How to Keep Rolling After a Fall

by Karole Cozzo

  Taylor Jordan has become a name in a news article, a two-dimensional picture on a yearbook page, a horrible memory. I haven’t had to look her in the eye since the Incident. Talking to this girl, having her ask this question, makes Taylor real again somehow.

  “I don’t know.”

  It’s all I have for her.

  “Anyway, no more weak moments,” Sam declares, carefully placing her guitar in its case. “They took some of my dignity, and they took my chance at having any real friends around this place, but there’s plenty I still have. I still have my pride, just because I’m not like them. I have my talent. I have my guitar. And I have my backbone.”

  She sure does. I think about how she stood up to them, literally, in the lobby. For someone who could be considered a victim, she seems pretty strong. She seems a lot stronger than I’ve ever felt, actually.

  “Good for you,” I tell her.

  Finally, she reaches for her lunch. “Maybe I’ll eat something after all.” Sam studies my face. “You promise you’re not a spy?”

  No, they hate me, too.

  But I do feel like I’m from the other side of enemy lines. And I really hope Sam doesn’t find out. I realize how much I like her.

  “Not a spy.” Then I quickly change the subject. “You have theater next, right? We should grab some seats together.”

  “Let’s.” She nods. “To be honest, I’m pretty tired of sitting alone. It’s boring.”

  I’m pretty tired of sitting alone, too.

  Chapter 7

  My sister shovels a forkful of vegetable fried rice into her mouth, takes a sip of water, and continues her rant. “I mean, I don’t understand why Mr. Thompson is acting like I “have to do the dissection. New Jersey is one of the seventeen states that allows students to opt out and complete alternative assignments. I’m going to remind him of that.”

  My mother passes a white cardboard container to my father and smiles at Emma. “That’s fine. I don’t mind you exercising your right. Just be respectful, please.”

  It is Saturday night, and my family is enjoying some take-out Chinese. At least, we’re trying to.

  “It’s a miniature pig, for crying out loud!” Emma proclaims, throwing her hands into the air. “It’s atrocious!”

  “What’s atrocious about it,” I chime in, “is having this conversation over dinner.” I glance toward my father, then back at Emma. “Dad’s eating pork lo mein, ya know.”

  I try a tentative smile in his direction. Once upon a time, my observation would have made him laugh. Now, nothin’. With a sigh, I focus back on my plate.

  “Let’s change the subject.” My mom takes a sip of her wine and clears her throat. “There’s a college fair at the community center tomorrow afternoon.”

  I quickly stuff my eggroll into my mouth to keep from groaning.

  She trains her stare on me. “I was thinking you should consider going.”

  I don’t know why she doesn’t just come out and say it: “You will be going.”

  I chew for a few minutes and then ask, “What schools are going to be there?”

  My mom rattles off a list of schools from the mid-Atlantic area, as well as a few outliers from Florida and New England. There certainly aren’t any performing-arts schools on the list. But I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, anyway.

  A good portion of this past summer was supposed to be devoted to a tour of potential colleges. And although my mom had protested the idea at first, with my dad’s noodling, she had agreed to visit performing-arts schools as well as traditional colleges. My dad had always supported the idea, thought it was a natural path, and my mom had grudgingly agreed to consider it as long as the schools had a strong liberal arts curriculum.

  Neither of my parents had officially announced the cancellation of the tour. It just disappeared from the radar as abruptly as everything else did after the Incident.

  “Applications will need to be in by the end of November or early December if you want to stay on top of things,” my mom reminds me. “You really need to start thinking about this.”

  She ignores the elephant in the room, the unspoken question we all have: Will any colleges accept me once they check into my background? It’s not like my grades were ever all that stellar, and currently, I don’t have a single extracurricular activity to list on the applications. I’ll be lucky if I manage to sign up for some courses at community college.

  No longer feeling hungry, I drop my fork. My dreams of living in downtown New York City, or at least securing a cool loft in Philly, seem like they’re from another lifetime. How am I supposed to sell myself, anyway? So many of the required essays seem to center around “a defining moment.” So what are you supposed to say about yourself when your defining moment is a bad one?

