“How do you really feel?” I asked Lisa in a low voice.

“My head hurts. We’re not going to leave early.”

“I know. He always forgets. But let him have a good time. I guess he doesn’t have much else.”

Lisa sighed and we both looked at Pa as I put my hand over hers and she gripped it. She spoke in a low voice. “I’m glad I have you, Charlie. Sometimes I’m scared.”

This didn’t sound like Lisa. I tried to get her to perk up. “You should be afraid of that caterpillar soup.”

She smiled for the first time that evening. “Believe me, I am.”

Five

I fidgeted in Mr. Song’s shoebox of an office at the middle school, waiting for him to appear and wondering why he’d asked me there. He was Lisa’s guidance counselor. Lisa was never in trouble. When she was younger, she used to have anxiety attacks when she didn’t get a perfect score on a test or when she couldn’t understand how to do something, but that hadn’t happened for a while now. His desk was cluttered with stacks of folders. A few books on the shelf partially covered a ribbon with printing on it. I nudged them away to read “Cornell.” Mr. Song had a photo of a beautiful Asian woman in a bridal gown on his desk, probably his wife. I patted my own puffy hair, trying to tame it.

He stepped into the room, dark and handsome, and I understood why he needed that picture. It must have been to keep the swooning teenage girls away. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

I blurted out, “Is Lisa in trouble?”

“Oh no! I hope I didn’t worry you.” He sat in his chair and rocked back. “Due to Lisa’s test scores coming into our sixth grade, we’d already flagged her as a student to watch. I know she’s just settling into our school now but something her English teacher showed me really gave me pause and made me think we ought to sit down and discuss her future.”

He pulled out one of his folders and flipped through the loose handwritten pages. “The teacher asked the class to describe snow to someone who lives in the desert, someone who has never seen or felt snow before. Let me read you a few typical responses. ‘Snow is white, cold and fluffy. It forms a blanket over everything. You can find it in your freezer.’ Or ‘Children jump and play in snow, bundled up in their winter clothing.’”

I was tense. “What did Lisa write?”

He took out a page he’d marked with a yellow Post-it note. “Light snow is like a dance of fairies: wild, chaotic and free. Heavy snow is sorrow, blanketing your eyes until you are blinded by it. Melting snow is a long glide of tears for the loss of someone you never had the chance to know.”

I blinked the emotion from my eyes, keeping them averted so Mr. Song couldn’t see. And I’d thought Lisa didn’t care about not having a mother. “I’ll get her to rewrite it. The teacher probably wanted—”

“No.” He leaned forward. “Lisa is extraordinary.”

I exhaled. “Yes, she is.”

“We have our own honors program and she’s already enrolled in it. However, I can’t help but feel that a child like this could truly blossom in the right environment. We are only a middle school. She’ll need to leave in a few years anyway. Have you ever heard of Hunter?”

“Hunter College?” Lisa couldn’t be that advanced.

“No, Hunter College High School. It’s a laboratory school for intellectually gifted students.”

I swallowed. “We couldn’t afford—”

“It’s free. The school’s from seventh to twelfth grade. The test for admission is this coming January and is extremely competitive. The kids need to already be in the top percentages in both math and reading before they’re allowed to take the test. Lisa qualifies. Out of about thirty-five hundred kids who take the test, less than two hundred are admitted. The admission rate is only about six percent.”

Lisa was such a perfectionist. If she tried and didn’t make it, she would be crushed. “Is it worth it? She’s just settling in here.”

“I know. It’s just that Hunter is such a special place, offering her all of the support and facilities to develop her gifts. She’d be among bright, creative kids. I have a feeling she’d thrive at Hunter.”

I studied his glowing face. “Did you go there, Mr. Song?”

He coughed into his hand. “I see Lisa is not the only intelligent one in your family.”

“Oh no. I was a hopeless student when I was here.”

He looked sad. “Then I believe we failed you.”

I’d never thought of it that way. “How long have you been here, Mr. Song?”

“Just a few years.”

I was still puzzled about what a man like this was doing in our Chinatown school. “Are you Chinese?”

“Korean. You’re trying to figure me out, right?”

Taken aback, I nodded.

“I want to make a difference to the kids here. Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not the only one.” He stood and extended his hand. “Please talk to your parents about allowing Lisa to take the Hunter test. A few of her peers have qualified as well. Just give her the chance.”

—

I managed to get to Pa’s noodle restaurant before the noontime rush. When I gestured to Pa from the back alleyway, he nodded at his assistant to take over and stepped outside to talk to me.

“What did the teacher want?” he asked.

“He thinks Lisa is gifted. He wants her to take a test for a special school.”

“Where is this school?”

I knew what Pa meant. “I think it’s not in Chinatown.” He wanted to keep us close and protected.

He shook his head. “Is this necessary?”

“She doesn’t have to take the test but Mr. Song felt it would be a great opportunity for her if she got in.”

“How would she get to this school? Take the subway alone? Now she can just walk. This city’s not safe for such a young girl.”

Sometimes it felt as if Pa was still living in China, while Lisa and I were in America. “It’s for her future. Things are very competitive in this country. She could maybe get into a top college, and the right preparation could change her life. And Mr. Song said that she might not be accepted at all.”

Pa bristled, as I knew he would. “Lisa is very smart!”

“There are a lot of bright kids. Other students from her middle school will try for a spot too. There’s a good chance she won’t be admitted. But Pa, we need to give her the opportunity. Otherwise, she might end up as a dishwasher like me.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, waving his hands. “Let her try. Then we will decide what to do.”

—

I tried my hardest at my new job. I made a copy of the phone instruction sheet and took it home to study. For the first time, I understood how all of the buttons worked and made sure I could connect people and put them on hold. It worked most of the time until I was under stress, with students in front of me and someone on the phone line, and then things would go wrong.

My main problem was the written work. Somehow, I would mix up times in the schedules. I checked and double-checked whenever I could, which meant I caught most of my own mistakes, but when I had a student on the phone who was in a hurry and dictating the changes to their appointments at lightning speed, I didn’t always manage to correctly record what they’d said. Even when I repeated it back to them right, I sometimes wrote it down wrong. I started to come to the studio early on a regular basis so I had more time to make up the sheets for each of the dancers with their schedules for the day. I filled them in twice: first in pencil, then after double-checking with the main appointment book, I finally put everything in pen.

Several times, Simone had stormed up to my desk. “Where is this student I’m supposed to have now?”

“I’m so sorry, let me check.”

“You are supposed to get it right the first time! Why else are they paying you?”