“My mom throws a neighborhood Fourth of July barbecue every year.”

“Ah.” I was hardly ever home in July. It was the prime month for summer ballet intensives—the rigorous, audition-only ballet programs that opened doors later on. Now that I thought about it, I could vaguely remember my parents saying stuff like “We’ve got that barbecue at the Jeppsons’ tonight” when we talked on the phone while I was away. I’d just never asked who the Jeppsons were.

“They’re pretty great. The burgers are amazing, and Mrs. Garber always gets drunk and imitates Elvis.” When I didn’t react, Jude said, “That would be funny if you knew who Mrs. Garber was. Trust me.”

He put his hands in the pockets of his brown bomber jacket. There were patches going down the left sleeve: a slice of pizza, the bat signal, a rainbow ally flag, and a pair of red lips surrounded by the words Rocky Horror Picture Show. The patches should have made the jacket look cartoonish, but somehow, with his side-swooped hair, it looked kind of retro and cool.

I cleared my throat and looked away. “So can I ask you something? How were you so sure I wouldn’t recognize you? When you asked me at auditions if I’d ever seen you before, you seemed pretty sure I’d say no.”

Jude smiled and glanced up at the dark sky, like he was remembering something funny. “Okay. So once, a couple years ago, my aunt Liddy was visiting, and she was helping me wash my mom’s car. You were sitting on your porch with your headphones on. Aunt Liddy bet me ten bucks that you’d smile at me in two minutes or less. I said I’d bet her twenty bucks you’d never look over. Not even once. I knew I’d win, and I did.”

“But how did you know?”

“Just, you always looked like you were somewhere else. Especially when you had your headphones on. That day when we washed the car, we’d look over and you’d be sitting there, doing these little moves, like…” Jude demonstrated by tilting his head slightly and turning his hand in delicate circles.

I nodded. The memory of it made my throat seize up. I used to listen to the music of whatever role or variation I was working on over and over again. As I listened, I’d do the dance in my head, and my body would follow with little ghosts of the movements. It helped me make the music part of my body. When I was sitting on the porch, I wasn’t really there. I was dancing, even when I wasn’t.

“I—” Jude hesitated. “I heard about your leg. Your mom told my mom about it. It must have been hard not to dance for so long. Especially for someone as good as you are.”