The question felt much bigger than me all of a sudden, but still so personal. I mean, I had danced Chinese Tea all those years, I had perpetuated that narrow, racist view, and at the same time, thousands of other dancers all over the world were dancing it, too. Maybe it was easy for them to accept the roles they had, like I did. Maybe it was easy for dancers and teachers and choreographers and artistic directors to keep following tradition, ignoring who it hurt. Maybe, like me, they loved ballet so much, believed so deeply in its beauty, that they didn’t see the ugly parts, or didn’t want to.

The first strains of “Waltz of the Flowers” wafted through the auditorium doors. I was missing Josie’s solo. Still, I couldn’t move.

Josie had helped transform the dance into something better, and maybe if I had known what to say to Kira on cast list day last year, I could have changed the dance, too. But Variations was different from KDBS. And besides, I was out of ballet. It was too late to change anything now.

As the cold linoleum seeped through my tights, a new kind of sadness gripped me. Different from the familiar pain of not being able to dance ballet, from missing all the things I’d once been able to do. Now I felt sadness over all the things I hadn’t done, all the things I had ignored.

I sat there, absorbed in my thoughts, until I heard harps floating peacefully up and down the scale. The Grand Pas de Deux was about to begin. Something pulled me back into the darkened theater, down the aisle, and to my seat.

Onstage, a girl in a pink tutu and a boy in a scarlet coat danced ballet. Variations was doing the Grand Pas de Deux traditionally. No noise music, just Tchaikovsky. As the scales crescendoed, my body twitched again, aching to dance. Instead, I sat in the audience. Quiet tears poured down my face as I watched the dance I had once performed. The one I couldn’t do anymore. The one my heart still loved, even as it broke all over again.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MY PARENTS WERE MIFFED at me for missing Josie’s solo, but they were mostly over it by Christmas. Josie was not. She sat as far away from me as possible as we Skyped with Grandma Shiho in the afternoon before opening presents.

“What do you think Santa brought you?” Grandma asked, her wide smile deepening the wrinkles in her tanned skin.

“No fair,” Josie said. “You’re Santa and you already know.” Grandma’s gravelly laugh filled the room. We were her only grandchildren, so she spoiled us every Christmas. Over half the presents under the tree were from her.