A Step Toward Falling (15 page)

That night, it comes to me: an idea so simple I'm not sure why I didn't think of it sooner.

I wait until the next day, after school, to tell Lucas. I know where he waits by himself for the van that is temporarily driving him home while he's injured. It's in the back parking lot behind school where neither one of us has to worry about being seen talking to each other.

I start by telling him about Belinda back in the Children's Story Theater days. “She was a good actress,” I tell
him. “She was better than good. She was the best one of all of us. At everything: props, costumes, acting, all of it. She had a real gift, and we've never seen her once in a high school play, right?”

Lucas shrugs. “I wouldn't know.”

Of course he wouldn't. Why would a football player have seen every school production the way Richard and I have? “Trust me, she hasn't been in anything. So what if you and I put on a play starring Belinda?”

I can't tell what he's thinking. There's a skeptical expression on his face. “I think we should. If we want to do something that would really help her, this would be it. I'm sure of it.”

I look down at his leg brace; hopefully I don't have to point out the obvious:
Your afternoons are pretty free these days. You can't really say you don't have the time.

“What play would you do?”

“
We.
It would have to be both of us. I don't have enough friends.”

He raises his eyebrows. “And I do?”

“Oh, please, Lucas. I have four friends. You have about seventeen times that. Surely there are a few benchwarmers on the cheerleading squad who wouldn't mind staying after school a few extra days a week to help out.” He shrugs. I'm right, there probably are.

“What play are you thinking of?”

“She was really great in
Charlotte's Web.
”

“Are you kidding?” He laughs as if maybe I am. Then he shakes his head. “Wouldn't someone have to
wear a costume and play the pig?”

I've forgotten that ten years have passed since Belinda stole everyone's heart with her phenomenal Fern portrayal. I've forgotten the furry tails and cardboard ears we wore to play barnyard animals. I've forgotten that we're too old now to put on children's plays.

Or maybe not.

“It's a classic, Lucas. Make fun of it all you want, but it's not a terrible idea. It was a great play and she was fantastic. I guarantee if you saw her do the part, you'd be amazed.”

He nods as if he's considering it. I'll give him this much: he's not brushing me off or moving away saying,
Yeah, let me get back to you.
Instead he smiles. “Wouldn't someone have to play a spider?”

“We did that with a puppet. Someone stood behind a set piece saying the lines. It was surprisingly effective.”

He smiles at me in a funny way, as if he guesses what I'm not telling him. “That was you, wasn't it?”

I glance away because suddenly, looking into his green eyes is confusing. “I'm not telling.”

Now he's really smiling. “You played Charlotte the spider.”

“All right, fine, I did. It was the high point of my acting career, if you must know.”

He really laughs now. “Do you still have the puppet?”

“Of course not. No one's allowed to keep props like that afterward, but we could probably borrow everything from Children's Story Theater if told them what we were doing.”

I still can't tell what he thinks. He's not saying yeah,
sure, but he's also not saying no. “I don't know,” he says. “We're not even supposed to talk to her.” He's backing away.

“Right, I know, but if we talk to her grandmother? It's worth a try, isn't it?”

I don't know why this is so important to me or why I feel like I'll cry if Lucas does the easy thing and says, “Yeah, I don't think so.”

But he doesn't.

Instead his van pulls up and he crutches over toward it. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “Let me think about it.”

T
HIS SURPRISES ME A
lot. I walk into the nurse's office this morning and football player number 89 is sitting on one of the beds with an ice pack on his knee. I don't know number 89's name so I don't say anything and I don't look at him. He was not at the Best Buddies dance and he is not my friend. But sitting here not looking at him makes my heart pound. I feel like I might not be able to breathe pretty soon. I don't understand this. I'm not supposed to be alone in rooms with people who scare me. That's why I'm sitting in the nurse's office, so I don't have to see people like number 89.

My armpits are sweating and so is my face.

I should walk out, but the door is across the room. I'd have to walk past him and I can't.

I can't move at all.

“Hi, Belinda,” I hear him say. “I'm sorry to be in your space. I'm supposed to ice my knee for twenty minutes
before school, but I could sit somewhere else if you'd rather.”

I'm surprised he knows my name because I don't know his. Usually it's the other way around. “It's okay,” I get my mouth to say.

“I'm Lucas Kessler,” he says. “We've never officially met.”

My face goes hot again.

“I know your mom and your grandma didn't want us talking to you but now that we're sitting here by ourselves, I just want to say how sorry Emily and I are about what happened to you. We've been going to this class—”

“Oh my goodness! Belinda, you're here!” Ms. Weintraub, the nurse, is standing in the doorway. She looks nervous because she knows this boy isn't supposed to be here. “We didn't expect you for another half hour. Lucas, why don't you sit out here in the main office.”

He gets off the bed and limps into the other room, holding the ice to his knee. I'm glad he's not in the same room anymore but for the rest of the day I wonder what he was about to say when Ms. Weintraub came in. What class are they going to?

