A Step Toward Falling Page 26

  I’m surprised at how well Lucas fields these without any help from Mary. “No, Ken, it’s a play, which means people will be right here, acting it out. We’ve worked hard on it and practiced a lot, so do you think it would be nice to walk out if you’re bored?”

  Ken looks stumped for a minute, then shakes his head. “No!” he says.

  “That’s right. That wouldn’t be a nice thing to do.”

  Afterward in the car, I gush a little. “That was so well done, Lucas. Seriously. Whatever happens next week, I think we’ll be okay. They’ll be polite and patient. They’ll understand the main point we’re trying to make. And afterward we’ll dance and eat snacks and it won’t matter if the show is terrible or not. I’m so glad you did that.”

  He looks over at me. “Listen to you.”

  “What?”

  “The dumb ox had a decent idea.”

  I’m flabbergasted he’d say this. “I don’t think of you as a dumb ox, Lucas. My God . . .”

  “Right, okay.”

  I look at him. “I don’t.”

  “Okay.” He’s smiling, which I hope means he believes me, but I’m not sure. These car rides have become our only time to be together without other people hovering on the periphery, and even here, we’re shy with each other, as if there are issues we’re afraid to talk about. Is he really worried that I think he’s dumb? I like him so much I don’t understand. I don’t know what I could say that would reassure him, except something that would make me sound dumb myself: I really like you. I really really do.

  BELINDA

  RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of getting my costume made, we get a surprise. The doctor calls and says Nan is well enough to come home from the hospital.

  In the car ride over, Mom says she’s nervous that Nan’ll be mad about her cleaning the house and throwing things away. I tell her I’m nervous Nan’ll still be mad about the play.

  We’re both surprised, though. It turns out the only thing Nan criticizes after she’s been home for an hour is the bonnet Mom is making for my costume. “You don’t have any decorative elements. There’s no fringe and there’s nothing to that bow.”

  “You’re probably right, Nan.” Mom smiles. It’s nice to hear Nan sound like her old self especially since she looks so different now. She’s very thin and hunched over and it looks like her skin got too big. Even her hands look different. In the car ride home she told us she wished she’d died when she had the heart attack. Now she has to change everything she eats. No salt anymore. Nothing from cans. “I just don’t know if I see any point,” she said. It sounded like how I felt after the football game. I was never hungry and I thought there was no point in eating because nothing tasted good.

  Now Mom says, “Would you mind helping me with it, Nan? You’ve always been a better seamstress than I am.”

  Later, while they’re both working, I tell them Emily has no bonnet at all, and Mom says, “Well, Nan’ll have to make that one, I don’t have time. I’ve got the rest of your skirt to finish.”

  Mom stays up almost all night to finish my dress and the two bonnets in time for the dress rehearsal. The next morning she drives me to school with Nan in the car. Each of us carries a different thing into my classroom. I carry the dress. Mom carries one bonnet, Nan carries the other. Nan walks so slowly that it’s hard to stay with her. Finally we tell her to sit on a bench and we’ll take the bonnet the rest of the way. I can tell she doesn’t want to do that, though. She wants people to see her bonnets and say they look great.

  That’s when Emily walks up and says, “Oh my gosh, it’s your costume!”

  I haven’t told her about the bonnet we made for her because that’s my big surprise. Now I say, “This one’s for you,” and I point to the one Nan is holding.

  I want her to be extra happy, so I’m giving her the one with more frills.

  “Oh, that’s so nice!” she says and even though Nan doesn’t like hugs that much, she gives her a big one. “It’s beautiful! I love it!” She puts it on for a second which makes her look silly because the rest of her clothes are a T-shirt and jeans. “Thank you both so much for doing this and for letting Belinda be in the play. She’s amazing. Wait until you see her.”

  I’m happy she says this looking at Nan and Mom. It makes me think maybe everything will be all right. Nan will see that doing the play was a good idea and she’ll forgive Mom for saying yes I could do it. I don’t know for sure that this will happen but it seems like it might.