  * * *

  Later that evening, I’m on the phone with Pax.

  “You want to hit up a matinee tomorrow?” he asks. “At the old theater, it’s free entry for anyone with a handicap pass and a guest on Sunday afternoons. And I don’t have to work.”

  “What movie?”

  “X-Men.”

  “Oh, the new sequel that just came out?”

  He laughs. “Not quite. The original one that came out in 2000. Okay, maybe the free handicap matinee doesn’t always get the latest and greatest.”

  “Or we could just get really wild and crazy and pay to go see a new movie,” I suggest.

  “Come on, I used to love Marvel comics. They never get old.”

  “I guess having a superpower would be pretty cool,” I admit. “Wouldn’t mind having the power to erase history.” Then I remember the thing I was trying to forget about when I called Pax in the first place. “Ugh, it’s a moot point anyway. My mom’s making me go to a college fair at the community center.”

  “I’ll go with you,” he offers a few seconds later.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, it wouldn’t hurt to check it out for the future. Maybe we’ll have time for a movie afterward. And there’s always good swag at these things.”

  I giggle. “It sounds a lot less dreadful when you put it that way.”

  “What time do you want me to pick you up?”

  I hesitate for a second and then say, “Twelve thirty.”

  My mom never said I had to go by myself.

  “Okay, keep an eye out so you can have your butler buzz me in.”

  Rolling my eyes, I tell him, “We hardly have a butler.”

  “Locked gate?”

  “No! Not a gate, either.”

  “At least a ferocious Doberman or two?”

  I huff in exasperation. “Just pick me up at twelve thirty.” Then I hang up the phone, smiling all the while.

  On Sunday morning, I spend some time getting ready. I carefully apply my makeup and select an outfit, keeping in mind that I need to do everything in my power to look like a respectable future student to the college representatives. Standing in front of my mirror, I smooth my skirt, thinking I did a pretty good job. Dressed in a white button-down, a polka-dot pencil skirt, and heels, I look serious and mature.

  Then it hits me. The college fair is a huge event. There’s a good chance other seniors from ACA will be there. And I’m pretty sure the majority of the senior class from O.I.H.S. will be there, too. What am I thinking?

  I ditch the skirt and heels and trade them for jeans and Skechers. Then I roll the button-down shirt to the elbows so that it doesn’t look entirely ridiculous when I stuff my hair inside my trusty navy baseball cap and pull it down low on my forehead.

  I walk down the steps at twelve twenty … and find my dad waiting at the bottom, keys in hand. I freeze in my tracks. It’s rare for just the two of us to end up in a room together, because he seems to do everything in his power to avoid it.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “I’m going to drive you today. Your mom said to tell you. You were in the shower. She had to take Emma to A.C. Moore for art supplies for a school project, and I wasn’t sure what she need
ed.”

  Four sentences. It’s something of a record. Although, as cool and aloof as he sounds, he might as well be the butler I told Pax we didn’t have.

  “Oh, um, thanks.” I look down at my feet. “But I have a ride.”

  The relief on his face is obvious, and I consider the sad possibility that maybe my father is really looking forward to the day I’m off at college. For all the wrong reasons.

  “Okay,” he says. He turns and drops his keys on the end table and then disappears into the kitchen.

  I stare after him, thinking that with every passing day, it becomes more and more possible that if I get into college and move into a dorm, I’ll be doing so with him still not speaking to me. The realization makes me want to disappear, too, and I go outside to wait for Pax.

  * * *

  “I told you … quality swag.” Pax is eating a pack of mini pretzels shaped like owls, which he snagged from the Temple University table. “Oh my God—they have pretzels in the shape of their mascot—I must go there!” he quips.

  I swat at his arm. “Stop!” Glancing over my shoulder, I look back toward the Temple reps, who are less than fifteen feet away. “You’re loud.”

