A Step Toward Falling (23 page)

Haunting us both are Belinda's words after she and Anthony finished celebrating. “I've never been cast in a play since
Charlotte's Web
! Mr. Bergman lets me try out for all of them but he always says, You know I can't cast you, Belinda, I wish I could.”

I couldn't believe it. “He
says
that to you? The drama teacher?”

“He doesn't have extra staff so I can't be in a play. I'm not allowed. I'm only allowed to audition. That's what he says.”

Lucas looked as shocked as I was. “That doesn't sound right, Belinda.”

Belinda shook her head. “I'm allowed to try out. I just can't be in a play. That's the rule. No after-school clubs. No activities.”

“Wait a second,” I say. I want to make sure I'm clear
about this. “The school made this rule or your mom?”

“Mr. Bergman told me, sorry, that's the rule.”

“See, Belinda, he shouldn't say that. He can't say you can never be in a play because we don't have staff for it. That's illegal.” I hoped I was right about this.

“Oh.” Belinda looked confused. “And is Anthony allowed, too?”

“Of course. You guys should be able to do any after-school clubs that you want.”

As I got more emphatic, I also got more nervous that maybe I was wrong. But that night I looked it up and I was right—all special ed students have a right to access an equal education, including access to all sports, clubs, and after-school activities, according to the site I read. If a student with a disability wants to play a sport or join a club, accommodations have to be made. They can't be denied a spot because of their disability.

They've been doing this to Belinda for four years,
I wrote Lucas that night.
She's been going to approximately two auditions a year—every play, and every musical—and they've told her she's welcome to audition but they can't give her a part because of staffing issue. That's about fifteen violations of federal law!

He writes back.
Are you sure you're in AP calculus?

Twelve violations, whatever. I'm serious. This is a big deal. They weren't even cagey about it, saying you're not right for this part. They just said no, because of your disability, you'll never be in a play. When I figured all this out, I was so mad I wrote an email to the free legal aid to victims of IDEA violations.

Now we sit across from each other both drinking hot
chocolate. The issue has made us both less nervous about the “date” aspects of this date.

“Here's the thing,” he says. “The point is giving Belinda a chance to act in her favorite story, not to right every wrong that's ever been committed against special ed kids in the school.”

He has a good point. “Okay,” I say.

“So here's my idea. What if we do the play with four people? You and Belinda will be Lizzie and Jane, Anthony and I will be Darcy and Bingley.”

“Anthony as Mr. Darcy?” I don't want to be mean, but we also have to be realistic. “It's almost impossible to understand anything Anthony says.”

“No, I'll be Darcy. I mean . . . don't you think that's better?”

I think of the story he told about Ron. How all the problems started when he asked Belinda to dance once. “I do think that's better, but what if she gets a crush on you? Or switches whatever feelings she had for Ron over to you? We have to be careful about that.”

“Actually, I don't think that will happen.” He smiles as he says this. “I think she and Anthony are becoming an item. I talked to him about it the other day. He told me he's loved her since seventh grade and apparently she's finally coming around. She's agreed not to date anyone else until the play is over. So they've cleared that up.”

I wonder if Lucas is thinking the same thing I am:
They've cleared it up better than you and I have.

He keeps going: “We rehearse the show after school for
the next two weeks, just a few scenes with the costumes, then we put it on at LLC for the last day of class. Maybe we could invite the ballroom dance class to join us so we have a bigger audience. We'll see Mary tonight and ask her. After all,
Pride and Prejudice
is a story about boundaries and relationships, right? I don't know—” He shakes his head and smiles. “That sounded better in my head when I thought of it. Saying it out loud it sounds stupid.”

“It doesn't sound stupid,” I slide one had across the table and put a finger on his wrist. “It's a
great
idea.”

He looks at the finger and up at me. “It is?”

