“How do you know I do… did ballet?” I asked while craning my neck around, trying to see how Diya and Laurel were doing with the glasses thing. Laurel had it down, but Diya took them off Ethan’s face too roughly, and the tip went up his nose. I wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t done it on purpose.

“Oh, I can tell,” Jude said. “The way you dance, the way you move, the way you walk with your feet turned out like a duck.” My gaze snapped back to his. He was smiling. “My cousin does ballet. I learned the signs.”

I glanced down at my feet. Turned out as always. Then I looked back at him with narrowed eyes.

“Uh-oh, you going to give me the finger again?”

“Not yet.”

Jude studied me with a squinty expression. “Just out of curiosity—”

I waved my hand in front of his face. “Shh, I need to become beautiful dynamite.”

Once callbacks ended, I walked out to the already-darkening parking lot, trailing behind Margot, Ethan, and Jude as they chattered incessantly. When my phone dinged with a text from Colleen, I slowed down even more.

Two new girls joined today. Jodys, obvs. Seem nice.

I sighed even though I wasn’t surprised. Jody was the name of the main character in Center Stage, a ballet movie Colleen and I had seen a million times. We used Jody to describe a particular kind of girl—the blond, blue-eyed beauties who, despite how excellent or mediocre their technique was, always threatened to secure Kira’s favor based on some “it” factor they all seemed to possess.

On the whole, KDBS was full of Jodys, which meant Colleen and I always had to work extra hard to get noticed. We never talked about how outnumbered we were, but we definitely were. There were a few other East Asian girls in the lower levels of the school, and a couple had cycled in and out of our class over the years. Colleen had always been the only Black girl at KDBS, though.

It took me a second to notice that the chatter had stopped and an odd silence filled the air. I looked up from my phone. Margot, Ethan, and Jude stood several paces away, staring at me. “Sorry, what?” I said.

“Want anything?” Margot jabbed her thumb at the two lit-up vending machines by the side of the school.

“I’m good.” I dropped my phone into my jacket pocket. The gut-punch feeling I always got when I ignored a text from Colleen now combined with embarrassment for being so oblivious to where I was. I wasn’t in my room, free to zone out, yet.