Ever’s decision to join Madame Szeto’s ballet studio turns a guarded longing into a costly, deliberate commitment. Forty-five minutes from campus, the studio offers her not only a place to train but also the chance to audition for Swan Lake; Ever accepts despite her dwindling savings and a direct clash with Loveboat’s signature summer tour, treating the performance as both a new opportunity and a planned farewell to dance.

Finding the Studio

The studio lies on the outskirts of Taipei, reached after Ever and Sophie part at the Metro and Ever walks several more blocks to the blue line. In a modest two-story building, faded pink walls and well-loved Chinese wooden furniture frame the reception room; beyond it, a mirror-lined studio holds a dozen girls stretching at a polished double bar. The familiar sounds and routines of ballet—the music of Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers,” the dancers’ work, and instruction that moves between Mandarin and French—make the place feel immediately recognizable to Ever.

Ever approaches Madame Szeto uncertainly, introducing herself as a dancer and explaining that she is in Taiwan with Chien Tan. She had seen an album of Coppélia at a photography studio and asks whether there is room for her in the classes or summer ballet. The hesitant phrasing reflects how exposed the declaration feels: Ever has to name herself as a dancer before she knows whether the studio will welcome her.

Madame Szeto welcomes her. She gives Ever a playbill for an August performance of Swan Lake excerpts at a community theater, and Ever responds with immediate enthusiasm for the ballet and its role of Odette. The studio’s invitation thus arrives with a specific artistic possibility, not just the prospect of taking lessons.

The Cost of Returning to Dance

The opportunity is not financially easy. Ever recognizes that the summer’s week-by-week tuition will wipe out the rest of her savings. That cost sharpens the contrast between the studio and her everyday habits: while shopping with Sophie, Ever has already felt the pull of her family’s penny-counting and held back from buying on impulse. Ballet asks her to spend what she has carefully preserved, making the choice a material risk as well as an emotional one.

Yet Ever decides the expense is worth paying because it buys the chance to dance. Her determination is especially striking against the shame she carries about her body. She remembers being six, eating a green apple in a park, when her mother scolded her in a panic for sitting with her legs too far apart; the incident reduced her to tears. As Ever’s body developed, she says, that shame only tightened. Watching Sophie pose confidently during a photo shoot intensifies Ever’s jealousy, but it also clarifies her refusal to let shame govern her any longer. Joining a dance studio becomes one concrete way of reclaiming bodily expression on her own terms.

Audition and the Swan Lake Plan

When Ever asks about auditions, Madame Szeto explains that only the solo roles require them. Ever presses to know which roles are open, and her enthusiasm surges at the prospect of auditioning for Odette. Madame Szeto also names Odile and Von Rothbart, while warning that the solos will probably go to the girls who train at the studio year-round. Ever may try out, but she must prepare a two-minute piece.

Ever accepts the challenge without hesitation, even after knocking a pointe shoe off the counter and hastily replacing it. Madame Szeto cautions that the other dancers have been preparing for weeks and offers Ever a Sunday audition slot at eight in the morning, the earliest she can fit her in. Ever is undeterred: she has studied the choreography obsessively and imagines adding some improvisation to show what she can do. Madame Szeto records her under the name Wong Ai-Mei, and Ever leaves with a card for a dance shop, clutching it like a lifeline. Outside, she even puts a hand on the sidewalk and turns a cartwheel, a spontaneous bodily expression of the excitement she has been containing.

Conflict with Loveboat and the Meaning of the Choice

The performance is scheduled for the second weekend of August, exactly when Chien Tan is due to take its Tour Down South, described as the highlight of the summer. Ever recognizes the conflict and chooses the chance to dance. She intends to find a way off the tour, calling the performance her last dance and her farewell. The words make her commitment double-edged: she is pursuing the role with the urgency of someone who believes this may be her final opportunity, even as the act of pursuing it challenges the assumption that dance can simply be put away.

Her decision therefore carries more weight than an extracurricular enrollment. The audition gives her a defined goal, a deadline, and a place to direct her training, while the tuition drains her savings and the schedule forces a choice between ballet and the program’s central trip. The studio’s open door does not resolve Ever’s larger conflict over her future, but it turns desire into action: she spends, auditions, and plans to make room for dance despite the costs and competing expectations.