A Step Toward Falling (24 page)

“Did you say ballroom dancing?” I say. I once asked Nan if I could take a class like this. She said she wished I could, but no one does ballroom dancing anymore.

“That's right,” Emily says. “There's a ballroom dance
class that meets next door.”

This makes my heart calm down a little. “Do they waltz dance?”

“I don't know, actually.” She looks at Lucas. “Do you know? I assume so. Waltzing is sort of a basic one, right?”

Anthony raises his hand even though there are only four of us and he doesn't need to raise his hand to say something. “I'm a very good dancer,” he says.

“That's great,” Emily says. “Maybe we could try one of the dance scenes.”

I have a different idea. I raise my hand to be polite. “Yes, Belinda?”

“Maybe we could do our play and they could give us a lesson on waltz dancing.”

Emily claps her hands. “That's a great idea! Lucas, what do you think?”

Lucas doesn't say anything. He's smiling at Emily and shaking his head like maybe he wants a chance to dance with her but is nervous about it. Like I am nervous about dancing with Anthony. If he is such a good dancer maybe he will know right away that I have only danced one time before and that was with Ron Moody.

“It's a good idea,” Lucas says. “It might mean we do a shorter show but then we work harder on those scenes and make them really good.”

I see Anthony shake his head. I can tell he's starting to get nervous again. He's making weird noises like he might start to cry which has happened in class a couple of times. I thought I'd talked him out of all that, but I guess I didn't. “I don't know, you guys,” he says. “I'm not a good actor.
You do the play without me.”

“No, Anthony!” I say. My voice is so loud I surprise myself. “Don't start that now!”

“Please, Anthony,” Emily says. “We really need you.”

Lucas surprises me. We are sitting in desk chairs in a circle so we are all close. He reaches over and puts his hand on Anthony's shoulder. “Anthony, my friend,” he says, “don't leave me high and dry as the only guy in this very girl-centric play.”

Anthony doesn't know what girl-centric means. I don't know what girl-centric means either, but it sounds like a funny word and it makes Anthony smile. Suddenly he's in a much better mood. He opens his arms and leans over to Lucas and I think, oh no, Anthony needs another sheet of hugging rules:

        
—Don't hug football players.

        
—Don't hug football players' girlfriends.

        
—No hugging anyone while we're performing the play.

        
—No hugging audience members you don't know afterward.

I'm surprised, though. Lucas doesn't mind the hug. He hugs Anthony back and says, “Seriously, man, this could be great, but we really can't do it without you.”

“Okay, yeah. Okay, I'll do it. I'll do it, Beminda, don't worry.”

I
TOLD
L
UCAS THAT IF
I was going to direct, he would have to be my producer.

“Sure,” he smiled. “Except I don't know what that means.”

“It means you'll do all the administrative work. You'll reserve the space for after-school rehearsals, you'll do the xeroxing, things like that.”

For three years, this has been my job for YAC. Richard thinks up the bigger ideas and I take care of the administrative details—table reservations, xeroxing petitions. It means he's out front putting himself on the line a little more, but I'm the one making sure things happen.

Once I gave Lucas this role, I worried right away that it was asking too much. What would he know about the bureaucratic nightmare of filling out room-usage forms with the main office? So far, though, he's done a great job with everything I asked. He reserved the room, made up a rehearsal schedule and now, two days later, he's here with
xeroxed play scripts in hand. Belinda and Anthony are here as well—looking up at me, ready for my instructions.

The only person who's not prepared, apparently, is me. I panic a little. I didn't expect everyone to be so ready, right away. I have no ideas; I don't know where to start.

And then it comes. At our first rehearsal, we do a read-through. At our second, we block the four scenes we've chosen to concentrate on. The blocking is a little messy. Neither Belinda nor Anthony can reliably tell the difference between their left and their right, so Lucas cues them with a tip of his head. At our first break, Belinda seems upset about something. I hear Anthony beside her. “Is okay, Beminda. We're very good.”

“I don't know,” Belinda says. She's obviously unhappy. “Just doing one show for this one class seems like not very many people will see it. We're doing all this work—I just wish it could be on TV or something.”

I remember something else about Belinda back in our Children's Story Theater days. When she made up her mind, she could be very stubborn and have fits at the most inopportune times—like once during final dress rehearsal, she wouldn't come out of the bathroom because her costume wasn't right.

“No, Belinda,” I say, so forcefully I surprise myself. “Acting isn't about getting on TV and being a big star.”

Belinda looks up at me and straightens her glasses. “Yes, it is. When I was Red Riding Hood, I was famous. People stopped me in the store and told me how good I was.”

