“However,” Dominic said, “you might have a chance as a dancer.”

I froze. Could I have heard him properly?

Adrienne cocked her head. “Are you sure you’ve never had any dance lessons?”

“My mother used to train me, only at home. And I’ve done tai chi for years, but I’m too awkward, I could never be a dancer.”

“Tai chi, huh?” Adrienne said.

Dominic said, “Stop being critical of yourself. That’s my job. I’ll pick on you and everyone else too. Was your mother a dancer?”

“She was a soloist with Beijing Ballet.”

There was a moment while they took it all in. “You’re fired and you’re hired,” Adrienne said. “You’ll have to start your training right away.”

I couldn’t believe it. My heart expanded in my chest and I could feel the smile starting to spread across my face. But I was still worried. “Who’s going to do my job?”

They looked at each other. Obviously, they’d discussed this too. “My mother,” Dominic said with a small grimace. “She has moved to New York because of the baby. She insisted. And she’ll drive Adrienne insane if I leave her at home all day.”

“Did you both know before I even taught that class?”

“We hoped,” Adrienne said. “When Julian Edwards says someone has potential, we listen. Then you learned so much in that lesson with him, but we weren’t sure what you would be like in front of a class of students. You were wonderful. At the beginning, that warmth is so important. You made them feel like if you could do it, so could they.”

“That’s exactly what I believe,” I said.

“See? The dance session today was our final test. And you passed with flying colors.”

“I was awful.”

“You were, for a professional dancer. But you’re only a baby pro. There are others who started ballroom at your age. I’ve seen you watching the dancing ever since you came here. You have a tremendous hunger in your eyes, and we are looking for a new dancer. I have to tell you that although you’ll be paid more, you’ll have many extra expenses too, like dance shoes and dresses, coaching sessions. In the long run, I’m not sure if you actually come out ahead financially.”

“You’ll need to train hard, as fast as you can,” Dominic added. “It’s much more difficult to learn how to dance than to answer phones, although maybe not for you.”

Adrienne snorted.

“How can I start teaching students?” I asked. “I’m hardly any better than they are.”

“Never say that. First of all, I would never hire you unless you had much more potential than our average student. Second, you are going to be dancing every day, at least eight hours a day. You will be trained by the best—namely, me and my staff. You’re going to learn exponentially faster than any student. In a week, you’re going to be far beyond any of the beginner students. In six months, you’ll eclipse any student here.”

“Will I ever be as good as the other professionals?” I asked.

Adrienne touched a finger to her cheek. “Absolutely. I think you will show us how long that will take.”

Nine

It was the weekend. I checked out my reflection in every window I passed, trying to hold myself long and straight like a dancer. I’d barely been able to contain myself when I told Lisa and Zan. Lisa had squealed and hugged me tight. Zan had cracked up, saying, “I gotta see you doing the cha-cha-cha.” When I was at tai chi class, I could barely contain my excitement. Godmother said to me, “You are looking happy today, Charlie” and I’d simply nodded. I didn’t dare risk telling her because I wasn’t sure how she would react. Like Pa, she might disapprove of my dancing. But most of all, I wished I could tell Pa and that he would be proud of me.

That evening, I headed out to Brooklyn Chinatown in the Sunset Park neighborhood to visit my friend Mo Li, who’d come back early from Boston University for the Thanksgiving holiday. Her parents had an apartment on Eighth Avenue, which was considered extremely lucky since in Cantonese, “Eighth Avenue” sounded roughly like “Road to Wealth.” Her father, who’d been an engineer in China, was probably working at a casino in Atlantic City that night and her mother was a cleaning lady doing the night shift at a hospital, so she wouldn’t likely be home either.

I was always surprised by how much Brooklyn Chinatown resembled the Chinatown I knew, with Chinese storefronts and signs everywhere. However, the streets were wider and everything was more spread out. You could tell it had developed later because it still had room to grow, while my Chinatown felt dense, like you could barely squeeze another food stand into it.

When Mo Li opened the door to her apartment, I saw her face and recoiled. “Are you all right?”

She wasn’t wearing her glasses and one eyeball was huge, while the other one seemed tiny. She looked like a stroke victim. “Yes, I’m just trying on these circle lenses. Come in. Zan will be here soon.”

I hugged her, then drew back. “What in the world did you do to yourself?” I still wasn’t sure if I’d need to drag her to the emergency room.

“They’re contact lenses. I only have one in. I was just starting on the other one when you rang the doorbell.”

“No contacts ever made people’s eyes look like that.”

Mo Li brought me into their little bathroom, where a contact lens case was perched on the yellowing sink. There was a brown lens floating in one compartment, with a dark outer ring and spidery lines painted toward the clear center.

“That is one scary-looking lens,” I said. “Is that a colored contact?”

“It’s a circle lens. The colored part is larger than your real iris. People use them to make their eyeballs look bigger.”

“Why in the world would you do such a thing?”

“They’re incredibly popular in Asia. How do you think Grace gets her eyes to look so big?”

I thought for a moment. “Lucky at birth?”

“No, silly. She’s wearing these things, plus false eyelashes and a load of makeup. I’ll pop the other one in and you’ll see.”

When Mo Li turned to me again, her eyeballs were enormous. “Now you look like an alien.” I peered closer. “There are almost no whites in your eyes anymore.”

She studied herself in the mirror, then sighed. “I guess they’re not for me.”

“Why are you messing with this stuff anyway?”

Mo Li started taking the lenses out. “You know how I’m into the cosplay thing?” Mo Li and her family had moved here from mainland China less than ten years ago, but she had embraced American culture more than any of the rest of us. She loved science fiction and fantasy books. When she got to Boston University, she started hanging out with a bunch of new friends and she began dressing up as some of her favorite characters for conventions. “I got a set of circle lenses to make my eyes blue for my last role. Then this American girl who’s also pre-law—she’s always really put together—she told me that maybe I needed a different look. You know, to be competitive. I’m graduating this year and they say law school is so cutthroat.”

I studied Mo Li, with her soft body, rounded shoulders and horn-rimmed glasses. She’d gained some weight at college but her eyes, now that I could see them, were as lively as ever. “You’re the smartest person I know. You don’t need googly eyes to be competitive.”

“I guess at heart I still feel like a fobby.” A fobby was her nickname for what the kids called FOBs, the students who were Fresh Off the Boat, as opposed to ABCs, American-born Chinese.

“That’s ridiculous. You haven’t been a FOB for years.”

“You were the only ABC who would talk to me,” she said. “You and Zan were the only people who even noticed me at first.” Mo Li and I had met in high school. Mo Li’s English was already excellent because she’d studied it as a second language in China, and she soon shot ahead of the rest of us in class. The other smart kids wanted to bring her into their circle then, but she always stayed friends with me and Zan. She’d tried to help us with our schoolwork too, though I had so little time to study. I was already working odd jobs to help Pa out after Ma died.