A Step Toward Falling (25 page)

No one says anything. They all look at each other. I don't want my mom to cry in front of all these people. They hardly know her and I want them to see the mom I love.

“I do have a job,” I say.

I talk so little at these meetings that everyone is surprised.

“Of course, dear. Your school office job, that's right,” Rhonda says.

“Not that job,” I say because maybe she's forgotten, I don't have that one anymore, Anthony and Douglas do. “I have a different job now. I have the job of acting in a play and putting it on for people like me, except they don't know
Price and Prejudice.
”

I look at Mom sitting across the table. She looks proud of me. She's happy I'm doing this even though Nan told me not to. She's crying a little but it's happy crying so it's okay.

This is how we explain it to Nan when we go back to the hospital that night and tell her what's going on.

“Belinda has been offered a job, Mom!” my mom says. Nan opens her eyes wide like she's excited and then, real quick, Mom tells her. “A job acting in a play that she'll put on for other disabled young adults. It's a teaching tool. She'll be like a teacher. An actress-teacher.”

Nan's eyes go to slits. “That's not a job.”

I can't believe it. Mom takes a deep yoga breath—in through the nose and out through her mouth. “Yes, it is, Nan. True, she might not be getting a paycheck for it, but it's an important job and she'll be connecting with other people she needs to connect with.”

Nan shakes her head. “It's a mistake, Lauren. She's not like those other people.” She whispers this like she doesn't want me to hear it, but I do anyway. I'm standing right here.

“Yes, she is, Mom. She
is
like those other people. It doesn't help if we isolate her. It doesn't give her a better life—it gives her less of a life.”

I'm surprised by Mom saying all this. She hardly ever disagrees with Nan.

Nan can't say too much. She has her oxygen nose tube and her IV in her hand so she can't sit up or get mad at Mom. Instead she shakes her head and looks like she's going to cry. “It just makes me sad,” Nan says.

“It's not sad, Nan. I'm happy she's doing this. So is she.”

Even though she's talking about being happy, no one smiles.

B
Y OUR FIFTH REHEARSAL,
a few things have emerged: Belinda and Anthony are both pretty good, but with similar weaknesses. Belinda is hard to understand and Anthony is almost impossible. Belinda tries to help by repeating Anthony's lines: “Did you just say . . .” and then she'll repeat his line word for word. At first it's funny and then I realize it will slow our show down by an extra forty minutes. Plus, Belinda's articulation isn't as good as it used to be when we were kids. She mumbles too much and says too many of her lines staring at the floor.

“Look up! We want to see your face, Belinda!” I call from the director's spot in the front row of the small theater we're rehearsing in. “Your face is beautiful, Belinda, but it's always in shadows. We need your head up, chest lifted. We need to hear your old booming voice.”

She adjusts for a line or two and then goes back to mumbling.

A little later, when I interrupt her to repeat, “Louder!
Both of you!” she flounces down on the floor. “I can't do it,” she says. “It's too hard. Anthony and me quit.”

“No, Belinda!” I jump up. “That was my fault. I shouldn't have interrupted you. You were doing fine. You were great.”

Anthony shakes his head. “You can't quit, Beminda. This show is important.”

Unfortunately, this hasn't been Belinda's only meltdown. She had another one yesterday when I mentioned wearing makeup. “NO MAKEUP!” she screamed. I thought makeup would help her look and feel like a real actress when we didn't have a stage or any special lights hung. “Makeup gets in my mouth and hurts my eyes,” she insisted.

So far, I've conceded to her on virtually everything. Fine, no makeup. Okay, wear the straw sun hat with plastic flowers that were certainly not around in Jane Austen's time. Ditto to the Japanese fan she wants to hold in the first scene where she meets Mr. Darcy. “But it's got a geisha lady on it,” Lucas gently pointed out.

“So?” she spat. “I don't care!”

It's like Belinda has no idea how hard we've worked to make this happen or how spoiled she sometimes seems in light of those efforts. When she sits down on the floor for this final hissy fit, I feel like saying,
Fine, Belinda, you're right. Let's not do the show.

I'm grateful that Lucas has a doctor's appointment the next day, which means we have to cancel rehearsal. I'm even more grateful when I head out to my car after school and find Richard standing beside the passenger door. Ever
since my friends refused to help on this play, I've told them very little about what we're doing. I also haven't seen them much because I haven't given anyone a ride lately.

“Is this okay?” Richard says. “I wasn't sure about your—whatever. Schedule.”

