For this scene, Lucas pulls it together beautifully. He might be acting in clothes that are 80 percent damp, but he’s every bit as good as he was the first time he read this scene with Belinda in auditions. Subtle, complicated, wildly effective. When he finishes the scene and steps “offstage” behind the curtain we’ve set up, I squeeze his hand and say, “You should be an actor, Lucas.”
He opens his jacket so I remember why he shouldn’t.
I want to kiss him right there, but I resist.
He’s even better in his third scene, the marriage proposal, which has killed me every time we rehearse it: the way he hesitates and grapples and swallows right before he spits out the words. There is a bit of Mr. Darcy in Lucas. Even Belinda, who has a hard time noticing anyone else onstage, seems to love it. Her fan flutters wildly all through the scene, which prompts Anthony to overact in our next dance-party scene where he’s playing Bingley and I’m playing Jane. We’re supposed to be pretending we’re too shy to say how we feel, but Anthony gets so carried away that our scene culminates in a kiss we have certainly not planned.
“Sorry,” he says right afterward, smiling at me. His hat is skewed and his ascot rumpled by the spontaneous moment.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, and the audience applauds, as they do for virtually everything we’ve done tonight, including walk onstage.
There are plenty of mistakes, like a terrible moment where Belinda falls over her dress, which is too long, and delivers her line from the ground as if she’s hoping no one will notice. But for me, the biggest surprise of the night is the way I can see and feel the whole class on the edge of their seats, following the story. Francine nods her head wildly anytime a character talks about love, and Simon shakes his head if any character speaks disparagingly of anyone else. I can hear him in the audience saying, “That’s not right.”
Halfway through the show, we break for “questions and suggestions,” and everyone has something to say: “She should just give him a chance.”
“He shouldn’t listen to his friend all the time.”
“I just want everyone to fall in love!”
The last comment surprises me most of all because it’s from Harrison, my first partner in the group, who, in all these weeks, has never once said he wants to go on a date or fall in love. Now I watch him zeroing in on Richard and I understand why he’s hesitant about all this. Apparently it’s possible to be legally blind, autistic, and gay.
I don’t know if Richard sees this, too, but he and Lucas seem comfortable enough at our “intermission discussion” for me to leave them fielding questions while I take Belinda and Anthony for a quick trip to the bathroom. This is another quirk I’ve learned working with these two. They can seem so high-functioning—memorizing their lines and discussing Jane Austen—but would definitely get lost if I told them, “The bathroom is three doors down on the left.”
Alone in the hallway, I tell them they’re both doing a great job. Belinda is grinning ear to ear, happy in a way I haven’t seen her be in ages.
“I was great, wasn’t I!” she says, clapping her hands.
Anthony can’t take his eyes off her. “Very great, Beminda.”
“So were you, Anthony! That was so good when you kissed her.” I laugh at this. I wasn’t sure how Belinda would react to Anthony’s spontaneous stage moment, but she’s right not to be jealous. It was a great, actorly flourish.
“I have to say, I think it really worked, Anthony,” I tell him. “It took people by surprise and grabbed their attention.”
“I was great, Beminda. Did you hear that?”
I remind them that we’re not done yet, we still have the second half—two scenes—to go, and Belinda turns to me: “If this is shown on TV, do you think the football team will watch it?”
Her question takes me by surprise and then I think of the scene Lucas described to me: Ron Moody screaming at her, the rest of the team running over her. In three weeks of working together, she’s never once mentioned the football team, but how could they ever be far from her thoughts? I don’t want to dismiss the fear I see flashing in her eyes. “It’s not on TV yet,” I explain slowly. “They’re making a recording that could be on TV, but it doesn’t have to be.” Lucas had already told me they sometimes film events they don’t put on the air. He meant this to be a comfort. If we flame out completely, we can cancel.
Belinda considers this for a minute and says that she wants some people to see this—her mother and grandmother, her teachers and friends from school—but she definitely doesn’t want the football boys to see it.
I think about my original impulse a month ago—let’s get the football team to act with Belinda! Let them see how talented she is! She’s demonstrating something I am only just learning myself: Choose carefully the people whose approval you seek. This whole performance, my eyes have been flicking nervously to Chad sitting in the front row with two conspicuously empty seats beside him. Why do I even care what he thinks?
Lucas was right to keep the football team away from Belinda. Instead of saying any of this, I stay with the question she’s asked. “If it’s shown on cable access TV, it isn’t likely they’d see it, but they could. If you don’t want that, we could arrange something else.”
“Like what?”
“Like—” I think quickly. “We could arrange a private screening at school. For your classmates and teachers.” Suddenly the idea doesn’t seem bad. “We could do the same thing we’re doing here—talk about the issues the story raises . . .”
She nods, still thinking. “Maybe that’s better. Maybe that’s what we should do.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BELINDA
I AM HAPPY WHEN IT’S over.
It wasn’t a perfect play but that was okay. Anthony got a little too enthusiastic and I fell down but I don’t know if people noticed those things. It seems like everyone followed the story and liked how all the characters ended up with someone else at the end.