I don't know how to flirt. I hate the idea of being obvious and coy at the same time. For years I've watched cheerleaders play flirty games to get the attention of every boy in the room, asking a whole math class if anyone can see her bra under her shirt or if anyone could do the homework last night because she sure couldn't. Flirting makes you feel stupid. It forces you to slip outside your own body and watch yourself flirt. Flirting makes you think:
Oh my God. I look and sound like every girl I hate.
At the same time, it's hard to hold myself back. I love this idea; I love that he's given this so much thought. “It's a great idea because it's doable. We don't have a lot of options. This way Belinda can be in a play and we'll have a guaranteed audience of, what? About forty, maybe? But would we just put on one performance for the class?”

“For now, yes. Maybe—I don't know—we could find other venues. We'll see how it goes. I know we talked about getting kids at school to see what Belinda and Anthony
can do, but maybe that's not the most important thing for them. Maybe it would be nice for Belinda to check out the center. After she's finished with high school, she'll be able to take classes there. Maybe she could sign up for ballroom dance classes.”

He's absolutely right and it kills me that he's thought of this, not me. However scared we are about the unknowns of next year, surely Belinda, with no job and nowhere to go, is more scared. My mind races ahead a little—I picture introducing Belinda and Anthony to Mary, telling them a little bit about Mary's class. How it helps people who want to start dating. It teaches you about communicating and managing expectations. It's helped me a lot, I'll have to admit, because it's sort of true. Not even sort of. Just true.

“It's a great idea, Lucas,” I say, grinning. “I wish I'd thought of it.”

He smiles at me in a way that says a lot of things without saying them: he hasn't forgotten this is meant to be a date.

When we get outside, he asks me how I think it went.

“You mean me learning to drink coffee? Unfortunately I think you have to order coffee before you can learn how to like it.”

“Not that,” he says. “The other part. The conversation thing.”

“I never thought you were bad at that, Lucas. You're better than you think.”

“I remember some of our conversations not going so
well. Maybe in the beginning there when you were dating Joe College.”

“Yeah . . .” I think about it for a minute. “It's remotely possible some of that was my fault. I think maybe I misjudged you.”

“What? You assumed I was stupid and insensitive just because I play football?” He steps closer as he says this. It makes me nervous but I don't step away. He smells like soap and coffee, a surprisingly intoxicating combination.

“Sort of.”

“Just because 85 percent of the team is doesn't mean we all are.” He takes another step. He's done all this before. He knows how to reach over and play with someone's sleeve. I don't. I'm terrified that he'll kiss me and I'll get so nervous I'll do something I don't mean to, like start laughing. Or stomp on his foot. My nerves are all jangly and unpredictable.

“We're not all jerks,” he says. “Just like your crowd isn't all National Merit snobs.”

Now he's got both sleeves of my shirt pinched between his fingers and he's really leaning in. I keep being sure we're going to kiss and then we don't. “Just to be clear, I'm not a National Merit anything. That's Candace. Plus Barry and Weilin were finalists.”

“Both?”
He leans back, surprised. “That's kind of intense because they're dating too—they must have cheated, right?”

Before we started driving together, he didn't know any of my friends' names. This didn't surprise me, of course, even though I knew most of his friends. What surprises me
now—catches my breath, really—is that even though he's still never been introduced, he knows them well enough to make a joke. “I know, right? They're both super smart and they're a couple. I totally think they cheated. It's too coincidental otherwise.”

He laughs and then, suddenly, we're kissing. Only our lips touch at first, not our bodies. It's not a crazy kiss. Just a lovely slow gentle one.

“That was nice,” he says after it's over. “Maybe we should try this again some time.”

I want to say,
How about now? Let's kiss again now.

“Maybe we could get together and iron out play details this weekend,” I say. Then I realize it's Wednesday and I probably sound too eager. No, I definitely sound too eager. Kiss the girl on Wednesday and suddenly her Friday and Saturday calendar are cleared of any plans.

“I'd like to but I can't,” he says. “I have to work all weekend for my dad.”

