A Step Toward Falling (21 page)

“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.

N
OW THAT 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.”

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.

F
IRST 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.”