When I got back, I booked In Living Color. I was homeless, but I told her, ‘This is what I have to do.’ A few months later, I landed a job dancing in Europe. I started sleeping on the sofa in the dance studio. “I didn’t want to go to college-I wanted to try dance full-time. “My mom and I butted heads,” Lopez told me later over the phone from Los Angeles. She had studied dance at the Ballet Hispanico and at the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, and she wanted to pursue it as a career. Lopez moved out when she was 18-26 years ago. It’s like seeing someone from the past-you’re afraid to run into them because you never know if it’s going to be ‘wow’ or very difficult. I think that’s why I was nervous about coming here today. “The last time I was in there was when my mom and dad called us home to tell us that they were separating after 33 years of marriage. “But that’s the way I came back from school.” She laughed again and then grew quiet when Medina asked if she wanted to knock on the door of her childhood house. “No,” Lopez said, looking in the direction of a giant building two blocks away. “Is that the way you went to school?” he asked. Her longtime manager, Benny Medina, who has been the greatest constant in her life and who was with us that day, was curious to know if she had gone to a nearby school, across the boulevard from the house. I have a lot of stamina.” Lopez laughed again. “I would look out that window to see if my boyfriend was coming, and then I’d run out the door,” she said, laughing. She pointed at a back window that faced the empty lot. “I didn’t go to that school,” Lopez said, still staring at her former home, where she lived with her parents and two sisters. Across the street, in a kind of homage to Lopez, there was a banner for the Rising Stars School. It was set apart from the rest of the houses on the block by an alley in the back and a vacant lot next door. “This is the house I grew up in,” she said, stopping in front of a white two-story surrounded by an ornate metal gate. She is a kind of physical wonder: small but strong, narrow everywhere except for her famous perfectly round derriere. It was a cool afternoon in late spring, and Lopez was wearing a loose bright pink jogging suit and sequined platform sneakers. “I was nervous coming here today,” said Jennifer Lopez, as she turned the corner onto a residential street in the Bronx.
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