A Step Toward Falling Read online

  I wish I could explain it to them in a way that doesn’t sound defensive. Instead I sit down at our lunch table and start the conversation with this: “I want you all to come see this show we’re doing tomorrow night. It will be the strangest, least coherent rendition of Pride and Prejudice you’ve ever seen and I still want you to come.”

  Everyone stares at me.

  “Do you mean tomorrow like the same night Walking Dead is on?” Candace says. She’s serious. She never misses an episode. She’s even written papers in AP English analyzing the complexity of the zombie apocalypse, which she always gets As on.

  “Yes, Candace. It directly conflicts but I still want you to come. It’ll be worth it. Actually, I can’t absolutely guarantee it’ll be worth it, but I think it will.”

  Weilin sets down her fork. “But you’re doing it at the center for disabled people, right?” I nod. “So why would you want us there?”

  I know what she’s trying not to say: Won’t it be a little embarrassing?

  The answer is, yes, it might be. The other answer is, “I want people at our school to see Belinda the way Lucas and I have started to see her. She’s different, but she’s also brave in ways that I wish I was. That I wish all of us were. Including Hugh.” I add this at the end because Richard hasn’t said anything so far.

  Now he looks up. “Lucas and I?” Richard says. “That’s kind of interesting.”

  “He’s a nice person, Richard. I’m sorry about the mean things I said before about him. He didn’t deserve it. I wasn’t—” I hesitate because now I’ve got everyone’s attention. “I wasn’t completely honest about what happened at that football game. Lucas and I were equally to blame for not helping Belinda.”

  Though I’m not looking at anyone and can’t see their response, it feels good to say this. Almost instantly, I feel my chest lighten up.

  And then Candace slaps her hand on the table. “Hello? Except that he weighs a hundred pounds more than you and should have taken that guy out.”

  Weilin leans toward me. “Candace is right, Em. You shouldn’t take blame for something just because he turned out to be an okay guy.”

  I shake my head and close my eyes. “That’s not what happened. I was there first. I should have called someone right away and I didn’t. I panicked and I froze. I can’t explain it any better. Lucas came out after I ran away. He assumed I was running to get help.”

  I open my eyes. Everyone is staring at me.

  “That’s kind of a different story than you told us,” Richard says.

  “I know. That’s why I’m telling you the truth now. You guys are my best friends and I lied about what happened because I couldn’t admit it to you. I failed. I freaked out.”

  For a long time, no one says anything.

  Finally Weilin says, “I wish I could come, Emily. If you’d told us earlier, maybe we could have arranged it, but Barry and I have a rehearsal tomorrow night.”

  “That’s right,” Barry says.

  I turn to Candace. “All right, I’m not just saying this because it’s Walking Dead tomorrow night—I seriously can’t. I have a lab due that I’m way behind on.”

  I steel myself and turn to Richard—my oldest, truest friend. The only boy I’ve ever said I love you to. He’ll look at me and understand what I’m saying, I think. He’ll see how important this is to me.

  But he doesn’t. “You should have told us earlier, Em. I have plans with Hugh.”

  I gather all my courage and plead, “You could bring him along.”

  Why do I care so much? Why do I feel like I’m going to cry if my friends won’t do this for me?

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” Richard says. “We’re having a hard enough time communicating these days. I don’t want to ask him for a favor on top of it.”

  I know I shouldn’t feel as hurt as I do. I shouldn’t have made this a test, because we’re already too stressed about tests in every other area of our lives.

  Still, I can’t help feeling, if this had been a test, they all failed.

  BELINDA

  IT’S FUNNY, EVER SINCE my talk about what happened at the football game, I’m not so nervous about the play anymore. I’m more nervous about what will happen afterward. I told Anthony I’ll be his girlfriend after the play is over, which means tonight I’ll have to start being his girlfriend. I don’t know exactly how we do this, but I’m pretty sure he’ll say we have to kiss.