I can't tell if this is an excuse or not. He's never mentioned working for his dad before. He's only talked about fighting with him. “You
do
? I didn't know you had a job.”

“It's a little embarrassing. I guess I don't talk about it too much.”

“What is it?” I try to imagine embarrassing jobs and I can't.

“He's a stonemason.”

I study his face but it's impossible to read. “Why is that embarrassing?”

“Do you know any stonemasons?”

“No. I mean, maybe. I don't know what it is exactly.”

“Our best work is building and repairing stone walls. That's kind of cool, but we don't do too much of that. Most of our jobs are mixing cement and laying brick. That's less cool. That's working with a lot of guys who are in between prison terms, if you know what I mean.”

“Really?” I'm not even sure what to say. “I've never met anyone who's been in prison.”

“Yeah, generally speaking they're not a barrel of laughs. If it was possible to go to college and
not
do this forever, I'd pick that.”

Now I understand what he's really saying. I understand why he got so mad that time that I said he was lucky to have choices, and didn't
have
to go to college. He doesn't have more choices than me; he has fewer. If he doesn't go to school next year, this will be his job. And maybe the fact that he's never once mentioned it in all this time is a measure of how much he doesn't want to do it.

O
NE THING ABOUT
N
AN
is she never throws anything away. Like newspapers or coupons for things she might want to buy someday. Even my grandfather's clothes she's never thrown away. Whenever I ask, she says, “You never know when another man might come into our life who needs them.”

I want to say, “But wouldn't he already have his own clothes?”

I don't because sometimes Nan gets mad if you ask her questions like that. Now that Nan's been in the hospital for a few days, Mom does something surprising. She picks up a stack of old magazines and puts it in the paper-recycling container. Then she goes back, picks up the rest of the stack, and puts it all in recycling. Just watching her do this makes me nervous. Nan doesn't like people moving things around. Then she can't find anything when she goes to look.

I watch Mom put more piles in the container. She doesn't even look at what she's throwing away. There could be mail in there, or coupons that are still good. “Why are you doing that?” I say. “Nan'll get mad.”

“We have to do this sooner or later or we're going to start living like hoarders. If I do it now, she'll be so mad at me when she gets home she won't have time to think about you and your play.”

She smiles as she says this like we have a secret between us. It's nice of Mom but it means she's also worried about what Nan will say about me being in the play.

Maybe it doesn't matter because all day at school I'm happy about going to my first rehearsal in the afternoon which is going to be in the little theater where we auditioned. Lucas came to the nurse's office and gave me a note about it which me so happy I burst out laughing. I've been imagining the party scenes where someone will bow and ask me to dance. Where there will be music and other dancers and everyone will be wearing pretty dresses but mine will be the prettiest.

That's why I can't believe it when I get to rehearsal and
only four people are there.

“Where's everyone else?” I say.

Emily says, “Remember, we explained this, Belinda—it's only going to be us. No one else auditioned
.
”

She keeps going. She says we're not doing the whole play either, only scenes from the play because there's only four of us. It's hard for me to hear what she's saying because my heart is beating fast and my hands start to sweat. I want to tell her, “But every scene is important!” I forget my yoga breathing which makes me a little dizzy. I keep thinking, you can't do part of a play or scenes from a play. You have to do the
whole
play, that's the rule.

“We don't have a choice on this, Belinda,” Emily says. “We have to do it this way, but let me finish—we're doing it for a special audience. Lucas and I have been working at a place for adults with disabilities called the Lifelong Learning Center. We're part of a class called Boundaries and Relationships, where they act out scenes of people who are trying to start relationships and then we talk about the scene afterward. We've asked the teacher about this idea and she thinks it's a good one. She says we can also invite the people from a ballroom dance class next door to come watch, too. It will be very interactive, Belinda. It won't be like a regular play. We'll get a chance to talk about each scene in between and what is happening between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.”