  After school, at our last rehearsal, Anthony and I both wear our costumes which are so much better than Emily and Lucas’s costumes, it’s like we’re acting in different plays, one with good costumes, one with bad costumes.

  “You guys look so good,” Emily says. She’s wearing a long skirt that she tied around her waist like an apron. She looks like a pioneer, not like a lady. The bonnet helps a little but not that much.

  “You should have a real dress,” I say to Emily. And then I tell Lucas, “And you shouldn’t wear that outfit at all.” He has on tan pants and a blue suit jacket. He looks like a big teenager going to church, not like a man in the 1700s.

  Then I remember something else I have to do and I get nervous again. This whole week, I’ve had a hard time sleeping. Last night I couldn’t sleep at all so finally I got up and typed a letter:

  Dear Mr. Firth,

  I hope that you are well and that your wife and children are well, too. I wanted to write and tell you that I have some news. I’m going to play Elizabeth Bennett in a short play version of Pride and Prejudice. I am very excited but I’m also very nervous. I have not acted in eight years. I used to be a very good actress. Some things have happened to me that I still don’t want to tell you about. I don’t know if bad things happening to a person can change them forever. I’m very nervous and I used to never get nervous at all. Sometimes other kids would get terrible stage fright and I’d have to go on for them or do their job. Now I’m worried that might happen to me. Do you ever feel this way? Like you might throw up or maybe have a heart attack? I asked my mom and she said twenty-one-year-old people usually don’t get heart attacks, so I think maybe I have stage fright.

  I am worried that I may ruin the whole show because of a panic attack. My mom has panic attacks and they are terrible to watch. If you have time, you can either write me a letter or just think about me. That might help.

  Your friend,

  Belinda

  Writing to Mr. Firth helped a little but I still couldn’t sleep after I go back to bed. Every time I closed my eyes, I kept thinking about Ron and Mitchell Breski.

  I’ve decided maybe Nan is wrong. There are some things you try to forget and you can’t. Since that one time in the cafeteria, I keep thinking about everything terrible that happened at the football game, and how I have never talked to Emily and Lucas about it. I don’t know if they remember it the way I do, but I don’t think I can do the play until I ask them a few questions. I’d like to ask them: What happened? Why didn’t you help me? He was hurting me and I was crying and you both ran away. That is not okay.

  I hope if I talk about it, I will stop thinking about it so much. I don’t know if it will work, but I’m going to try.

  This morning I told Mom what I’m going to do. She said I was brave and she thought my instincts were probably better than hers. This made me feel good except I don’t know what instincts are.

  When I asked her she said, “Your common-sense feelings about people.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Except for Ron. I was wrong about him. He didn’t deserve to get any presents from me.”

  “That’s true,” Mom said.

  And even though it’s sad to think about this, I wasn’t sad for too long because I’ve got a new idea. Something I can do with my box of presents. It’s a good idea but I’m not going to say anything about it because I want it to be a surprise.

  For now, we still haven’t started rehearsal and I know I have to say something, but I also know I don’t want to say it i
n front of Anthony. While Emily and Lucas are talking, I ask if Anthony would mind leaving the room for a few minutes.

  “Where should I go?” he says.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper. “I need to talk to Emily and Lucas about something private that doesn’t involve you, so it doesn’t matter where you go. You just shouldn’t be here.”

  “I don’t understand. Why do you have something private that doesn’t involve me?”

  “It just is,” I say. “Trust me.”

  “Is it a secret?”

  “Sort of. Yes, it’s a secret.” Anthony looks like he might cry. I should have remembered he hates secrets. “It’s not a secret secret. It’s an unpleasant topic. I don’t like talking about it so I don’t want to do it in front of you.” I’m trying to whisper but my whisper voice isn’t very good. I’m pretty sure Emily and Lucas can hear what we’re saying.

  Anthony looks up at me like all of the sudden he’s thought of something. “Is it about what happened to you at the football game?”

