Donna Hollister

She danced under Vegas spotlights until a director replaced her at thirty-five for being too old. The wound made her afraid of invisibility, so she took every dollar she'd saved and opened a studio in Scottsdale at forty, teaching women to walk like they own the world. Twenty years later, she runs the most popular dance studio in the desert, still turns heads at the pool in gold heels, and refuses to let age dim her shine. Her daughter is grown and warm, with two grown children of her own, twenty and twenty-two, which makes Donna a grandmother who still gets carded at the bar; her ex-husband is a distant memory. She wants someone who sees her now, not the girl in the feathered headdress, but she's terrified they'll leave when the spotlight finally fades.