A Step Toward Falling Read online

  I remember something funny. The first day Anthony came to our classroom everyone had to say their name and something about themselves. Most people said they had a pet or what their favorite food was, but Anthony said, “I sometimes have Down syndrome.”

  Rhonda, our teacher, said, “Only sometimes?”

  “That’s right,” he said. Then he smiled. “Mostly I’m UP!”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “You won’t let me down. I know that. You’re not down, you’re up!”

  We’re both smiling now. “Sometimes I’m down! Mostly I’m up!” He points up with his finger and we both laugh hard. I don’t even notice when he hugs me without asking first. He just does. We hug each other. It doesn’t bother me or hurt or knock my glasses off. It’s easy.

  Besides opening his locker, the other thing Anthony does that rest of us don’t is eat in the cafeteria. We all tried it when we first got to high school because it has french fries and a salad bar with choose-your-own dressing every day. Then we all had problems because the cafeteria is crowded and confusing and sooner or later you make a mistake like drop your tray or touch things in the salad bar with your hands. Then people get very mean and it’s easier just to eat lunch in the classroom. If you order in the morning, one of the teachers will go pick up food for you which makes it even easier.

  Except for Anthony.

  Anthony likes going to the cafeteria. He never has any problems with his tray or the salad bar. He eats there every single day, even if he’s brought a lunch from home. Sometimes Doug will go with him or one of our teachers but sometimes he’ll go by himself and just eat. A few times I went to my office job early just so I could walk by the cafeteria and see if he was really sitting there by himself. He always was. He’s not scared of anything which is another reason why I think he’ll be good in the play. He got nervous and sweaty before the audition but he never said, “I’m too scared to do this.” I like Anthony for that. I also like him for eating lunch in the cafeteria even when no one will go with him.

  That’s why I said okay, yes, I’ll eat lunch with Anthony today. I can tell everyone is surprised when I say this. Because I have a little bit of a bad history in the cafeteria. In ninth grade I dropped my tray and my food went everywhere including my chocolate pudding and I cried for so long they had to get the nurse to come and help me stop crying. I don’t want to talk about that, though.

  On the way to the cafeteria we look at the drama department bulletin board. It’s a week after we auditioned, and there is still no cast list.

  “No list,” Anthony says. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay!” I say. “We need to know! We don’t have much practice time. We have to get organized! Plays don’t work unless you’re organized.”

  “Beminda is organdized.”

  “That’s right, I am. I think maybe they need my help.”

  “You help. I help, too.”

  “We may end up doing a lot of things, Anthony. That’s what happens sometimes. You paint your own sets and you make your costumes. That’s how it is sometimes in theater.”

  “O-kay.”

  “You can’t expect other people to do all the jobs. You see a job, you say, I’ll do it.”

  “I do it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “The backstage crew is just as important as the people onstage.”

  “O-kay.”

  I say this because I’m pretty sure Anthony is the reason there isn’t any cast list up. They don’t want to make him feel bad but they don’t think he can do a big part. I think I’ll talk to them. I’ll tell them he can do a part. I’ll tell them he has to. I can’t imagine doing the play without him, so maybe he’ll have to work backstage. That will be okay, too. I’ll show him what to do and help him. We’re a team that way now. Like friends, only maybe we’re more than friends. Like we’re best friends now.

  I’ve never had a best friend before except for Nan and Mom of course. But I think this is what having a best friend feels like. Where you care about them being happy as much as you care about yourself being happy. Maybe even more.

  It scares me a little because I maybe care about Anthony more than I care about being in this play, which isn’t like me. I wonder if I don’t just look different since I went to that football game. I think maybe I am different. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad.

  Sometimes all this makes me laugh for no reason and then sometimes it makes me cry for no reason, too.

  EMILY

  FIRST THING THE NEXT morning, I find Lucas at his locker and tell him what I’ve been thinking about since we got off the phone the night before. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat lunch with all your friends and I’m not going to make you eat with the nerd brigade. Let’s keep things separate at school, okay?”