  “Sorry, I’ll take this more seriously.”

  I shake my head and stare down at the uninteresting pile of brochures I’ve amassed. “It’s not like I’m taking it that seriously.”

  Pax looks up at me. “You’re not the least bit interested in a single school? Apparently, there are twenty-seven here.”

  “Not really.”

  “So what would be interesting to you?”

  I take a few more steps before answering him. “I used to want to go a performing-arts college,” I admit quietly.

  “You mean like Juilliard?”

  This idea makes me laugh. “At no point in time was I delusional enough to believe I could get into Juilliard. It’s impossibly competitive. But maybe one of the slightly less prestigious schools in New York, like American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Manhattan or the Steinhardt School at NYU. I used to visit their websites all the time. Stare at the pictures and daydream about what my life would be like.”

  “What changed?”

  I accept a brochure from the woman from Rutgers and continue. “My motivation in general is sort of shot to hell,” I tell him. “Getting people to look beyond my past—it seems like such a big feat. Why bother trying? But it’s more than that.” I reach up and tug on the brim of my hat, something I’ve probably done a dozen times since we arrived. “I’ve gotten so used to hiding.” I smile sadly. “At this point, I’ve practically morphed into one of those hermit crabs from the boardwalk shops. I sort of can’t imagine being onstage again. To sell a performance, you need to be comfortable in your skin. You’ve got to own it. I miss performing, but … I don’t know if I could ever go back.”

  I can’t imagine ever feeling that way again. Confident. Assured. Complete.

  “That’s a damn shame,” he says bluntly.

  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  Ever so quickly, he reaches over and squeezes my hand. It only lasts a second, but it makes me feel somewhat stronger.

  “Let’s get this over with,” I say. “I don’t feel like dealing with my mom’s wrath if I don’t come home with a sufficient number of pamphlets.”

  We continue down the rows, stopping and accepting materials from West Chester University, the College of New Jersey, and Eastern University. I skip Princeton and UPenn. When I see people I recognize, like Jamie Lee, Sam’s nemesis from ACA, I turn my full attention to whatever table is closest. I don’t see Sam, and I think it would’ve been a nice surprise to run into someone who would be friendly. It’s easy to dodge people, though. The crowd gives us lots of space when they notice Pax’s chair.

  Representatives from a few colleges ask him his age and outright try to recruit him.

  “They’re trying to fill their ‘students with disabilities’ quota, clearly,” he tells me when the man from Penn gives Pax his card. “But I guess it’s good to know for when I’m ready to consider college more seriously.”

  We’re almost at the end of the last row, and I’m thinking I’m pretty thankful I survived without incident, when I see something—or someone—that stops me dead in my tracks.

  Haley.

  She is talking to a tall woman in a blue-and-orange Adidas outfit, and I notice SYRACUSE LACROSSE is printed on the back of her zip-up jacket. I remember seeing the rankings last spring, when Syracuse women’s lacrosse team was ranked first in Division I. I move close enough to eavesdrop.

  “It’s so nice to meet you in person after all the e-mails,” Haley gushes. She presses a flash drive into the woman’s palm. “Here’s the highlight video you asked for. There’s a ton of game footage—in particular, the game when I secured our victory against the team that went on to win the New Jersey state championship and mid-Atlantic regionals.”

  I know that Haley is counting on an athletic scholarship to get to college. Without a full ride, she probably won’t be able to go far. And as always, she’s motivated as hell to get what she wants.

  I stay in place as Haley and the college representative discuss upcoming tournaments and a possible visit to upstate New York. The rep talks about arranging for Haley to stay with senior team members in some fancy off-campus apartment.

  “That all sounds perfect,” Haley replies. “And trust me”—she tosses her hair over her shoulder and beams confidently at the woman—“this is a good fit. I’m the obvious choice to fill that opening on offense. And I’m willing to sign a letter of intent whenever.”

  Suddenly disgusted, I push past Pax and dash from Expo Room A without telling him where I’m headed.

