On Thursday morning I lay in my bed in Laine’s guest room (with Kristy’s dog beside me) and thought, I should have called Quint on Tuesday. By now he’s probably forgotten who I am. I can’t call him now. If I did and he came to the phone and I said, “Hi, it’s me, Jessi Ramsey,” and he said, “Who’s Jessi Ramsey?” I would die. I know I would.

But by late that morning I had decided to risk death. I was alone in Laine’s apartment (except for the dog, and for Laine, who was cleaning out her closet), and I was getting bored. Plus, I would be pretty rude if I didn’t call Quint.

So, very quietly, I picked up the phone in the kitchen. My heart was pounding. My hands grew sweaty. What was I doing? I must be loony, I thought.

I dialed Quint’s number. The phone rang three times. Then someone picked it up.

Oh, no …

“Hello?”

“Hello — hello, is Quint there?” I asked. My voice shook.

“Just a moment, please.” A hand was cupped over the receiver. I heard the voice call, “Quint? Phone for you.”

A few seconds later, Quint was on the line. “Hello?” he said. And then, because I suddenly seemed unable to speak, he tried again. “Hello? … Hello?”

“Quint, it’s me,” I blurted out. “I mean, hi, this is Jessi Ramsey.”

“Jessi! I was hoping you’d call.” Quint sounded genuinely glad.

“You were?”

“Sure. Why else would I have given you my number?”

Oh, yeah. I tried to laugh. “Well, I’m sorry I took so long. I — I, um —”

Quint interrupted me. “Hey, Jessi, if you’re not doing anything today, do you want to come over? We can watch old movies. That is, if you can stand my brother and sister. They’re sort of pains.”

“No problem,” I replied. “I would love to watch old movies, and I’m good with kids. I baby-sit all the time.”

“Great. We’ll have a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers festival.”

“I’ll be right there.”

When we got off the phone, I looked at the paper on which I’d written Quint’s address. I didn’t think Quint lived too far away. Still, I wasn’t allowed to walk around the city by myself.

“Laine?” I said. I stood in the doorway to her room.

“Yeah?” Laine’s reply was muffled. It came from deep within her closet. On the floor around the closet were mounds of clothes, papers, books, stuffed animals, boxes, and crumpled shopping bags. Her parents had told her to clean out her closet before it exploded.

“I need some help.”

Laine emerged from her closet, looking dusty and rumpled. “What’s wrong?”

I explained to her about Quint.

Suddenly Laine began to sound like my parents. “Gosh, I don’t know,” she said. “You’re going over to this guy’s apartment, and you’ve only met him once?”

“Well … yes. But he’s really nice. And it’s not like we’ll be there alone. His mother and brother and sister will be there, too.”

In the end, Laine agreed to walk me to Quint’s, but only if she could come upstairs and meet Quint’s family. She made certain to write his name, address, and phone number on a piece of paper.

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s just safer, Jessi. Trust me. Someone should always know where you are.”

“Because I’m eleven?”

“No!” Laine looked exasperated. “It doesn’t have anything to do with your age. If I visit a new friend, my mom or dad does exactly what I’m doing now.”

“Okay.” I wanted to feel grown-up, but I felt like a little kid. Still, I could understand why Laine was being cautious. It was the responsible thing to do.

*  *  *

Laine and I stood outside the door to Quint’s apartment. The nameplate under the peephole read Walter. Quint Walter. I liked that name.

I pressed the bell and immediately the door was flung open.

“Hi, I’m Morgan,” said a little girl. “Are you Quint’s new girlfriend?”

His new girlfriend? How many girlfriends did Quint have? I managed a smile, though. “I’m Jessi,” I said. “And this is my friend Laine. She’s leaving.”

“I’m leaving after I meet your mother, Morgan. Is she home?” asked Laine.

Five minutes later, Laine was gone. I could tell that she liked Quint and his family. But that didn’t prevent her from calling over her shoulder as she waited for the elevator, “I’ll be back at five to walk you home!”