“Yeah, of course!” I say. I'm stupidly happy to see him. I want to ask him about Hugh, which I never can at lunch because it feels like too many people are listening. I want to hear what's going on. It feels like we've been in a fight, though we haven't exactly. Or the fight never happened, only the bad-feelings aftermath. I haven't asked him about Hugh in over two weeks.

“You don't have rehearsal? Or someone else you're giving a ride to?” His voice is a little wobbly. Like he's nervous, too.

“No, Richard. Come on. Get in the car.”

I haven't said anything to Richard (or anyone) about Lucas. I don't know if he's noticed Lucas and me talking in the hallway, but we do it so infrequently, it doesn't seem likely. For a week now, I've thought about how I might tell him what's going on, but I haven't been able to find the right words:
You remember the boy I was so mad at earlier this year? The one I blamed for not helping Belinda? It turns out he's a nice guy! It also turns out I like him!
It's hard to imagine conveying what I really want to say: Lucas was never the problem, I was. I may be cofounder of the Youth Action Coalition but I have a little problem taking action when I need to.

Before I can even bring up this subject or ask about
Hugh, Richard asks how the show is going. I say, “Fine. I mean, it's terrible, but fine. I'm hoping to keep it as short as possible. How bad can any thirty-minute performance be, right?”

Even saying this much feels wrong. I'm being mean about something I care a lot about and I don't know why. It's hard to care and be the caustic, witty person your friends know you as at the same time.

“You're doing
Pride and Prejudice
in thirty minutes?”

“Scenes from
Pride and Prejudice.
It's like a mash-up montage of Colin Firth GIFs done live with dialogue you can't really understand.”

He laughs. Maybe it's okay for me to be a little mean, I think. Richard is my old friend and this is the way we talk to each other. Just as I'm thinking this, though, I look over at Richard in the seat beside me and realize he isn't laughing, he's crying.

“Oh my God, what's wrong?” I press the brake even though we're not anywhere near a stop sign. I've never seen Richard cry before.

“It turns out Hugh is kind of a dick,” he says, wiping his face. “A nice dick. But a dick.”

“What's going on? What did he do?”

“It's more like everything he hasn't done.” He closes his eyes, trying to get himself to stop crying, but it doesn't work. When he opens them, his lashes are all wet. “Like introduce me to any of his friends.”

“Okay, tell me
exactly
what's happened.”

“I wasn't even talking about introducing me as his
boyfriend or whatever. I just told him I wanted to meet his friends.” He stops his story to fish through his backpack for a Kleenex. “And he said, ‘I'm sorry, it's not a good idea.'”

“That's what he
said
?”

He nods miserably and blows his nose. “Plus he's not out to his family so I can't call him at home. His mother reads his texts so I can't text him. I understand taking it slow but this feels like not moving. Anywhere. Ever. We're kind of paralyzed.”

“This is Hugh's problem. It's not you, you know that, right?”

“I know. It's just frustrating. When we're by ourselves, we're good together. We really are. But how often has that happened? It's like that first week shopping for his pants was our high point. We never ran into anyone from school. It was heaven.”

I want to comfort him and tell him Hugh is being a jerk, but even as I think this, I know I'm being a hypocrite: Hugh is too nervous to tell his friends about Richard and I'm too nervous to tell mine about Lucas. I wish I could tell Richard,
It's not you he's insecure about, it's himself.
“Being with you probably makes him feel like a different person and he doesn't know how to be that person and still hang out with his friends,” I try.

“That's nice of you to say, but we're not talking about seventy-year-old grandparents here. These are teenagers acquainted with the idea of gay people.”

“It's just awkward for some people. You probably aren't the person they expected Hugh to end up with. It takes a
little time to adjust, that's all.”

We drive for a while in silence. Is it so wrong to be scared of what your friends might think? I want to tell Richard about Lucas but every time I almost do it, I have a strange mini panic attack where I can't catch my breath. With every day that goes by, I like Lucas more. Even when I hardly talk to him, I can't help it: I see Lucas in the hallway, we smile at each other, and I'm breathless for a few seconds. I don't know how to explain this to my friends—how freeing this feels, how new, how it's like being on vacation from my old self—so I don't.

By the time we get to his house, Richard seems better. Or at least okay enough to make a joke: “I'm starting to wonder if maybe we were right before. Maybe helping groups is a better idea than getting to know individuals.”

I think about Belinda and all her complaints. “Real people are harder, it's true.”

He smiles sadly. “I think I'd rather fight to hold a gay prom than figure out if my real boyfriend would go to one with me.”