“That's nice, but that's not what it's about.”

I can tell both Belinda and Anthony are mystified by
this. “It's not?” Belinda says.

“No. It's about telling a story for this particular audience who can learn something from it. These people don't know
Pride and Prejudice
at all. We're acting it out so you can
show
them why you love it so much and the lessons they can learn from it. What do you think the main lesson from
Pride and Prejudice
is?”

Belinda thinks about her answer for a long time before she says it. “They love each other and get married?”

“Sort of. But what happens
before
they fall in love with each other?”

I've lost Anthony, I fear. He looks like he's stopped listening and is staring up at the ceiling.

“Mr. Darcy goes swimming with all his clothes on?”

I'm afraid if I let her, she'll keep guessing all day. “Yes, but do you remember the main thing—how they misjudged each other based on their appearances?” I've said this the wrong way. “They decided they could never like each other based on how they looked. And then
they got to know each other
and they fell in love.”

It turns out Anthony
has
been listening because he grins right at me and then at Belinda. “I always loved Beminda. First time I saw her, I loved her.”

Belinda turns and snaps at him: “That's
not
true, Anthony. You were too young and too short and I said, ‘No, you can't love me, you're only in ninth grade.'”

I can't do anything but look at Lucas and smile. It's hard not to laugh at how well this epitomizes the point of the story. Plus the surprise that fills me with reassurance: Belinda
is
loved, by this boy who she must care about,
too, because she's brought him into this project that was intended only for her.

Lucas has his hand over his mouth but I can tell he's smiling behind it.

“And now you've changed your mind a little bit, right, Belinda?” It's tempting to say her name the sweet way Anthony says it: Beminda. “You've become good friends with Anthony now that you've gotten to know him.”

She sits up straighter and turns to look at him. “Yes,” she nods. “He's my best friend.”

He grins and laughs and rocks back and forth clapping his hands. “See!” he says. “I told my mom, she'll love me someday! She doesn't know it yet, but she will!”

Beside him, Belinda doesn't laugh or even smile, which I think I understand. For her, this hasn't been easy. There's the complication of Mitchell Breski and the terrible fear she must have of standing too close to a boy's fierce desires. There's also the countless times she's watched
Pride and Prejudice.
She's learned about love by watching people who don't act or look like anyone we know. Maybe we all have in a way. It's an adjustment for everyone, I think, looking over at Lucas. Every time I do this, I'm surprised all over again, sometimes by how cute he is, other times by something I haven't noticed before—look at his shoulders! They're so wide! Or his hands! They've got freckles! Sometimes it's a completely different feeling, though. It's like:
Wait, him? Is this really who I've been awake at night obsessing over?
Suddenly Lucas will look ordinary to me again, like a regular person. It's almost like I need to get away from him to overinflate
him again in my mind. But it's interesting—the more time I spend with him, the less I want to do that. I want to stay here with him and keep being surprised. Which is what I really am when he takes his hand away from his mouth and leans forward on the seat in front of him. “Actually, Em, there is a way we can get on TV if we want to.” He whispers this, like he doesn't mean to undermine my great point.

Belinda spins around.
“How?”
she says. She's definitely interested.

“My mother used to work for the local access public TV station. I could call them up and see if someone could come film this.”

Suddenly Belinda is rocking and clapping and wreathed in smiles.

Sheesh,
I think. She sits stony-faced beside Anthony's sweet declaration of true love but turns cartwheels at the prospect of a movie camera filming her. “Yes!” she says. “Call them now! Then my mom can see it and my nan, too. And my cousins. And Anthony's two sisters.” She keeps going, naming all the people who will be able to see them now. She's obviously thrilled; Anthony's happy because she's happy.

Lucas looks to me apologetically. “Is that okay?”

I sort of wish I hadn't made him producer. “Fine,” I say. Obviously everyone has missed my larger message that we're not doing this for ourselves, but for the folks in the audience.

Oh well, I think. Maybe we are doing this for ourselves.

A
FTER OUR SECOND REHEARSAL,
Anthony and I walk to the city bus stop together. That means we aren't taking a late school bus home, we're taking a regular bus. We've both taken travel training courses so we know how, sort of. Anthony had to take the course twice because he kept getting confused about transfers. For me, the hardest part is getting exact change and seeing the sign that says where the bus is going. As long as you ask the driver where you need to get off and then sit right behind him so he doesn't forget to tell you, transfers are easy. Then, even if you can't see the street signs, you're okay. Sometimes I tell the bus driver I'm almost blind which isn't true. I'm not almost blind, I just have cloudy spots that move and sometimes I can't read street signs.