Goody, I thought. “Okay,” I said.

The elevator arrived, and Laine disappeared behind the door.

I turned to face the Walters. There was Quint’s mom, who reminded me a little of my own mother, except that she was very soft-spoken, almost shy. There was Morgan, an imp who liked to play tricks. She was six. And there was Tyler, nine years old. “He’s usually lost to the world of computers,” Quint told me. “I wish he were today. But he and Morgan are being pills.” Mr. Walter was at work. “He’s a chemical engineer,” said Quint.

“Are we going to have a movie festival, Quint?” asked Morgan. “Are we? Is your girlfriend staying?”

Quint looked pained. “Mom,” he complained.

“Mom,” said Tyler, imitating his brother.

“Kids,” said Mrs. Walter.

“I like his girlfriend,” announced Morgan. “Hey, Jessi. Want some ABC gum — ?”

“No, she doesn’t want any Already Been Chewed gum,” Quint answered for me.

“Morgan, are you and your brother going to be pests today?” asked Mrs. Walter. Tyler answered for Morgan. “No, we’re going to be pests tomorrow. Today we plan to be pains. Is that okay?”

“Absolutely not,” said Mrs. Walter firmly.

In the end, Tyler and Morgan were banned from the TV room. Quint and I got to watch the videos by ourselves. Quint had rented Top Hat and another old movie starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We were mesmerized by the dancing, though most of it was tap. Very little was ballet.

“Okay. Who do you like better?” Quint asked as he rewound the second tape. “Ginger Rogers or Eleanor Powell?” (Eleanor Powell was another of Fred Astaire’s dance partners.)

“Eleanor, I guess,” I replied. “Ginger Rogers usually danced in those long dresses or skirts, so you couldn’t see what she was doing. If you wanted to see tapping, you had to watch Fred. But Eleanor didn’t hide her legs.”

“I like Eleanor better, too,” said Quint. “But as far as I’m concerned, nobody beats Fred.”

“Male chauvinist!” I exclaimed. “What about Ann Miller?”

Quint grinned. “You win. Want to take a walk? We can return the videos.”

“Sure,” I replied.

Quint told his mother where we were going. Then we tiptoed out of the apartment before Tyler and Morgan could figure out what we were up to.

“Ah, freedom,” said Quint, breathing in deeply, as we left his building.

We started down the sidewalk, past a row of old brownstones. Kids were sitting around on the stoops. “What a nice New York scene,” I started to say.

But I was cut off. “Whoo! There he goes! The sissy!” cried a boy.

“Yeah! Look. Up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s … sissy-boy!”

“Hey, where are your tights? Where are your pink slippers?”

All around us, kids were taunting Quint.

“Say something,” I muttered, elbowing him.

“Shut up!” Quint shouted.

“He can speak,” retorted a tall, skinny boy. “Hey, look! Sissy-boy has a girlfriend. She’s probably —”

“Leave her alone!” yelled Quint. He dove for the boy.

“Quint, stop!” I cried. I caught him by the back of his shirt.

“Yeah, Quint. Stop! Stop it!” mimicked the boy.

“Come on.” I tugged at Quint. We walked to the end of the block and turned the corner. The taunting stopped. We had left the kids behind.

“See?” Quint exclaimed angrily. “See why I can’t go to Juilliard, Jessi? Going to Saturday dance classes is bad enough. I try to sneak my stuff by those kids in a bowling-ball bag. But they know there’s no bowling ball inside.”

I sighed. “The kids are cruel, Quint. They really are. But sometimes you have to put up with people like them. I mean, are you going to let a bunch of jerks like them keep you from becoming a dancer? I wouldn’t let them. Think of them as sore muscles. Something you have to endure. But don’t let them stand in your way.”

“Those are nice thoughts, Jessi,” Quint replied. “But you don’t know what it’s like. You don’t have to walk down my street every day.”

Okay. So maybe I didn’t know what it was like. But I knew how it felt to dance.