  One thing I’m glad about: Mitchell Breski never kissed me. Or he kissed my neck which doesn’t count, so I don’t have to remember that when I kiss Anthony. Also, Anthony won’t smell bad and not know my name.

  It won’t be the same but I’m still nervous because I don’t know how to kiss.

  I’ve seen people do it in Pride and Prejudice and other movies, but watching it isn’t the same thing as doing it. There might be rules everyone knows but I don’t. Like what do you do with your hands when you kiss? And do you keep breathing or do you hold your breath the whole time? I think you hold your breath, but I’m not sure.

  I can’t ask Anthony because I don’t want him to know I’m nervous about all this. I want him to think I’ll still be a good girlfriend for him even though I don’t know. If I can do this, I don’t think I’ll worry about Mitchell Breski and Ron and those other boys so much because I’ll have other things to keep me busy like being Anthony’s girlfriend which will take up a lot of time.

  In the afternoon before the show, while I’m at home putting on my costume, I start to get more nervous. Mom comes into my room and reminds me that they aren’t going to come see the play because Nan gets out of breath if she takes more than ten steps. Mom is going to drive me there and pick me up afterward. She isn’t going to stay because she’s worried about leaving Nan home alone for that much time. They will watch it on cable, she says, which means it has to be on TV. I don’t have a choice, even if it scares me.

  The whole car ride there I don’t say anything. I’m glad for my bonnet because my face is sweating and I don’t want Mom to see. I don’t know if I’m more nervous about the play or about kissing Anthony. I think it’s both.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Mom says when we get there.

  The Lifelong Learning Center looks big and brightly lit inside. There are glass doors with a sign that spells out WELCOME so big even I can read it from the parking lot.

  We are here an hour early but I can see through the glass windows that there are people in the lobby. Some of them look dressed up like maybe they’re going to be in another play I haven’t heard about. Then I remember the ballroom dance class.

  When Emily told us about the ballroom dance class coming to our show, the first thing I thought was, I wonder if I can take that class. Ballroom dance school used to be called cotillion which I know because that’s where Nan met my grandfather. He didn’t like dance classes, but he liked her so he kept going. The rule was the boys had to bow every time they asked a girl to dance. “I loved it!” Nan said when she told me about it. “After a while I was the only girl he asked and he bowed every single time!”

  Mom always says she’s sorry I didn’t know her dad because he was a nice man. I would have loved him and he would have loved me. Nan says they waltz danced once a year on their anniversary every year they were married. She says she never looked for another man after he died because there was only one man for her and she’d already married him. That was that.

  I think if I ever waltz dance with someone I will feel that way. That will be that.

  The problem is I’m scared to go inside now because I am wearing my costume which makes me look like Elizabeth Bennett, but also makes me look silly if I am standing in a lobby full of people who don’t know I’m wearing a costume. Suddenly I get so nervous I want to hide like I felt when I had Coke on my skirt and popcorn in my hair. It’s the same feeling.

  Like I can’t breathe and there’s a voice in my head screaming very loud.

  “I can’t go in,” I say. My body starts rocki
ng to calm itself down but it doesn’t calm down. My bonnet is too tight. I can’t breathe and I feel like I’m choking. Mom is talking but I only hear a little. “Don’t do this now . . . You promised these people . . . You have to go in . . .”

  I rock so hard the car starts to move. “BE QUIET!” I scream.

  I don’t know how to calm myself down. I hum and keep rocking until I hear a knock on the window. It’s Anthony, wearing his costume, only he’s wearing a new hat that makes me stop rocking. It’s tall like the hat that Abe Lincoln wears. I don’t remember seeing any hat like that on Colin Firth. It’s also too small so he has to hold it on his head with one hand. I start to breathe again. I roll down the window. “What’s that hat?” I say.

  “It’s okay! I look good!”

  “Not if you have to hold on to your hat the whole time.”

  “It’s okay!” He doesn’t take his hand off. “I’ll hold it, that’s all. It’s good!”

