“You won,” she says. Her voice is confident, stern. “They should be paying you.”

“It’s tuition,” I try to explain. “It’s like—it’s like a summer class.” But she’s not listening.

“Go to that woman in your department, and explain to her that she needs to fix it. That’s not the way it works.”

“Carly? She can’t do anything about it, Mom.” I grip the edge of the laptop, leaning in.

Her lips make a knot. “Oh, really?” she snipes. “I sincerely doubt that. Does she get part of what they want you to pay?” She’s in dance-school-mom mode, raised voice until she gets what she wants.

“No, of course not—”

“If Carlin doesn’t listen, I can call the dean and tell him about the kind of people he’s hiring.”

“No! I’ll—I’ll talk to Carly.”

She huffs. “I can’t believe they think they could get away with this. That’s not how this works in the real world. They’re not getting a dime.”

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow morning, Mom. I promise.”

“Just walk away,” she says. “Show them they can’t do that. They’re lucky you agreed to be in their little thing in the first place.”

“Let me just check first, okay? She must have missed something. Or I maybe misheard her?” My voice trails off.

Mom snorts at that, her face relaxing. “Well, that wouldn’t surprise me,” she says. She sighs, shakes her head. She reaches for her wineglass, gestures at me with it. “You go straighten it out first thing, you hear? You don’t let people take advantage of you, Adeleina. And don’t give me a heart attack like that again. Good Lord.”

I apologize and she sighs again.

“You know, though,” she says. “It wouldn’t hurt to just give it up. I know you wanted to try this thing, but we can just move straight to LA after school.”

I freeze at that. I don’t know what my face is doing. After all these years, she still doesn’t understand the difference between my dreams and her dreams.

Does she know that LA basically means cutting me right in half? I mean, how much weight will I have to lose before anyone out there even looks me in the eye?

She doesn’t notice I’m not answering her.

“Maybe this Angles thing just wasn’t meant to be, Adeleina,” she says.

“I’m going to figure it out.”