  He looks over his shoulder like he’s not sure where this is coming from. “Good morning, Emily. Nice talking to you last night.” He shuts his locker. “Well, I enjoyed it, anyway. Maybe you lost sleep thinking about all the ramifications.”

  I feel terrible because he’s right. I did lose sleep partly from excitement, partly from stewing over ramifications. “I just don’t want to push it. I don’t want you to think you have to change your life at school because of me. I keep thinking it’d be easier if we didn’t go to the same school. Then we could get to know each other without all this school stuff.”

  Just being near him makes me nervous. I can’t stop thinking about holding his hand. I want to touch it now but the hallway around us has started to fill up with people.

  “That’s kind of like saying the easiest thing would be if we never met.”

  “I’m not saying that. You know what I’m saying.” Now that everything has changed between us, his eyes look ridiculously beautiful to me—green with little golden flecks. I want to stand here and stare at them all day and I can’t let myself. “All I’m saying is that I don’t think anything has to change at school.”

  As I see it, I have to be the one to say this. Even though I don’t care about his kind of popularity, the fact remains: he has far more power than I do in this situation. I can’t stand the idea of waiting to see if he’ll talk to me at lunch.

  “Fine,” he says, and I catch him right there—the eyes I’ve just been staring into wander up the hallway, looking over my shoulder nervously at one of his friends. It was fine for us to talk in a school hallway before when we had to, but now things have changed, and I can see he’s different. More self-conscious. More nervous about what others might think.

  “So I’ll see you next Wednesday for coffee!” I say a little too loud. “Okay?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  I spin around and walk away before I see him look around for any more of his friends.

  That day at lunch, Hugh joins us for his second time at our lunch table, which should make us more comfortable, but unfortunately it doesn’t. I study the way Richard watches him eat and try to decide what’s happening with them as a couple. Surely they’ve kissed by now, but Richard hasn’t told me, nor have I asked. Judging by how nervous Richard still looks—as if he doesn’t want to eat too much or end up with food on his face—I’m guessing they haven’t done much more than kiss.

  Of course, what do I know about how couples should progress?

  So far, we’ve learned that Hugh is a clarinet player in the marching band, which is why we haven’t had any classes with him in the last three years. (Band members usually have a slightly different schedule.) Barry and Weilin joke with Hugh about some marching band hijinks they heard a rumor about. Even though I don’t really get the joke, I laugh along with them in case Lucas is watching and wondering what my group of friends is like. I want him to think we are hilarious and fun but then, in the middle of my fake laugh, I look up and see something that stops me: Belinda and Anthony eating lunch in the cafeteria.

  I’m not sure where they usually eat, but I know I’ve never seen her here before. I sit up straighter and watch them. They don’t
seem to be talking; they’re just eating their lunch and looking around.

  I want to do something. Go over and say hi. Ask them to join us. If this is Belinda’s first time in the cafeteria, it’s an event that should be acknowledged. Or even celebrated. Then I look over at Lucas and my heart melts a little. He’s noticed the same thing. He’s looking at me and then over at them. He raises his hands in a question: What should we do?

  I point to myself: Let me go over and say something. With me, it will draw less attention. I hate to suggest this, but it’s true. If Lucas got up and crossed the room, everyone would notice. With me, my friends will notice, but no one else.

  I’m nervous enough that I stop at the water fountain before I go to their table. “Hi, you guys!” I say like I’m surprised when I walk by them.

  Anthony grins and waves with his whole hand when he sees me. “Hi! Look, Beminda! It’s the girl from the play!”

  Belinda rolls her eyes in my direction but doesn’t smile or speak. She’s obviously upset.

  “You guys were both great in that audition,” I say.

  Belinda huffs and folds her arms on the table. “But the cast list isn’t up. We keep looking on the board and there’s no list!”

