“It’ll just be a second,” Cary said. He opened the Maverick bag and started pulling out a stack of white towels from it. I was about to offer to help him when I heard music wafting in. At first I thought it was music from another yoga class, but after a moment, I realized I knew it. I knew it better, in fact, than almost any other piece of music. After all, I’d heard it for months every year, over and over again, for more than a decade—The Nutcracker Suite.

I was baffled by why this was happening until I remembered the dance studio that was also in this building—I must have been hearing it through the walls.

I’d been in The Nutcracker every year since I started dancing, working my way from Candy Cane to Mouse to Party Scene Girl and finally Clara, the lead, which I’d danced for two years in a row. I knew this music like I knew nothing else. And what’s more, I could hear my steps in them, hear Miss Felicity, the head of my dance school, counting them out—and one and two and give your hand and five and six and then we turn.… I hadn’t realized I’d still know them, that they’d been there this whole time. That note meant a pas de bourrée. That one meant a relevé, two jumps and a pirouette.…

“This is impressive.”

I turned to look at Cary—I hadn’t realized I’d started to move. I was just half doing the steps, mostly marking them. “It’s The Nutcracker,” I explained, nodding to where the music was coming from. “I did it every year. I guess I still know my steps.”

“I guess so,” said Cary, sounding awed. “I know you said something about being a dancer, but I didn’t think…”

“No,” I said, even though as I said it I stepped back into a wide, Balanchine fifth and did a pirouette. It was rusty, but I landed it. I turned to face Cary. “I used to be. But…”

“But what?”

“I wasn’t good enough,” I said bluntly, wondering why this still hurt after four years. “I wasn’t going to be able to do it professionally. So I… quit.” Hearing this out loud, I remembered what Stevie had said to me on the subway platform. That it was always all or nothing with me. And in this case, it had been true—when I couldn’t dance at the highest level, I had thrown myself into the next thing. Into theater.

“You still seem really good,” Cary said. “Do you miss it?”