  He finds me in the lobby a couple of minutes later, leaning against a vending machine, head resting against the side. “Not cool to run away from a guy in a wheelchair,” he scolds me with a grin. “Not cool.”

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I had to get out of there. Like, immediately.”

  “What got to you?”

  I nibble on my fingernail and then turn to face him. “Just saw something that made me sick.”

  “That something being…?” he prompts.

  I shake my head. “Not now. Not right here.” I still need to sort out why I’m so bothered about the whole thing.

  I turn back toward the soda machine and notice something I didn’t see at first—a poster advertising Ocean Isle High School’s upcoming homecoming festivities is taped to the side of the machine. Homecoming at O.I. has always been a big deal because so many graduates have strong family ties to the area and tend to return to live here after college. There’s an antique car parade, a carnival, and, of course, the crowning of the homecoming queen.

  I definitely would’ve been on the court, although Lauren would probably have taken the crown. It’s not going to turn out like that, though. Just this week, I saw an article in the community section of the newspaper about how the student body at O.I. is rallying to get Taylor elected as queen. It was a feel-good piece: kids making an effort to “turn the former bullying victim into a queen.”

  “So … tell me again how long it takes before you stop wishing for your old life back?” I ask Pax. “Did you ever stop?”

  His expression turns inscrutable. When he speaks, his voice is unnaturally quiet. “I guess sometimes I just think about some pretty good things in my current life I would’ve missed out on if I was still living my old life,” he says.

  Why does he sound sort of hurt?

  I stare at the stupid homecoming poster some more. “Let’s just go.” I look down at my watch. “What time is the movie? Did we miss it?”

  “Yeah, we’re about a half hour too late. But we can watch a movie at my house if you want.”

  My mom is probably working with Emma on her project, and my dad … It’s not like he’s counting the minutes until my return.

  I decide at once. “Sure. Let’s.”

  Pax’s house is on a quiet, t
ree-lined street in Breakwater. Immediately, I notice how immaculate it is, but I guess that’s mostly because his family works really hard to give him clear, wide paths throughout the house. It’s been adapted in other ways to meet his needs. Beyond the obvious ramp to the front door, light switches have been lowered to three feet off the floor, and none of the rooms are carpeted. Otherwise, it’s just a normal home, with lots of family pictures and the smell of lemon cleaning product in the air.

  “Madre!” Pax calls after wheeling though the door. “Where are ya?”

  A moment later, his mom appears from the kitchen. “You’re back! Hi.” She approaches the back of his chair, puts both hands on his shoulders, and leans forward to kiss his cheek. I bite my lip to keep from smiling, but Pax doesn’t seem at all embarrassed, the way some guys might.

  “This is my friend Nikki,” he introduces me.

  His mom steps forward with a broad smile and shakes my hand. “Hey there, Nikki. It’s so nice to meet you.”

  She seems as approachable as her son, and I find myself relaxing in her presence. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you, too.”

  “How was the fair? Worthwhile?” Before Pax can even answer, she turns to me and winks. “Thanks for getting him there, by the way. I’m willing to be patient, but I don’t want him to forget about college altogether.”

  “Oh. Sure. No problem.”

  “It was all right,” Pax says. “But we were gonna check out a movie now, so…” He smiles at her. “If maybe you want to make yourself scarce…”

  She laughs. “I was just getting ready to go to Acme anyway.” She grabs her purse and heads back into the kitchen but pops her head back out a minute later. “Want me to make you some popcorn with burned butter before I head out?”

  Pax looks at me and raises his eyebrows. “You want popcorn?”

  “Sure. Thank you,” I tell his mom.

  She sort of reminds me of my mom, back in the day when she used to be hospitable, showing up in the den with warm chocolate chip cookies. Back in the day when I thought I had friends.

  Once his mom has produced a big bowl of popcorn and two bottles of root beer, Pax maneuvers himself onto the sofa and pushes a button so it reclines and a footrest pops out. I join him on the couch and hand him a soda. Ten seconds later, he groans. “Maaan…”