The Wonder Spot Read Free Page B

father,” I said.
    After a few minutes, Danny said, “You want me to see if he’s still there?” He stood up. “What does he look like?”
    â€œTall,” I said. “He’s wearing a dark gray suit.”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    I stood up. We were safe.
    At the station wagon, I noticed that Albert’s paws were muddy, and I wiped them with a rag.
    Danny took the rag and wiped the mud off my sandals and pulled a blade of grass out from between my toes.
    When he opened the door to the synagogue for me, I thought he was going to ask for my address so he could write to me, but all he said was, “Thanks for the cigarettes.”
    I was relieved and then disappointed.
    In the hall, Alyssa rushed up to him and said, “My dad’s here.” She glared at me. I wondered if she was his girlfriend, or wanted to be; it was one or the other.
    Danny didn’t seem to care that she was angry. He said, “See ya,” to me, and followed her out to the parking lot.
    Downstairs, in the pink palace, Robert and Jack were sitting with my father at a table that had been cleared of everything, including the centerpiece.
    My father said, “Let your mother know we’re going, please,” and I walked over to where she stood with a woman wearing a big-brimmed straw hat with a beige ribbon.
    â€œThis is my daughter, Sophie,” my mom said, in her fakest voice of the day.
    The woman said, “And how old are you?”
    â€œTwelve,” I said.
    She cooed at this impressive accomplishment. “And when is your bat mitzvah?”
    I was about to say that I wasn’t having one when my mother cut in and said, “We’re just planning it now.”
    I was shocked to hear my mother lie, but I didn’t give her away. I remembered a cliché that seemed to fit: “Rebecca will be a hard act to follow.”
    The woman tittered, and said, “She’s darling.”
    . . . . .
    At the car, my mother told me to sit up front and didn’t speak again until we were on the highway. “Where were you?”
    â€œWalking Albert,” I said.
    â€œShe was walking Albert,” Robert repeated, in my defense.
    Without turning around, my mother said, “I’m talking to Sophie, Robert.” To me, she said, “You were gone for over an hour.”
    I was wondering what she suspected, and then I realized that she didn’t suspect anything, she was just angry that I’d disappeared. “It wasn’t like anyone missed my company,” I said. “No one at my table would even talk to me.”
    She said, “That’s not the point.”
    We passed three exits before she told me what her point was. I was a guest, she said; I was a member of this family. She kept talking, but whatever she was angry about wasn’t making it into her lecture.
    I knew that eventually I would have to say I was sorry, even if I didn’t know why I should be and wasn’t. Until I said it, my mother would go on talking and get angrier until she became tired and hurt, at which point my father would take over.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said.
    My mother kissed me. “I know you are.”
    It felt a little less crowded up front then. My mother said what a wonderful job Rebecca had done and then, almost to herself, said she hadn’t even started to plan my bat mitzvah.
    I looked at my mother. I looked at my dad. It had all been decided. I couldn’t argue; I was supposed to be remorseful.
    At a gas station, I climbed into the way back with Albert, where I closed my eyes and thought about Danny. I didn’t remember being queasy or afraid. I remembered him taking my hand. I thought of him saying, “I can’t believe summer’s over,” which I heard now as a declaration of love.
    . . . . .
    I came home from my first day of getting lost at Flynn Junior High to the news that I had been enrolled in the