So that was good.
And I was happy when Emily said it doesn’t have to be on TV, maybe we can do a special showing for just the people we want to see it. That means I can sit with Mom and Nan and watch it with them. Plus, we can explain it to our school friends so they understand it.
Now it’s over which means I’m relieved and also nervous again. It’s time for the party and the ballroom dance class to set up. They have to move all the chairs they were just sitting in to watch our show. Some people move their chair a few feet, then sit down to rest. It makes me want to shout, “LET’S GO, PEOPLE, OR THERE WON’T BE ANY TIME TO DANCE!” If Nan were here, she would tell me it’s rude to yell at people, especially when we’re all wearing fancy dresses and getting ready to ballroom dance. “You can’t just look like a lady,” Nan says. “You have to act like one, too!”
Nan is right.
There are lots of girls here looking and acting like ladies. There is one with long red hair and a pretty tiara. There is another wearing a sparkly purple dress that I love. If I ever get to sign up for this class, I will ask Nan to make me a special dress out of the sparkliest material we can find. If she says, “No, it’s too sparkly,” I’ll say, “Please, just this once.”
Because I see it’s going to take a long time before we start dancing, I leave the main room to look for Anthony who I haven’t seen since we took our bows.
One bad thing about Anthony is that he falls asleep very easily, especially if we’ve had a lot of excitement to tire us out. This always happens any time our classroom takes a field trip which isn’t very often so maybe we get overexcited, but every time, on the van ride home, Anthony falls asleep. That’s why I’m not surprised after the play when I look in the dressing room and there he is, asleep in a desk chair.
I don’t want to wake him, so I sit down quietly next to him with a plate of food I know he’ll like.
Then I cough so he’ll wake up which he does. “Here, Anthony,” I say. “I brought you some food. You should rest for now but whe
n you’re done resting, you should think about maybe coming out to the party and dancing with me.” I thought it would be hard or maybe embarrassing to ask him this, but it’s not. He smiles.
“O-kay. I’ll dance with you. Now?”
“Not now. First they have to show us how to ballroom dance, then we have to do it.”
He’s smiling but he still looks sleepy, like his eyes are about to close.
“You can sleep for now, it’s okay. I’ll wake you up when it’s time.”
“I don’t want to sleep anymore, Beminda,” he says and smiles at me in this new way he has.
Uh-oh, I think. Here it comes. I can tell he’s going to ask about kissing. Then it’s funny. He doesn’t say anything, I do. “Do you want to kiss now, Anthony? Because the play is over and we can if you want to.”
He doesn’t do anything silly like clap his hands which makes me glad. “Yes,” he says. “I want to very much.”
I move my chair closer and he moves his chair closer, too. “I haven’t done this before.” I didn’t mean to tell him this but now I have.
“I know,” he says. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
“I don’t know a lot of things like whether you keep breathing or not.” I forgot that I didn’t want to tell him this either and now it’s too late.
“You should keep breathing, I think.” When he says it, it sounds like “briefing.”
“Okay.”
Then he says I should stop talking because he thinks you can breathe and kiss at the same time but you can’t talk and kiss.
I say, “Okay, that makes sense.”
And then we kiss and I’m surprised because I like it a lot more than I thought I would. It’s not scary or like we’re different people. It’s Anthony and me and it’s so nice we start laughing a little. He wants us to push our chairs even closer which we do. Then he says, “Or you could sit on my lap.”
I don’t know what to do. I’ve never seen that in a movie but I want to say, “Okay.” So I do. I stand up and move so I can sit in his lap and we can keep kissing with our arms all the way around each other. It feels different but good. It feels like something I never thought I’d feel. Like maybe I’m on TV or else I’m part of something I only thought I’d ever see on TV. I’m not sure, but it’s nice.
A few minutes later, we go into the big room where the chairs are cleared away and food is set up and I find Emily and Lucas sitting together. I’m holding my shoe box of presents I made for Ron. Mom has been helping me put them back together so I can give them tonight as cast presents for my new friends. This time I can see Emily and Lucas are definitely holding hands. I walk over to them with my box and ask, “Are you boyfriend and girlfriend now?”
He looks at her and turns red again which makes me remember this is a personal private question and I shouldn’t have asked it.
Then, even though he’s red, he says, “We’re thinking about it, Belinda. We’ve liked getting to know each other, working on this. So . . . maybe yes—we’re headed in that direction.”
“I’ve decided Anthony is definitely my boyfriend and I’m going to be his girlfriend, too.”
“That’s great!” Emily says, smiling like she means it. “We really like Anthony a lot.”
She looks like she wants to hold Lucas’s hand again.
“It’s okay with me if you hold hands,” I say. “I don’t mind.”
She laughs even though I’m not trying to be funny. Then she takes his hand.
“I have presents I want to give you guys and then I think you should ballroom dance with me and Anthony. But first Lucas has to bow and ask you to dance. That’s the rule.”
