Like the silence was flammable and Jack struck a match, the room explodes with cheers, and my heart explodes in a shower of sparks, because no turning back now.

Showtime.

I suck in a breath and step out from behind the curtain, into the light.

17

I pose, my arms a delicate arch over my head in their pale, pale blue satin elbow-length gloves. My tutu glitters. My lips glisten pink. I am a ballerina doll.

I think about that first ballet master who told my mother, “She is too fat. She will never be a dancer.”

But I danced. I took lesson after lesson and found the music wanted my body and my body wanted the music, and it changed me, shaped me, dug into me and curled around my bones and knit into my muscles and made me stronger and brighter and more alive. This is the promise I’ve tried to keep to myself: that my body is perfect—larger than most dancers’, “fat” in the eyes of too many people, people who don’t understand bodies, who don’t know how beautiful they are. I’ll take the word fat, and I’ll keep it next to my heart, and I’ll own it. And I’ll take up the space in the world that I take up and not apologize for it.

I have never stopped dancing. And I will never stop dancing. And I will never stop reveling in the feel of the music, those first few bars that shower over you, lift you up to your toes, sing down your spine, keep you suspended in time, and then explode out of your skin, out of your stillness, help you inscribe the movement of your limbs and the tilt of your head and the length of your neck and the shape of your feet and the joy and concentration in your face into the hearts of the audience.

Now the tinkly opening notes of the Nutcracker music I’m using spill onto the stage, but this isn’t going to be any Christmas pageant.

One last deep breath.

Up onto my toes, I rise.

There’s no hesitation; my body follows the music, chasing the bell-like notes, nimble, delicate little steps, flitting across the stage, neck long, arms graceful, skirt shimmering. (Flash of memory: How many sequins do I really need? I ask; All of them! Katherine cries.) I breathe into the ripple of the music, moving around the chair and across the stage again, the classic choreography thrown away.

Dainty pas de bourrée couru in sixth position. Tendu devant in plié. Relevé.

At every moment, I’m aware of the audience, buzzing and alive, in a way I never am while performing. I can tell they’re captivated. Surprised. This isn’t what they expected, a fat ballerina. And where the hell is the burlesque? I feel my mouth quirk the tiniest bit.