  This hat thing has made me forget my panic. “You can’t hold a hat on your head for the whole show, Anthony. That’s not a good idea.”

  “Yes I can, Beminda. You can’t all the time boss me around.” He’s smiling like he thinks it’s funny to not listen to what I’m saying.

  I open the car door. “I’m not bossing you around, I’m worried. Let me see your hat!”

  EMILY

  WITH EVERY DISASTER SCENARIO I’ve imagined for this play, I never pictured this one: Lucas, who once mentioned a slight history with fear of public speaking, is sitting across from me experiencing what I can only describe as an all-out flop sweat. His face is red as a tomato, puffy and wet.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he says, sitting in a back room fanning himself with a copy of our script. “I have no control over it.”

  “Is your shirt too tight?” I try.

  “No, I’m just hyperventilating or something. This used to happen before games sometimes and I’d duck in the shower.”

  “Lucas, there’s no shower here.”

  “Right, I know. That’s what sucks.”

  It’s sweet and endearing and also fairly worrying. He looks like he needs medical attention. I leave him in the back office because I have no choice—the cable access people are setting up in the classroom, with lights that make me worry Lucas won’t last five minutes. Mary has set up forty or so chairs for the audience along with a potluck buffet of food in the back for the party afterward.

  “Don’t worry,” Mary says when she sees my face. “This will be fine. I’ll admit I didn’t expect the TV cameras to be quite so imposing, but I’m sure it’ll go fine.”

  Standing in front of one of their lights, I feel my own flop sweat start. I can’t let Belinda or Anthony see these cameras and lights before the show starts. If they do, they’ll fall apart more than Lucas has.

  Then I see something that really surprises me: Chad is here. He sees me and smiles and walks over. “So you’re putting on a play, Mary says. Like with costumes and actors. Pretty intense.” He laughs like this should be the start of a joke.

  I wish he wasn’t here. I wish I didn’t have to worry about looking more stupid than we already will. I don’t want to even care what he thinks. “Yes,” I say. “I should go, though. We’re getting ready back there.”

  BELINDA

  BEFORE I KNOW IT, I’ve followed Anthony inside, right past the lobby full of people who are all here to see our play and afterward ballroom dance. Anthony is still holding the hat on his head when he shows me our dressing room which isn’t really a dressing room because it doesn’t have mirrors. It looks more like someone’s office.

  I say, “How about this, Anthony? I’ll let you wear that hat for the whole play if you’ll take it off afterward and waltz dance with me.”

  He turns around and smiles at me for a long time, like maybe he’s thinking about this kissing thing, too. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll waltz dance with you. What’s waltz dance?”

  That’s when I look over and see a surprise. Lucas is sitting in the corner of our dressing room. He looks sweaty and not very good. He looks like maybe he’s having a heart attack.

  “Are you having a heart attack?” I say.

  He shakes his head. “I have a little problem when I get nervous. I sweat a little.”

  “But you’re sweating a lot,” I say because he is. His neck is sweaty and his shirt, too.

  “I’ll be okay, I think. Emily’s getting me some water.”

  I don’t want Lucas to have a heart attack. I hate heart attacks. “Why don’t you do some yoga breathing. I can show you how. Maybe we should all do it but we have to stand up.”

  Anthony stands up but not Lucas.

  “You have to stand up, Lucas. We’re going to yoga calm ourselves so you can stop sweating.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He stands up. Even his pants look wet, but not like pee. More like his knees are sweating.

  “Let’s start with tree of life, but you don’t have to stand on one foot. That’s too hard in our costumes. You can just close your eyes and bring your hands together.”

  I used to do a yoga tape every day at school so I didn’t have to go to any PE classes. I remember all the moves so well I can do them with my eyes closed. “Feel your breath,” I say. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

  I peek my eyes open and I’m surprised. He’s doing what I’m saying. So is Anthony.

  We keep going for a little bit and then I say, “Okay, that’s enough.”

  Lucas looks a little better, I think, but it’s hard to tell.