The next morning he's there again. I've gotten to school early enough that Ms. Weintraub isn't here again. I made Nan drive me early. I wanted to see if he'd be here and he is. He must have gone to the freezer himself and gotten the ice pack. This time I'm not so scared. I sit two chairs away from him because I've learned about personal space and I never get closer than a Hula Hoop
away from people I don't know.

“Hi,” he says when I sit down. It looks like he's happy to see me, but I don't know. I've learned from Ron that I shouldn't expect people to be happy to see me.

I don't smile but I keep talking so I can ask him a question. “My name is Belinda. You're Lucas.” I know we already know each other's names but I'm nervous so I say this.

“That's right. Hi, Belinda!”

“What were you going to tell me yesterday?”

He looks confused.

“It was something about you and Emily. Taking a class.”

“Oh, right! We've been helping out in a class at the Lifelong Learning Center—have you ever heard of it?”

“No,” I say.

“It has a lot of different classes like Relationships and ballroom dancing. I think anyone can take them but mostly it's for people with disabilities.”

I look at his leg. “Do you have a disability?”

“No. I mean—” He looks down at his leg, too. “Well, sort of.”

“Do you take ballroom dancing?”

“No.” He laughs like this is a funny question to ask. “I'm not a very good dancer. I don't think I could do it.”

“I like waltzes the best.”

“
Really?
So you know how to ballroom dance?”

“No.” I think of telling him about
Pride and Prejudice
and the dances I've watched them do, but then I remember
that I shouldn't be too friendly. People like Lucas don't like it when you're too friendly with them.

Lucas looks at the door. Someone is turning on lights in the main office. “Look—somebody's going to tell me to leave pretty soon so maybe I'll just ask you quickly—Emily had this idea about putting on a play. Only we'd need people to act in it. Is there any chance you might be interested in doing something like that?”

My heart starts to pound. He must know who I am. He must remember my performances at Children's Story Theater. He remembers me from when I was famous and people came up to me in grocery stores and said how good I was. “I might be interested,” I say. My stomach has a tingly, exciting feeling. “What play?”

“We're not sure yet. But you might be interested?”

“I don't know. I'm too old for Story Theater. I'm not allowed to do children's plays anymore.”

“Oh, okay. Right.”

“I'm twenty-one now.”

He looks surprised. Maybe he doesn't know that students in my class stay in school longer than other kids. Maybe I sound old to him, I don't know.

“What kind of plays do you like to do these days? We haven't settled on a play yet, so we're open to suggestions.”

I can't believe he's asking me this. I close my eyes and breathe through my nose so my body stays calm. “I do have a favorite story,” I say.

“You do?”

I'm scared to say it out loud. I think about Ron and his
friends laughing, and then I force myself to stop remembering that.
“Pride and Prejudice,”
I say. It's almost a whisper.

“Really?”
he says. “That movie with Keira Knightly?”

“Not that one. The real one starring Colin Firth.”

“Oh.”

“It's a miniseries. It's eight hours long.”

“Huh
.
”

“We probably couldn't do the whole thing.”

“No, probably not.”

Now that I've said it I feel calmer. I open my eyes and see him looking at me. It's such a strange expression on his face, like he's seeing me for the first time.

“Okay,” he says. “That's a great idea. Let's do
Pride and Prejudice.
”

Later that morning, Douglas is either absent or else so lazy he won't help Anthony do their job, so I ask Ms. Weintraub if I can help him.

She says, “That's very nice of you, Belinda. Thank you.”

Anthony isn't as friendly with me today as he was a few days ago. Maybe he remembers our fight now. It's hard to tell. Sometimes Anthony never remembers anything and sometimes he does remember things. I say, “I can help you. Ms. Weintraub said so.”

“Oh,” he says and moves over so I can stand in front of the mailboxes, too. I pull out the mail he's already sorted to see if he he's made any mistakes. I'm surprised. He hasn't.

He says, “Leave that. I do it fine. You do the new ones.”

I'm surprised at how annoyed he sounds. He doesn't sound like himself. He sounds like me when I'm annoyed. “Okay,” I say.

After we've been working for a while, I ask, “Where's Douglas?”

“Who cares? I'm sick of Douglas. I hate him.”

I've never heard Anthony say anything like this. He's two years younger than Douglas but their parents are friends so they've known each other their whole lives. I know they do Boy Scouts together and go camping.

“You don't hate Douglas,” I say. “Maybe you just hate how annoying he is sometimes.”

Anthony looks confused. “He's not annoying.”

Honestly, yes he is. All Douglas cares about is food and saying “She's a really hot mama” anytime anyone mentions the name of a girl who will never in a million years go out with him. “He is, Anthony. He only cares about candy and sexy girls. That's annoying.”

“He says you'll never be my girlfriend. He says you'll never come back to our class because you hate me.”

