The black sequin jacket was heavy, which I wasn’t expecting, maybe because I’d only seen sequins on television, on long dresses that sparkled under spotlights, like on the Judy Garland Show. Our jackets had broad satin lapels and tails that reached past the backs of our knees, and as soon as we tried them on, we knew our number would be the hit of the show. We practiced in the jackets only once, right before opening night, and the weight of the material made me sweat but it also anchored me. I felt solid, able to kick higher, turn faster.

Mama encouraged us to stand straight, fill out those shoulders, she said, told us we looked beautiful, and we did—all eight of us, even me. The rented jackets came with a silky black one-piece costume that fit like a bathing suit and had a little white collar and a black bow-tie. Our top hats were cheap shiny plastic, but they did the job. We were officially a chorus line, seven high school seniors and one freshman, me.

It was my sister Irene’s idea to put the dance together, her last chance to perform in what we believed had to be Jersey City’s cultural claim to fame—Snyder High School’s annual variety show. She enlisted six of her friends, and me, and convinced my mother to help. It didn’t take much arm-twisting to sign her up. Mama loved to dance and she was good at it. In less than a week, she’d choreographed a number for us that was surely as good as anything you’d see the Rockettes doing at Radio City.

Problem was, we weren’t exactly as good as the Rockettes. My mother had her work cut out for her. With the exception of Irene, who could mimic steps like she’d been trained by Fred Astaire, the group as a whole had more heart than skill. But if Mama was discouraged, she didn’t show it, not even when she had to tie a ribbon around Mary Beth’s left ankle to keep her from knocking us over like dominoes.

Half of us entered from stage left, the other half from stage right, and it was important that when we met center stage, our steps were in synch, otherwise we’d wind up kicking each other or worse. Mary Beth led my half of the line because she was tall, and Mama wanted the tallest girls to meet center stage to form the apex of a single line.

The first few chords sounded, and Mama stood not far from the center of the cavernous parish hall where we practiced, at Christ Church on Kennedy Blvd. “And left,” she called to start us off, her arm raised, her voice heard easily over the music. We had our fingers crossed, because now and then, Mary Beth would get it right, and we’d rehearse the whole number to the end.

Not this time.

“Left, Mary Beth, left,” Mama called, not stopping the music, hoping Mary Beth could correct herself. But it was too late, because we kept our faces turned to the audience, as Mama had instructed, not looking at the dancer ahead of us in line, so the sudden stop folded the four of us, Mary Beth and the three girls at her heels, into a leggy accordion.

Mary Beth sank to the floor, tears springing, buried her face in her hands, but Mama rushed over, armed with encouragement. “It’s okay, Mary Beth, it’s okay.” I wasn’t so sure about that. We had time for only four more practice sessions before the dress rehearsal, and I could tell from the way Irene crossed her arms over her chest that she was as doubtful as I was that Mary Beth would catch on.

“We can fix this,” Mama chirped. “This happens to the best of dancers. Gene Kelly puts a pebble in his left shoe just to keep things straight in his head.”

Mary Beth wiped at her eyes, and Mama motioned for me to get her some tissues from the box on the table. “Here’s what we’ll do,” Mama said. “We’ll tie a little ribbon around your left ankle, so you’ll know that’s the foot you start with. No one will even notice it, and all you have to do is glance down at your foot.” Mary Beth took the tissues and blew her nose, seemed ready to go on, and Mama took her hands and helped her to her feet.

Mama had made up the story about Gene Kelly and the pebble, but the ribbon worked for Mary Beth. The problem with Barbara was trickier to fix. About a week before the date of the show, she kept talking about how nervous she was, asking what we should do if one of us fell down on stage or had to sneeze or a shoe came loose. Mama reassured her with stuff about how the show must go on and told her a story, which I think might have been true, about how one of her stockings once fell down around her ankle while she was tap dancing with her brother on stage in front of hundreds of people. “We never missed a beat,” she said. “You just have to keep going.”

Good advice, I guess, but it didn’t do much to calm Barbara’s nerves. With opening night approaching fast, she’d start to giggle about a third of the way into the number. It was a soft nervous chuckle at first, but within a few bars we could all hear it. It was distracting and, worse, contagious. Once the laughter spread, we had to stop the dance and start over. When Mama said she’d encountered this before with one of the Twelve Apostles in a show they were preparing for Holy Week, called The Passion of Christ—a performance not done for laughs—I wasn’t sure I believed her, but maybe it was true, because by the end of the next practice, Barbara was cured.

“Now listen,” Mama told her. “When you hear the opening chords of the song, I want you to think of the saddest moment of your life, and focus on that.”

Barbara seemed flummoxed, as if unhappy events were not easy for her to imagine. “You mean like failing a test?”

“Exactly.”

“But I’ve never failed a test.”

Mama bit her lip, a sure sign she was losing patience. “Okay then, have you ever wanted something and didn’t get it?”

Within seconds, I’d checked off a silent list long enough to stifle even a smile, but Barbara seemed stumped. That’s when Irene came to the rescue. “How about when you found out there was no Santa Claus?”

Barbara shifted her weight, as if she had to let this sink in, and for a second I wondered if this news was something she was only just learning. At last she rallied. “Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “That was awful.”

“Perfect,” Mama said. “Perfect. So every time you feel like you’re going to laugh, I want you to imagine how hurt you felt when you discovered the whole Santa thing was a fake.” Mama delivered these instructions with such feeling, such force, she sounded like a movie director, and Barbara’s eyes grew dim, her shoulders slumped. She looked desolate. She wasn’t the only one. Our young faces sagged with the fleeting memory of a sweet fantasy erased, secret hopes dashed.

Mama put her arm around Barbara’s shoulder. “Now, now,” she said. “That’s okay. We’ll still have a good time.”

But I could hear in her voice traces of the sadness so evident when she finally had to admit to me—at the ripe old age of eleven—that my brother Danny’s taunts were true. There was no Santa Claus. “But now you have a very important job,” she said. “You have to help me make Christmas special for your little brother.”

I didn’t know it then, but that must have been her way of telling me the show must go on, even when the applause won’t be for you.