O
N
T
UESDAY, SOMETHING SURPRISING
happens. Rhonda, my teacher, comes to the nurse's office and asks me if I think I'm ready to come back to the classroom and see my old friends. At first I say, “I don't know,” and then I
think about Eugene rolling around in his chair.

I hardly know Eugene and this is my last year in school so it's my last chance to get to know him. I think, Maybe I should go back for a little while. To tell him I'm sorry about saying I thought I was better than other people in our class. I don't think that anymore.

This whole fall, when I loved Ron so much and couldn't stop thinking about him, I acted mean toward other people. I know that now. I wanted Ron to think I belonged with him and his friends more than I belonged with any of the people in my classroom. But now I know what Ron is really like. No one in our classroom was ever mean like that. Sometimes they were annoying, like Douglas, but that's different than mean.

Annoying you can ignore. Annoying you can say, “That's enough, Douglas.”

With meanness, you can't say anything because you can't breathe.

I tell Rhonda I would like to come back for morning activities and see how it goes. I don't know if anyone besides Anthony will be happy to see me. They probably remember the mean things I said.

Maybe they've planned some mean things to say back.

Of course Eugene would have to type it with the pointer stick attached to his head, but he's had plenty of time to type a few mean things. He could say, “You're not better than me,” because it's true, I'm not. He could say, “You should try and get to know me,” because he'd be right, I haven't. His wheelchair makes me nervous. So do
his shoes that always look new because he never walks on them. He could say a lot of things but he doesn't. When I walk in the room, he holds up his one hand that sort of works and says, “Huuh,” which is his version of hi.

He does his version of a smile which isn't so much a smile as opening his mouth wider and leaving it open. When Rhonda tells everyone I'm back, one person claps and Eugene opens his mouth wider.

They all want to show me things they've been working on. I guess they made place mats while I was gone because mostly people show me place mats that all look the same except in different colors. I tell everyone I like the colors they chose since there isn't too much else to say.

Anthony says, “I'm giving mine to you! I made mine for Beminda.”

Before everything that happened with Ron, I would have been embarrassed at Anthony making presents for me and giving them to me in front of everyone. I might have even said, “No, you can't
do
that, Anthony. You're not
allowed.
” I don't do that, though. I say, “Thank you, Anthony. Are you sure your mom doesn't want it?”

“Yeah, I'm sure.”

Behind him, Eugene is staring at us. His mouth is wide open. I think he's happy for us. I feel so relieved, I start crying a little.

Then Douglas comes over and says, “You can't have my place mat, so don't try to steal it.” Then I don't feel like crying anymore, I feel like telling Douglas he might get a girlfriend someday if he watched Anthony and took some
lessons on being nice to girls.

That afternoon, during social skills class, Rhonda asks if Anthony and I would like to tell the rest of the group about the play we're doing. Before we can say anything, Douglas says, “It's a kissy-kissy play.”

“It is NOT!” I say, maybe a little too loud. “You have to stop being so immature, Douglas.”

I'm pretty sure I don't lose stars for calling people immature, except Rhonda looks at me like she wants to make a new rule. I shut my mouth because I can't lose stars this week. This week Anthony and I are working to earn practice time in the OT room. If I lose a star, Anthony will be in there by himself, and he really needs me to help him practice.

“I'M SORRY, DOUGLAS,” I say really loud even though I don't mean it. “If you don't like plays, you don't have to come see this one. In fact you probably shouldn't. None of you should come because you probably won't understand it.”

Rhonda folds her arms over her chest. “Belinda, was that a nice thing to say?”

“They won't. You have to be mature to understand Jane Austen. No one here is.”

“Belinda!”

“What?”

She looks at me like I've already lost some stars. “You have to learn to treat your friends better than this. Being in a play is exciting and it's something you'd like to share with other people, I'm guessing. It doesn't make much
sense to put on plays that no one comes to, does it? That wouldn't be much fun, would it?”

I don't want to talk about it anymore. I don't want these people to come because I'm starting to get scared that doing this play is a big mistake. It's possible that Anthony won't be the only person who is bad in this play. Lucas and Emily are trying hard, but they're not very good either. The worst person, though, might be me.

I don't understand why this is happening. Sometimes I'm fine and sometimes I open my mouth to say a line and no sound comes out. I move my lips but nothing happens. Then I can't breathe and I get dizzy and I have to sit down. This week it's happened two times in rehearsals. The first time, Anthony thought I was dying and started to cry and hug me like he was doing a Heinz maneuver. Afterward I told him he didn't have to worry, I wasn't dying, I was panicking. “You should probably stay calm if it happens again,” I said.

And then it happened again, the next day.