I open my box. I want to save the best present for Anthony but I have plenty in here to choose from. My mom and I found some old things we never gave anyone before. There’s a Christmas tree ornament and a candlestick holder with dried flowers glued to it. I give Emily the candleholder and Lucas the ornament. “These are presents to say thank you for putting on my show. I made them myself because it made me very happy to be in it.”
I’m surprised at how I almost start to cry saying this. I don’t know why, because the play is over and I don’t need to be nervous anymore. I’m not sad about anything. I’m happy, but maybe happy is a little like sad because I do start to cry.
They love their presents and hug me.
I say, “Okay, that’s enough. I don’t like hugs that much.”
A few minutes later, the music starts and I panic for a second. I don’t know what to do. The other couples are holding up their arms and getting into position. I don’t know how we do this or where we put our arms. Anthony is standing beside me. All I know is this: “First you have to ask me to dance and bow.”
“Okay.” He bows nicely. “You wanna dance, Beminda?”
“Yes, thank you,” I say. We walk out to the dance floor and suddenly I feel different. I look like Elizabeth Bennett and I feel like her, too. I have my Mr. Darcy and we’re about to dance.
“Dancing is the first step toward falling in love,” Nan used to say about being in dance class and meeting my grandpa. It’s a line from Pride and Prejudice so it must be true.
We look at the other couples to figure out where to put our hands. It doesn’t feel like hugging which is nice. There’s space between us except we’re connected and we have to move together so we need to be quiet and pay attention to the music. It’s easier for me to do this if I close my eyes so I do that and it works. We move perfectly without crashing into each other or anyone else. At the end, I’m so happy I start crying again.
I look over and see Emily and Lucas. They’re still sitting in their chairs not dancing. Maybe they’re scared or maybe they don’t know how either.
Then I’m surprised. Lucas stands up next to Emily. He says something and bows really low. It makes me think maybe they don’t know any more than Anthony and I do. So he’s doing what I told him to which is bow when he asks her to dance. She smiles and holds out her hand so he can lead her back out to the dance floor. Pretty soon they’re dancing, too. They still don’t look quite as good as Anthony and I do, but they’re close.
That makes me feel good.
EMILY
AFTER IT’S ALL OVER, Richard and I stand outside while Lucas helps the cable access TV people load their equipment into their truck.
“Lucas will just be a minute,” I say. “We’re giving him a ride, too.”
“So speaking of Lucas.” Richard smiles. “Some of us have a little bet that you and he are maybe more than just fellow felons doing your community service—would you care to comment on that?”
I look up at him and laugh. “Which way did you bet?”
“I’m not going to say until you answer.”
“You bet yes, didn’t you, because you think you know me so well.”
“I do know you better than you know yourself, which is why I bet yes. Candace doesn’t believe it’s possible; neither does Barry. But Weilin and I know better. We’ve seen the evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“You never look at his table at lunch. You also never mention him, even in passing. Plus the passenger seat in your car is about six inches back from where it usually is.”
I think about watching Belinda and Anthony tonight and the way they took care of each other. With everything that’s happened to her, I don’t know how she’s remained fearless in a way that I’ve never been, and have never seen in my friends. We’ve tiptoed through high school, expecting nothing good to happen. Afraid of the worst, we’ve limited ourselves, and here is Belinda, who saw the worst and didn’t do the same. I want to follow her lead. I don’t want to be afraid of everything I don’t know about the future.
“Okay, fine, you’re right, but not that much has happened,” I say, blushing. “He broke up with Debbie and I guess we like each other, but we decided not to go out or do anything officially until after the play is over.”
He’s really smiling now. “So I guess you’re
really happy the play is over.”
“I am,” I say, and we both laugh.
“It’s great, Em. I’m happy for you. I’m not sure I understood it until I came tonight, but now I do. This was great. All of it. I like these people.”
“I’m so happy you were here.”
In truth I don’t know what part of this night to be happiest about—making it through the play, or Richard being here.
In the car driving home, Richard is chattier than usual. “You want to know what song was number one on the Billboard charts the week I was born?”
I smile. Apparently he got the chance to talk to Harrison.
“‘It’s Raining Men.’ Can you believe that? I’m interpreting this as an extremely positive sign for the future.”
I don’t believe it, actually. In class a few weeks ago, Harrison admitted that it’s impossible for him to remember all the Billboard number-one hits, so he fudges the ones he isn’t sure of.
“It’s a great sign for the future,” I say, smiling at him.
“Watch the road there, Em,” Lucas says. “Shoulders aren’t lanes you’re meant to drive in.”
“Sorry,” I say, adjusting the wheel. “I’m just happy.”
Lucas smiles and reaches over to adjust the wheel himself. “So am I,” he says. “Just aim it straight, though. I’ll do the wheel, you do the pedal stuff.”
After we drop Richard off, Lucas asks me to pull over to the side of the road so he can drive. “This isn’t about your driving, I swear,” he says.
He gets out of the car and we meet in the front, in the dark triangle between the two headlights. “I just wanted to do this,” he says and pulls me into a kiss.