  I feel like an invisible hand just punched me in the stomach. “No,” I say.

  Anthony isn’t supposed to know anything about this. But he keeps going: “With that boy under the bleachers?”

  For a long time I don’t know what to say. I have no idea how Anthony knows about this or who could have told him. I think it must be Douglas and I want to kill Douglas or whoever else it was. I want to say, No, it is not about that because that never happened. Whoever told you that is a terrible liar and shouldn’t be your friend.

  But I can’t say it because it isn’t true.

  Anthony knows what happened with Mitchell Breski. I thought it was my secret but it’s not. I thought only Lucas and Emily knew and they hadn’t said anything because they were being polite. Now I don’t know what to think.

  I wonder if everyone knows.

  I can’t help it, I start crying.

  “Don’t cry, Beminda,” Anthony says. He scoots his chair closer and puts his arm around me. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yes it was. It was my fault because I thought I was like everyone else and could go to a football game but I’m not and I can’t. That’s why I can’t do this play either. Because bad things happen when I think I’m like everyone else.”

  I can’t look up, but I hear Emily and Lucas scrape their chairs closer. “No,” Emily says. “Bad things happen when people don’t help each other. That’s what really happened, Belinda. Lucas and I were there and we didn’t help you.”

  Lucas has both hands over his face. He’s shaking his head.

  Emily keeps going: “Ms. Sadiq told us we could do this play with you but we weren’t supposed to bring it up. She said your grandmother didn’t want anyone talking to you about it.”

  “That’s because she doesn’t like talking about sad things. Sometimes my mom gets too sad, so we make rules about it.”

  “Do you want to talk about it now?”

  Now I’m confused. I don’t know what I want to talk about.

  Lucas takes his hands down from his face and stops shaking his head. “It’s okay, Belinda. You brought it up so I think we should talk about it.” His voice is low but it isn’t scary. Sometimes low voices scare me, but his doesn’t. “Emily and I have wanted to tell you how sorry we are. That’s why we suggested doing this play. We wanted to do something you would like, so people could get to know you. So we could get to know you.”

  Now I’m really confused. “You don’t like Pride and Prejudice?”

  “Yes, of course we do, but maybe we wouldn’t have chosen it as a play. We wanted to do something you’d like.”

  Anthony is rocking back and forth in his chair. I can tell Anthony wants to have this conversation be over. “They did it for you, Beminda! That’s nice!”

  It is nice but I still don’t understand. “Why didn’t you help me back then? That would have been easier than putting on a play.”

  They’re both quiet. Emily answers first. “Sometimes people get scared of things like speaking up, Belinda. I’m not sure why. I wish I could explain it better and I can’t.”

  I don’t understand what she’s saying.

  Lucas says, “We were both having bad days and we were both thinking about ourselves. Sometimes that happens. I don’t think either one of us realized what was really going on.”

  I understand this better. I’ve had bad days, too. “Okay,” I say.

  I don’t know if this will help me sleep better or not, but I’m glad we talked about it. “Maybe we should just rehearse now,” I say.

  Anthony claps and hugs me and even though I didn’t want him to know any of this, now that I know he does, I’m happy it’s over and I don’t have to worry about him finding out.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EMILY

  THOUGH I’VE BEEN SITTING across from him talking for about ten minutes, it’s not clear how much Mr. Johnson, our principal, is hearing.

  “We’re asking for a policy change to ensure that all students with disabilities are allowed to participate in any after-school activities they want to.”

  He shuffles through some papers on his desk that have nothing to do with what I’m saying because I haven’t given him anything to read.

  “The law states that students with disabilities must have equal access to the same education as their peers. After-school activities are part of that education. If they need help doing it, Richard and I and the Youth Action Coalition are willing to organize a peer helper program.”

  I’m grateful to have Richard sitting next to me. Last night I showed him my research and told him what I wanted to say. He helped me shape my argument and offered to do the talking, but I told him I knew the points I wanted to make and the examples I wanted to use. It’s the first time I’ve ever taken the lead and done the talking. Since Mr. Johnson still hasn’t said anything, I keep going: “We believe that if Belinda Montgomery had been allowed to participate in theater throughout her high school career, she wouldn’t have been as vulnerable as she was at the football game.”

