The Wonder Spot Read Free

the music. I wished that for once he would like the funny one, but as I stood there I saw him ask the other girl to dance.
    I almost bumped into Aunt Nora greeting guests at the eighty-plus table. She wore a pale blue sleeveless dress and her hair up in a bun plusbangs. It seemed possible that she was trying to look like Audrey Hepburn, and she did a little; both gave the impression of fragility, though Aunt Nora’s seemed to come from tension and Audrey’s from innocence.
    Aunt Nora made a kissing sound and squeezed my shoulder, which felt less like affection than a fact—not, I like you, but, You are the daughter of an old friend.
    I knew there was some appropriate thing my mother wanted me to say, but I couldn’t remember what and just offered the standard, “Thank you for having me.”
    She said, “Thank you for coming,” which came out cubbing; Aunt Nora suffered from allergies.
    I said, “You’re welcome,” and asked where my parents were sitting; she pointed.
    As a judge, my father was an expert at making his face blank, but I could tell he didn’t like the man who was talking to him. I cruised right over.
    I heard the man say, “Am I right, or am I right?” and then my father noticed me and excused himself from their conversation.
    In a low voice, he said, “How’s it going?”
    â€œBad,” I told him. “Very bad.”
    He stood up and put his arm around my shoulders; he walked me away from the table and said, “Want to dance?”
    The band was playing “The Impossible Dream”; I said, “This one’s kind of schmaltzy.”
    He said, “Do you know what schmaltz is?”
    â€œI thought I did.”
    â€œChicken fat,” he said. He told me that people spread it on bread, and we needed to go to a Jewish restaurant so I could try some.
    I said, “Could we go right now?”
    He took my hand, and I let him move me around to the chicken-fatty music.
    Back at the table, he told me to take his chair and went off to find another, leaving me between Mr. Am-I-Right? and the actress my mother had become.
    â€œHel-lo,” she said, with the two-beat singsong of a doorbell. To the table, she said, “This is my daughter, Sophie.”
    â€œHi,” I said.
    My mother said, “Are you having a good time?”
    I said, “I am having a great time,” and then just loud enough for her: “Everyone is more dressed up than I am.”
    Her smile disappeared, my goal.
    She didn’t realize that I was kidding until I suggested we drive around and look for tights.
    My dad pulled up a chair, and he and I sat very close.
    I asked if he was finished with his lunch.
    He said, “Go ahead, sweetheart.”
    I snuck what was left of my father’s chicken into a napkin when Aunt Nora came to the table and got everyone’s attention: Did anyone want to dance “The Hokey Pokey”? My mother did. She and Aunt Nora walked off with their arms linked.
    I spotted them with Rebecca on the dance floor as I made my getaway. The bandleader was singing, “Put your right foot in, and shake it all about,” and the three of them did it along with everyone else, without thinking, as I did, Why? Why would you put your right foot in and shake it all about?
    In the parking lot, I let Albert out of the station wagon and poured water into his bowl. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself,” I said, feeding him the leftover chicken, “but you don’t know how lucky you are.”
    I was fastening his leash when I heard a voice say, “Hey.”
    It was the boy who looked like Eric Green.
    I said, “Hi.”
    â€œI’m Danny,” he said. “You don’t have a cigarette, do you?”
    â€œOh,” I said. A bunch of girls in my grade had tried smoking at a Girl Scout overnight, but I never had. I looked around the parking lot; we were alone. I said, “There