Jack’s shimmy around me, hands in the air, is the worst, and my stomach hurts from laughing. “You’re a terrible dancer,” I yell in his ear, and he yells back, “Isn’t it great?”

Katherine is explaining her Hula-Hoop tricks to a group of students, and Nevaeh is almost not joking about getting her fedora. Taylor says, “My act would have killed.”

He might come back in an hour wearing his costume. Katherine might go get her Hula-Hoop. I could change into my tutu, if the mood strikes me. It’s still hanging on the back of the door. I hope Nevaeh comes swaggering back in the suit.

We’re all going to be here dancing until the first curfew bell, maybe until the warning, maybe until the RA comes and turns the lights on, but she’s over near the couches, waving her hands, telling a story to Grace and Shima and half our audience from the second show.

The urge to get my phone from Taylor is mighty—could I do Joffrey San Francisco and then head to New York? Could I do anything? I could do anything.

I thought Angles was my only way into the modern dance world that isn’t enthusiastic about a body like mine. But Mohadesa Rabei didn’t go to Angles—she became the director of the program, the lead dancer. And I’m going to meet her one day.

“I’ve learned the shopping cart!” Jack yells, slipping through the crowd to where Nevaeh, Katherine, and I are dancing.

“Don’t you dare,” I yell.

“I swear I had nothing to do with this,” Taylor shouts.

My stomach hurts so much from laughing. And we don’t stop dancing for hours.

30

“Guess what!” I tell Carly, flinging her door open on Sunday, dancing through it, throwing myself on the sofa, and kicking up my feet. “You’ll never guess!”

“I thought I’d be the only one with news,” she says. She looks delighted.

I’ve been holding on to the Joffrey offer since Friday because I wanted to see her face, and it’s the best when I tell her.

“Oh, Addie!” she says. She actually throws her arms around me and squeezes me, rubs my back, smiles at me with tears in her eyes, then squeezes me hard again.

“Carly!” I say. “Oh my gosh, Carly.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so proud of you.”

“Obviously.” I squeeze her back hard, and we’re both laughing a little breathlessly, halfway to crying.

“You are just—” She shakes her head and pats me on the shoulder again.

“I know, right?”

She shakes her head again. “So this is going to be the best day ever. And we are going to have a lot to talk about.”

The grin on her face is so big.

And then she tells me.