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martini glass that had left a circle of condensation on the hall table. “Her room’s the fourth on the left.” She rested herelbow in the indentation of her hip and swirled the liquid in her glass while looking me up and down. “If you’ll excuse me.”
    As I later found out, Dolly was the daughter of a Texas oil tycoon and, according to Daisy, a big donor to the Manhattan Ballet. Her partying and bed hopping made her a regular on Page Six. Dolly was hospitalized for stress twice, but everyone said it was anorexia. Once, and only once, I saw her eat. It was a single stalk of celery that she retrieved from her Bloody Mary.
    I remember walking down the hall to Zoe’s bedroom and knocking hesitantly.
    “Come in,” Zoe called. She sat on the floor blowing on her freshly painted toenails. A music video blared from a wall-mounted flat-screen TV. “You want to order some sushi?” she asked. She tossed a menu at me. “It’s the best in the city. I like the spider rolls.”
    I looked around at her huge bedroom, with its expensive furniture and its modern art (I saw one of Andy Warhol’s panda screen prints by the window). Zoe fit in perfectly there: Even her upturned nose and pronounced cheekbones seemed like evidence of a genetic predisposition for wealth.
    I picked just a few things off the menu, but still I could see that I was ordering more than sixty dollars’ worth of food. “I’ve got Mom’s credit card,” Zoe said. “Order more.”
    “Should we order something for her?” I asked.
    Zoe shook her head. “She’s going out. Robert De Niro is having a party at Ago.”
    “Oh… okay.” What else could I say?
    As we waited for our sushi delivery, we heard Dolly clatteringaround, getting ready to go out, but she never knocked on Zoe’s door to say good-bye. It was as if they were roommates rather than mother and daughter—roommates who didn’t even like each other much.
    We ate in Zoe’s massive living room, with the lights of Park Avenue twinkling far below us. We left a pile of sushi trays and soy sauce wrappers on the coffee table. “Don’t worry about it,” Zoe said. “Gladys’ll get it in the morning.”
    “Who’s Gladys?”
    “The housekeeper,” Zoe said matter-of-factly. “Can I have some of your salmon skin roll?”
    Obviously, I didn’t get my family dinner that night. And I never did, even though I went to Zoe’s house dozens of times and sometimes even spent the night.
    I haven’t been invited over in a long time, but then again, we’re not kids anymore. I don’t need a mother figure. I just need to dance that part in Otto’s ballet.

4

     
    In celebration of being selected to understudy Lottie, I decide to go downtown after Saturday night’s performance. I forgo my usual post-dance body-maintenance routine and just rub arnica gel on my bunions. Then I slip into a pair of boots and a wrap dress that my mother used to wear in the seventies. The cab takes me south on Seventh Avenue to Gene’s, which is my cousin Eugene’s West Village restaurant. I skipped lunch and I’m starving.
    It’s raining, and the streetlights seem to bleed yellow-and-white streaks on the windows of the cab. I see a few people hurrying along the sidewalks, their black umbrellas hovering above them. Puddles gather at the curbs, gathering little boats of newspapers and coffee cups.
    When I first came to New York City, it was impossible for me to think that someday it might feel like home. Though I puton a brave face, during my first few weeks of school at the Manhattan Ballet Academy, I was scared to leave the Upper West Side or to go outside after dark. Still, New York was thrilling. Sure, people on the sidewalk were sort of pushy, and they rarely made eye contact, but that was because they were ambitious and driven. The city’s energy was palpable. Just to be outside, to walk down Broadway, was like drinking a shot of espresso.
    It’s probably how all the new kids at MBA feel right now. They’re