A few minutes ago I was so happy about the play and my conversation with Lucas. Now I feel sad. “I don't hate you,” I say, because I don't. I hate that he's doing the job I love. I hate that he's in tenth grade and thinks it's okay to ask people who are almost about to graduate to marry him, that's all.

“You don't?” he says.

“No, of course not.”

“Why don't you come back to our class?”

Now that he's asked me I'm not sure. I remember our fight and I remember telling Nan I never wanted to see Anthony or Douglas again. Now that I'm seeing them, though, it's fine. Maybe better than fine. I want to tell Anthony all about this play. I've told him about
Pride and Prejudice
before. He watched it last year when I had to have my hernia operation and missed a week of school. When I got back, he said watching it made him miss me less. He said I reminded him exactly of the girl in it, except he couldn't remember which girl or anyone's name.

“I'll come back when I have time, Anthony,” I say. “Right now I'm really busy. I have a
Pride and Prejudice
play I'm going to be in.”

Anthony blinks like he's confused the way he always is. “What
Pride and Prejudah
play?” Anthony can never pronounce long words but it's okay, I'm used to it.

“We're putting on
Pride and Prejudice
here. You should try out, too, if you want to. I think you'd be a pretty good actor. You just have to pronounce your words carefully so people can understand.”

He doesn't say anything for a long time.

Finally he says, “You really think I should be a actor, Beminda?”

“Yes, I do. If you don't get a part, then you can help me keep the props table organized. I usually do that job, plus acting.”

Just thinking about all this makes me so happy I want to hug Anthony again. I know he's thinking the same thing because he's looking at me with his arms open.

“Okay,” I say. “If you'll audition with me, I'll give you a hug, Anthony.”

“Okay,” he says and I do. And I'm surprised all over again. It's not bad hugging Anthony. It really isn't.

T
HOUGH OF COURSE THE
two things couldn't be connected, it still makes me wonder: the same week that Belinda returned to school, we lost our first football game. Now she's been back for three weeks and last Friday, the unthinkable happened: we lost our division play-offs. We're out of contention for the state championship we all thought we would win.

The Monday after the loss, the posters put up by the student council hang off the wall in pieces that no one has the heart to clean up. At lunch, Weilin wonders if it would have been easier for everyone if we'd lost a few more games along the way. “Then we'd have practice with this.” Before this year, by her own admission, Weilin attended
maybe
four sporting events in her entire life. Now she's acting genuinely depressed. “I honestly thought they would
never
lose.”

“It's like we're all
mad
at them,” Barry says, shaking his head. “Which isn't really fair because we don't actually
know
them.”

“Speak for yourself,” Richard says. “I've touched arm
hairs with Wayne Cartwright. And I don't feel mad at him so much as very disappointed. He missed two plays that could have turned the game around.”

“It wasn't all his fault,” Weilin says. “His O line wasn't supporting him the way they should have.” Suddenly everyone's an armchair quarterback replaying a game they wish they could forget.

By the end of the day, the tough talk turns to pity. Everyone thinks the players won't get offers from the big schools they hoped for. Full scholarships to Michigan and Notre Dame aren't realistic expectations anymore. Everyone says they'll be lucky to get partial rides to state schools. As the rumors mount, a new thought occurs to me. Now that football season is over, Lucas's old teammates will have free afternoons. Maybe it wouldn't be such an outlandish idea to ask three or four of them to help us with a play. We wouldn't need a lot. Just a few nice guys. The point would be getting as many people as possible to go to a staged reading—maybe
Charlotte's Web
, maybe something else—and see that Belinda is an amazingly good actress.

The more I think about it, the better the idea seems. The players are already depressed. Maybe doing a feel-good project like this would make them look big again—or bighearted, at least—to the people who come see the show. Of course we wouldn't get the same crowds as a football game, but football players acting would draw a modest crowd, which is all we'd need to accomplish what I want: for people to see Belinda's talent; for her to feel okay again about being in school; for one memory to replace another. I picture her onstage, doing her curtain calls, bowing and holding hands
with the players that we've spent all fall in awe of.

I realize that I might be dreaming here. I haven't forgotten what Lucas said about these guys, but in my fantasy they're nice enough to get the job done and make Belinda feel appreciated by her peers. I'm so convinced about this idea, the first time I see Lucas alone, I walk over and say: “Don't say no right away. Just listen and tell me you'll think about this.”

After I've told him, it occurs to me that I've found him in an unusual place: sitting on the floor of the hallway outside the library at lunchtime. He probably doesn't realize that during lunch, this section of linoleum is reserved for the supergeeks who eat out here quickly before disappearing into their book-lined hiding spots. Though I haven't been here in a long time, I know it well. This was my daily lunch spot before I found Richard and joined his crowd. I don't imagine Lucas has ever felt the need to eat a furtive lunch here. I assume he's here for the only reason jocks ever come to the library—he's making up work or in danger of failing a class.

He has a library book—an old one with a red leather binding—open on his lap, which suggests the problem is in his English class. Maybe he's lost whatever paperback copy he was issued and now he's reading the only copy he can find.