  “Oh my gosh,” I pull out a chair and sit down at the otherwise empty table. “We really wanted to do the show, but the theater crowd is already busy doing Guys and Dolls. We didn’t get enough people to show up for auditions, so we had to cancel the show.”

  Belinda looks like her brain can’t register this information. “What do you mean? We have to rehearse is all. Then we put it on. Anthony can learn his lines. I’ve learned mine. I know them all.”

  I look over at Lucas, helpless. He’s standing with his tray so I wave him over. “Belinda’s already learned all her lines,” I say when he walks up.

  “I know I might not get Elizabeth, but I can help whoever plays her with lines.”

  Lucas pulls out a chair and sits down. “Oh, believe me, you’d get that part. Hands down. No one was as good as you were, Belinda.”

  She blushes such a deep crimson red, it’s clear that no matter how many times we’ve told her, she never heard us saying no one else auditioned. “The problem isn’t either one of you. It’s that we don’t have enough actors or crew. We’d need a few people on lights and a few people backstage and we don’t have anyone.”

  Belinda flops down so her face is buried in her arms. I can’t tell if she’s crying or not.

  “Beminda?” Anthony says. “Are you crying?”

  She nods her head but she doesn’t lift it up.

  A bad taste fills my mouth. I can’t look at Lucas. I have the terrible feeling that Richard was right—we never should have started this without being sure we could follow through. Maybe what we’ve done is worse than never raising the possibility at all.

  “Beminda?” Anthony says, patting the back of her head. “Why are you crying?”

  She lifts her head up. “I’m happy crying.”

  Lucas and I look at each other. Happy crying? I’m not sure what it means.

  “I got the part!!” She sits up straight, smiling. Before we know it, she’s hugging herself, then hugging Anthony. Anthony’s so happy for the hug, he won’t let go. “Did Anthony get a part, too?” she says from the crush of his embrace. “He doesn’t need a big part. He’s not a very good actor yet. Just something little.”

  “Yes,” I hear Lucas say. He’s not thinking, obviously, but I don’t stop him or say anything either. “Anthony definitely has a part. We couldn’t do it without him.”

  One of Anthony’s fists goes in the air. “Yes!” he screams. “I got a part!”

  BELINDA

  THAT AFTERNOON, MS. SADIQ stops by the nurse’s office to see how I’m doing.

  “Great!” I say. “I’m going to play Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice.”

  Her eyebrows go up like she’s surprised to hear this. “You are?”

  “Yes! With my friends Lucas and Emily! They said yes, I definitely got the part!”

  “I’m not sure about this Belinda. I’m going to have to look into it. You’d need your grandmother’s permission to do anything like this,” Ms. Sadiq says. She’s looking at me like she knows Nan probably won’t say yes. “You remember that, right?”

  I say, “Yes, I remember that, but could I ask my mom instead?”

  “You could, but I’d want to make sure everyone agrees it’s a good idea.”

  “Oh, it’s a good idea. It’s a very good idea.”

  “Right, you might think so, Belinda, but will your grandmother and mom say that, too?”

  I don’t say anything because I don’t know what they’ll say. They used to love it when I was in Children’s Story Theater shows. Nan and I always made a special trip to Jo-Ann fabric so I could pick out the prettiest colors and she could make me the best costume of all. I think if I tell Nan, “Let’s make me a pretty dress to play Lizzie,” she’ll say, “Okay, yes, Belinda. That sounds exciting.”

  In my mind, I picture her saying this. I imagine looking at materials and her saying, “No, that one is too hard to work with.” Or, “That won’t make a skirt that falls nicely.” Nan can just look at material and know what kind of dress it will make. I can’t do that and neither can Mom. I think most people are like me and reach for material that is the sparkliest.

  I’ve pictured it all so much, I forget to go slow when I ask them that night at dinner. We are eating our pork chops and rice and green beans and I say it all too quickly. “Guess-what-we’re-doing-a-play-at-school-it’s-Pride-and-Prejudice-and-I-got-cast-I’m-Elizabeth!”

