting a week from now seems strange, like maybe he’s not as excited about this as I am. You want to wait a week? I feel like saying but don’t. All this flirting has taken it out of me. I’m covered in sweat and exhausted.

  “Sure, that sounds great,” I say.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  BELINDA

  NOW T
HAT WE’VE GOTTEN through the audition, Anthony is very excited but also very nervous about being in this play. At school the next day he walks around our classroom saying, “Yes! I’m a very good actor!” Then he gets scared and changes his mind. On Tuesday afternoon, he doesn’t come back from lunch on time. I ask if I can go look for him and I find him standing next to his locker shaking his head. “I’m not an actor, Beminda. I can’t do a play. I’m too scared.”

  I tell him, “Anthony, you’ve been scared before, but you have never let that stop you. We were all scared of our lockers. We were all scared of the cafeteria, but you were the bravest one of all of us. Do you remember that?”

  I tell him this to make him feel better. Also because I remember how good it felt when Mom called me the bravest person she knew before I came back to school. Brave is what you want to feel when you are very scared of something.

  “I’m not an actor,” he says again.

  “You’re not an actor yet,” I tell him. “You have to practice and work hard, that’s all.”

  “No lines! I can’t remember lines.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll remember your lines. If you forget, I’ll say them. I did that in my old plays and it worked out great. Everyone said I was great.”

  “You are great.”

  “I’m not that great. I need your help.”

  He looks confused. “You do?”

  “I need your help keeping track of everything backstage. It can be a real mess if people aren’t neat.”

  “I’m neat.”

  No, he’s not, but I don’t say that. “That’s why I need you. We’re a team now.”

  “A tea?”

  “A team. M. Say M.”

  “Emmm!” He’s smiling now. It makes me feel better.

  “But I can’t do this if you don’t do it.”

  Anthony looks surprised. “You can’t?”

  “No. I can’t, Anthony. I need you.”

  It makes me feel a little dizzy saying this. I look at Anthony’s face. I can tell it makes him happy. He’s smiling big, showing all his braces and some of the food he ate for lunch.

  “I won’t let you down. I’ll never let Beminda down. No down.”