  Saying her name gets Mr. Johnson to stop shuffling his papers and look up.

  “I think she would have developed more skills interacting with the wider school population, which would have made her safer. She would have known not to follow the team under the bleachers; she wouldn’t have tried to talk to them in the middle of a game.”

  This is a speculative argument, Richard pointed out last night, but it’s also a pretty reasonable one. I can see Mr. Johnson is listening now.

  “These aren’t students who need protection from the real world, they need experience in it. Clubs and activities will offer them a chance to get that experience. When Belinda went to that football game, it was the first nighttime school activity she’d ever been to. She was overwhelmed and unsafe because she had no practice being in a situation like that and protecting herself. She needs that exposure. They all do. Let’s give them the chance.”

  I look over at Richard and can tell by his expression that I’m doing okay. Maybe even better than okay.

  Finally Mr. Johnson says, “I have to admit I haven’t thought about the issue quite this way. You know we all love Belinda and the other kids in her classroom. We want to do the right thing for them but we also have a responsibility to protect them. The more you put them out in the general school population, the more chance there is that they’ll get bullied or hurt. That’s what I have to consider. Do you want me to be taking that kind of risk?”

  “If you’re worried about their safety and you don’t think peer helpers can ensure that, you could always hire more staff to stay after school.” Richard has a way of saying things nicely, even when it’s clear what he really means: Just do it, buddy. Part with the money and pay staff to stay.

  “I’d like to, of course.” Now Mr. Johnson seems nervous. He starts the paper-shuffling again. “The problem is, I hear a lot of good ideas. I have people from every after-school activity coming to me every week, telling me what
I should pay for with a very small allocation of funds I have. I have to say no to a lot of people with a lot of good ideas.”

  “The thing is, sir—” I lean forward as I speak to make my point perfectly clear. “This isn’t just a good idea. It’s actually the law.”

  By lunchtime, four periods later, I’m still soaring from our success. Mr. Johnson agreed with the bulk of our request and we’ve already scheduled another meeting to make sure there’s follow-through: a policy change written into the handbook, communication with teachers so everyone knows. “We’d like to make sure this is an enforceable change,” Richard said at the end. I loved that he said “we.” That because he’s my friend, this has become his issue, too.

  When I get to our lunch table, Richard is already there, telling everyone the story about our meeting with Mr. Johnson, which is nice to hear, but it makes me think there’s something else I haven’t done. I keep thinking about the way Belinda finally brought up the football game at our last rehearsal. She might have thought she didn’t want Anthony to know about what happened, but the relief on her face when she realized he did made it clear: love isn’t about looking perfect to the other person. It’s about being able to show your imperfections. Belinda was brave in a way that prompted me to set up this meeting with Mr. Johnson, but it also reminded me: I’ve never been honest with my friends about my failure at the football game. I’ve also never told them about Lucas.

  I’ve told myself it’s because I like Lucas so much I don’t want to jinx it. We’re not an obvious couple to anyone who knows me well. I’m worried they’ll make jokes and I won’t be able to laugh. I’ll stammer my explanations, which will involve telling them who I really I am and what really happened at the game.

  Belinda didn’t want to do it and I don’t either.

  And then I watched her afterward and the way Anthony hugged her around the neck and kissed the top of her head and patted her shoulders. They didn’t look like two children playing at being “in love.” They looked like two people who’d taken a big step toward knowing each other better. That’s what I want from my friends, but who knows if I’ll get it. I imagine all the things they might say if I tell them Lucas and I might start dating soon: Candace rolling her eyes and asking, “Does his girlfriend know?” Barry and Weilin screwing up their faces in worry: “Is this a phase like your flag-team days?” Richard shaking his head: “I just don’t see it, Em. I’m sorry but I don’t.”