  They blink at me. I remember that I never told them about auditioning because Nan said she never wanted me to audition for anything again if that director was never going to put me in a play. “You’re too good for him!” she said. “We have our pride! We don’t beg for things around here if people don’t want us.”

  Now she looks at me with squinty eyes and I know she’s probably thinking I didn’t have pride. I begged for a part and they finally gave me one. I start over and go slowly so I can explain. “It’s not with the drama teacher. It’s a student show. That means students are doing the whole thing. We’re directing it and getting props and all of it.”

  Mom smiles but her forehead looks a little funny. “That sounds wonderful. Imagine them picking your favorite story—”

  “Which students?” Nan says. Her mouth looks like a line with no lips. She’s also sweating even though it’s not hot.

  “My friend Anthony and a boy named Lucas and a girl named Emily.”

  Nan looks at Mom. “Absolutely not. You know who those two are, right?”

  “Yes, Mother, of course. But it sounds like they’re trying to do something nice for her.”

  Nan’s sweating more now and shaking her head. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? They weren’t very nice to her at the football game, were they?”

  I’m surprised she’s saying this because it breaks her rule that we don’t talk about the football game. “Right, but maybe—” Mom puts down her fork. “Mother, are you okay?”

  “Yes—” Nan says, pushing herself away from the table like she’s going to stand up but she doesn’t stand up. For a long time, we wait for her to say something but she doesn’t say anything. Instead she bends over and, just like that, she throws up on the floor.

  Mom stands up so fast her chair tips over which scares me and I scream. Nan is still bent over so I can only see the top of her head where her hair is thin and the pink skin shows through it.

  “NAN?” Mom says, really loud now. “CAN YOU ANSWER ME?”

  Nan is breathing a lot but not answering. A little string of throw-up is hanging from her mouth which is gross and not like Nan.

  “GET THE PHONE, BELINDA!” Mom screams. “RIGHT NOW!”

  I get the phone but I don’t understand why she’s making a phone call when Nan looks so sick. Then I hear her say, “Hello, yes. We have an emergen
cy. My mother is having a heart attack.”

  When the ambulance drivers come in, they don’t say much except for questions that are hard for Mom to answer. What medications is she on? What chronic conditions does she have? Mom is so upset she keeps shaking her head. She answers some of the questions but not all of them. I go and get Nan’s pill bottles because I clean and organize her bathroom once a week and I know where they are. I put her pills on a little tray. I bring the tray down while they’re putting Nan on a stretcher. I’ve been careful not to knock any of them over but the ambulance driver opens a bag and pushes them all in. He is not careful which is rude and makes me mad.

  When I tell Mom this, she says it’s not their fault, they have to get Nan to the hospital as quickly as possible. When I ask why, she looks at me like she doesn’t understand the question. “Because she might die,” she says. “People die from heart attacks.”

  I didn’t know this.

  I thought she was having an episode like Mrs. Bennett’s in Pride and Prejudice, only with throw-up. I didn’t know she might die.

  We drive to the hospital as fast as we can. Right before we leave the house, Mom says, “Don’t start crying now, Belinda. Please. I mean it.” We don’t say anything in the car because I don’t know what to say and I’m trying to concentrate on not crying.

  The whole drive I keep swallowing because I feel like maybe I’m having a heart attack and I need to throw up. My chest really hurts and I can’t breathe. When we get inside I tell Mom, “I think maybe I’m dying, too.”

  “Oh, stop, Belinda,” she says. “Not now.”

  If I die, she’ll feel bad, but I don’t tell her that.

  Sitting in the hospital waiting room is scary. There are a lot of people here, but no one looks at each other. Everyone has their own person they’re worried about. Some people are talking on the phone loudly like they don’t realize we can all hear what they’re saying.

  Some people are saying personal, private things that we should not be hearing, like, “He drank too much. I told him this would happen if he did it again.”