I tell Anthony this while we're standing at the bus stop. “You have to sit behind the driver, Anthony. That's how you know where to get off. He tells you.”

“I'm sitting next to you, Beminda.”

“Well, I'm sitting behind him.”

Anthony does what most people do which is look up the street the whole time to watch for the bus coming. Sometimes people even step into the street to see if it's coming, but that is against travel training rules so I never do it. It also doesn't make it come any faster, my travel training teacher told me. Anthony doesn't want to look for the bus, he wants
to ask me questions he's always wondered about like why do I like
Pride and Prejudice
so much and how come he's never met my dad at any of the family potlucks.

“Douglas thinks maybe he's probably dead so I said I'm going to ask her,” he says.

“He's not dead, Anthony.”

“That's good!”

“It's not that good either because the last time I saw him was seven years ago, maybe, I forget.” I don't really forget, I just pretend to forget.

“Oh!” Anthony says. “Why don't you see him if he's your dad?”

“That's a personal private question, Anthony. You're not allowed to ask people personal private questions.”

“Okay, sorry,” he says. Then I guess he thinks about it. “But if you're my girlfriend, I'm allowed to, I think.”

“No, I don't think so.”

“I'm pretty sure I am.”

“Okay, fine. I don't see my dad because I don't know why I don't see him. He's not a very responsible person and plus he doesn't like me, I guess.”

“That's impossible, Beminda. He likes you very much, I know he does.”

“That's nice of you to say but no he doesn't. Sometimes it's better to just face facts, that's what my nan says. So that's one of my facts.”

“Okay.”

It's weird. I feel sort of glad we're talking like this. Like maybe it would be okay to tell Anthony other things, like what happened at the football game. I don't know, though.
Maybe it wouldn't. So instead I ask him, “Do you have anything personal private I should know?”

He does, of course. He tells me all of them with a big smile on his face. How he sometimes doesn't shake after he pees and gets wet spots on his underwear. And sometimes he pretends to read stuff he can't read. And once he accidentally crossed the street right in front of a car and almost died.

“Okay,” I say. “That's enough.”

He smiles at me. “O-kay,” he says.

When our bus comes we get on and show the driver our passes that mean we can ride for free during the day but not at night because people like us should never ride at night. Then we both sit down where I told Anthony we should sit, right behind the bus driver.

Even though he got his travel training certificate, I don't think Anthony's ever ridden the bus like this without a teacher because we've never been in a club before or had any reason to stay after school. It's exciting that we have a reason now. It's exciting to ride a city bus home like everybody else. I know Anthony's happy because he holds my hand which he's never done before.

A woman across the aisle looks at us. At first I'm embarrassed like maybe holding hands isn't allowed on buses. But I've seen other people do it, so I know that's not true. I don't pull my hand away or tell Anthony no. We're like anyone else now. We're allowed to ride this bus and we're allowed to hold hands.

It feels good except we probably shouldn't make loud
noises like Anthony does when we get to our stop and he stands up and screams, “YAHOO, BEMINDA! WE DID IT!”

The next day I tell Emily I can't go to rehearsal number three because I have an IEP meeting. IEP stands for Individualized Education Program, I think. These used to be meetings where Nan and Mom talked to the teachers about what I should be learning in school. Since I turned sixteen, though, I've been going to my own IEP meetings once a year. Now we talk mostly about what my future plans should be. My favorite part of IEP meetings is the beginning when all the teachers say nice things about me. Rhonda will say, “Belinda is the best typist in our classroom.” Or: “I love how Belinda keeps her desk area and her space so neat and tidy. She's a good role model for other students.”

The nice things are supposed to help us think of what I should do after I leave school which is called MY FUTURE VISION. We used to say I should be an office secretary. Now we don't say that since we found out there aren't any jobs like that for people like me.

This is the first time Nan hasn't come to one of my IEP meetings, which is strange but maybe it's okay because this time Mom talks more and makes suggestions. “Maybe she could do data entry like I do,” she says.

The teachers say, with my eyesight issues, it's not a practical possibility.

“How about mail sorting? Or a job at a post office?”

It's a good idea, they say, but the post office has been
laying off employees lately. To be a mail carrier, I'd have to be able to drive which I can't.

I like seeing my mom here, dressed up in regular clothes and talking, but I can tell she might be getting a little sad. “You're not giving us any options for after Belinda leaves here. She's spent the last eighteen years in school working hard, improving her capabilities, and you're telling us there's
nothing
out there for her?”

“Oh, no,” they all say. “There are day programs. Nice, well-run day programs where she'll have a range of activities to choose from.”

“But haven't we been working all this time to get her a job? Wasn't that the
whole point
?”