As soon as my father came home with one of the cars, I jumped in and headed for the mall. I had been meeting Jessica at Twosome’s Café since we were high school. Beside the café is a store called Tanzini. It sold leotards, tights, and shoes to dancers – and to anyone who wanted to look like one.

Last winter, Jessica talked me into trying on a skimpy leotard. But standing next to Jessica, even in my petite figure, I’d looked like her dance partner who is supposed to do the lifts.

Tonight Jessica stood in the middle of the store seeming very uncertain. She didn’t see me enter and was too preoccupied to notice me following her over the counter.

“I’d like to return these, please,” she said in a hushed voice.

“Return them!” I blurted. “Why?”

She and the clerk turned quickly, Jessica’s eyes round with surprise her cheeks spotted with pink.

“I mean, Jess, we spent two and a half hours in here last week selecting those leotards.”

She nodded, and then quickly looked away. “I know,” she said quietly, “but when am I going to wear them?”

“When you dance?” I suggested.

She shook her head. “I didn’t make it.”

“Didn’t make it…the Troupe?” My heart sank. I knew how much she wanted to be part of the dance group.

She nodded. “I’d like to return these,” she told the clerk.

“I’m sorry…she wouldn’t,” I said, taking the leotards out of the woman’s hands. “Listen, Jess, you’re still going to need new ones. You’re still going to dance.”

Her fingers twisted strands of long hair. “No. I don’t have what it takes. I have to accept it.” She took the leotards from me. “I’d like to return…”

“Thank you,” I cut in, pulling away the leotard, “but she wouldn’t.”

“When you two make up your mind, let me know,” the clerk grumbled, and walked away.

I grabbed Jessica’s elbow and steered her out of the door toward the nearest exit, where the Twosome Café was. We walked in silence. Whenever I glanced sideways, she was blinking, her eyes continually filling up with tears. She had been dreaming and working toward making this dance troupe since last summer. I hoped I’d say the right thing to her now.

“Jessica, I have watched you dance for the last ten years,” I said when we were seated and attacking a shared dessert. “You’re an incredibly talented ballerina, an overall dancer, in fact. You have what it takes. Trust me on that.”

“But you always told me you didn’t know a thing about ballet and other dances,” she pointed out.

“I don’t,” I admitted. “But I know everything about you, and I know you’re not the kind to give up. You’re just too pigheaded. I mean, persistent.”

Her bottom lip quivered and she covered with her fist. “Being persistent isn’t the same as being talented, Dara,” she argued.

“No. It’s a lot harder.”

Jessica smiled a little.

“All you need now is self-confidence,” I went on. “All you need is the right dance instructor. You have to find a good instructor who will help build up your confidence this summer.”

“Maybe.” I saw the flicker of hope in her eyes.

“It’s all up here,” I said, tapping her head. “You can do it. If you believe in yourself, others will.”

Her eyes told me that she wanted this to be true.

“How do you know these things, Dara?”

I burst out laughing. “Don’t you remember the great speech you gave me last year, when I missed the point in the final seconds of the volleyball tournament? Don’t you remember all your rah-rahing when I decided to try out in the women’s basketball team despite my height? How about the notes you wrote me after all those miserable soccer games which you and four parents came to watch? I’ve saved those letters, you know.”

She reached across the table, laying a hand on top of mine.

“If you don’t keep going,” I reasoned, “how am I going to have the nerve to, next time I screw up?”

She nodded. “I guess I’ll have to then. Speaking of screw-ups,” she said softly. “About Jiyong.”

I waved him aside with a flick of chocolate cake.

“No, listen,” she insisted. “I called him this morning and took back my invitation. Last night, when I asked him over to my place, I thought it would be fun for all three of us to hang out at the pool Saturday. But I called him this morning and told him it was just us girls.”

“But he’ll be so disappointed,” I protested.

She looked at me surprised.

No, I hadn’t lost my mind, but it had occurred to me that if Jessica went after Jiyong, I was free to pursue Hyun Joong.

“Well, he did sound disappointed,” she admitted with a little shrug of her shoulders.

Like there was a guy on this earth who wouldn’t be? Jessica has a beautiful pool where her stepfather entertains clients and her mother’s friends gather to talk artsy-fartsy stuff. There’s a great stereo system. There’s a stocked refrigerator. And Jessica wears small but beautiful bathing suit.

She looked at me curiously. “Do you still like Jiyong?”

Uh-oh. A trick question. If I said no, she’d lose interest. I had to give her enough room to maneuver, as well as the security of believing I still wanted him. Nothing scared off Jessica more than a guy who was really free.

I may sound like a bad best friend but believe me I learned the hard way.

“Sure, I like him. I guess we’ll see a movie Saturday night.

She was genuinely pleased. “Well, if you insist…”

**

When I got home that night, I was in such a good mood, my sister noticed.

“Excuse me, but you’re smiling and you’ve got a little yellow feathers around your mouth.”

“Like the cat who swallowed the canary?” I asked kicking off my shoes. I was really happy.

“Maybe it’s yellow hair,” Bom observed. “How’s Jessica?”

I flopped back on my bed. “Fine. Great! Doing what Jessica does best!”

**

“Do all sixteen have to come back?” I asked Top the next morning as the third-graders, wearing bathing suits under their clothes and clutching towels, climbed back onto the bus that had dropped them at YGU just fifteen minutes before.

Since the university pool was too deep for our kids, Top had arranged for use of one at a nearby Country Club. I figured the place got a huge tax break or Top was some kind of miracle worker. The members of the club weren’t famous for their social consciousness.

“Yoochun will be out there with his group for the second session. If the bus is late, just let the kids play mini-golf for a while,” Top said, grinning at me. “Got everything you need? What’s that?” He pointed to the coffee jar I was carrying.

“Gum collector. We don’t want too many wads floating by the club folks.”

Top nodded approvingly. “A counselor who’s prepared for everything.”

Well, not everything.

I wasn’t prepared for the hushed awe of the kids as we drove up the country club’s driveway.

“I just want to roll and roll and roll on all the hilly green grass,” Amber said. She was this cute little girl with a dozen sparkly barrettes in her hair. In the few short hours that camp had been in session, Amber had established herself as the “mother” of the third-graders. I wished I could let her out right there so she could spend an hour rolling on the hilly grass.

I also wasn’t prepared for the strategic placement of two large pink wads of bubble gum on a poolside sculpture of a busty sea nymph. I gave Hara, my favorite brownnoser, a piece of paper and the coffee jar, telling her to make sure she got it all.

And I wasn’t prepared for Kevin, a p