  I look at Anthony’s costume that his mother put together. It’s a purple velour jacket with shiny gold piping around the edges. I don’t remember seeing a jacket like that in any of the movies, but I still love it. I especially love his shoes which are green and left over from a Halloween costume when he was Peter Pan.

  I take a deep breath. “You look good, Anthony,” I say. I don’t want to mention how Lucas looks because it’s still not very good.

  “I know, thank you,” Anthony says. “You look beautiful, too, Beminda!” The way he says it, it sounds like bootiful.

  EMILY

  IF LUCAS FREAKING OUT is my first surprise of the night and Chad is the second, here is my third: I walk into the lobby to get Lucas some water and there’s Richard in the corner, standing by himself.

  “Hugh dropped me off, so I need a ride home,” he says. “Is that okay?”

  I’m so happy to see him I put my water down and give him a hug. “Of course,” I say. “Thank you for coming. Hugh couldn’t stay?” I step away and look at him.

  “Too much homework, but he was happy to drive me here. That way he can be nice and a dick at the same time. That’s sort of his specialty. He’s an almost-great boyfriend.”

  He’s smiling enough for me to see—it’s not terrible. He’s almost great. I want to say, maybe for now this is okay. My almost boyfriend looks like he’s gone swimming in his clothes so neither one of us is exactly living the dream. But we’re living something and it’s more than either one of us expected this year.

  “Why don’t you come back to the dressing room? Maybe you can help calm everyone down. We’re having a little issue with stage fright.” I roll my eyes a little. “And they haven’t even seen the TV cameras yet.”

  “Excuse me, Emily?” I turn around to see Belinda, in her costume—homemade but resplendent, with yards of puffy material in a lavender color that flatters her beautifully.

  “You look great, Belinda!” I say.

  Her lips are pinched. “We have a problem,” she says. “Not with me, but with Lucas. Anthony and I don’t think he should do his part plus narrate.”

  I’d forgotten this last-minute addition I made, based on the wonderful job he did last week talking to the class about the story. I suggested having Lucas narrate some of the plot holes I had to leave out in editing. We hadn’t gotten too specific or written any lines because I thought he’d be fine ad-libbing it.

  “We can skip t
he narration, Belinda. That’ll be okay,” I say, wondering if Lucas is all right in my absence. “This is my friend Richard, Belinda. Maybe he can help us out.”

  “Hi, Belinda. It’s nice to meet you. I’d be happy to narrate a little. I think I’ve watched Pride and Prejudice enough times . . .”

  Belinda’s eyes widen. “How many?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe five.”

  She nods. “I’ve watched it a lot more than that.”

  “Would you like to narrate, Belinda?” I suggest. Maybe having more responsibility is the secret for calming her nerves.

  She thinks about this for a minute. “No, thank you. I need to concentrate on my part. Why don’t we let Richard do it.”

  Richard shoots me a look that’s almost a laugh but not quite. Hopefully this won’t be a disaster. He’ll see—up close—why I wanted him here, why this feels different than the other work we’ve done.

  Thankfully there isn’t time to get any more nervous than we are. Back in the dressing room, Richard ties an ascot scarf around his neck and borrows Anthony’s hat to open the show. I explain the most important part with the audience. “Make it short and simple. Don’t include too many details.”

  Richard looks through the scripts quickly and points out a few of the gaping holes I’m missing in the plot. “Never mind that,” I say. “Just fill in the story and emphasize the main emotions coming up. That’s what they’ll be watching for.”

  On this score, he’s perfect. We miraculously get through our first scene by starting quickly before Belinda and the others have had a chance to see how big the camera lights are. After that, Richard steps onstage, welcomes everyone, and explains, “What you are watching is a love story, though it might take a while for you to figure that out, because this is what happens with the best love stories sometimes. No one realizes they’re happening in the beginning.” He smiles at me and then cues the audience for what’s coming up. “It’s going to be a party scene, but watch for this, everyone. He sees her and thinks he might like her, but he can’t bring himself to be nice to her.”