Page 125 of Happiness for Beginners

“Thanks, pal,” I said.

“We’d pay you!” Darcy offered.

“I don’t want you to pay me.”

“It’s three hundred bucks,” Dave said.

“We’ll double it!” Darcy said. “Oh, please!” She started jumping up and down and suddenly looked, again, like the friend I’d loved all those years ago. “This is the worst bar mitzvah ever. It will literally go into theGuinness Bookif you don’t save it. You’re the only one who can!”

I shook my head. I was good at dancing—in certain circumstances. With friends. When I was relaxed. Not in a room full of strangers. I could feel my usual shyness clamping down.

“Don’t you remember the dance parties we used to have in tenth grade? We’d crank up the music in the attic playroom and go crazy? Try to remember what that felt like. Think! It’s the nineties, and real life is still a lifetime away. And even though my dad’s going to bang on the attic floor with his nine iron and tell us to keep it down, we don’t care.”

I did remember. It was truly a lifetime ago, but I remembered.

“I’m not that girl anymore,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t even know any dances.” Unless you counted the “Cupid Shuffle.” But I’d never even heard the real song.

“Make them up!” Darcy said. “They don’t know any, either.”

But I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

Darcy swallowed in resignation as her face resumed its look of pinched misery. “Of course. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Sheshouldn’thave asked.

“Well,” Dave said, after a bit, ready to move on. “Thanks so much for coming. You really do look a lot better than you did in high school.”

I frowned. “Thank you.”

Then it was Darcy’s turn, but she was already turning back to her phone. “Next time you’re in town, let’s get coffee.”

“Great idea,” I said, though we both knew we’d never do it.

They came in for a final hug, one after the other.

And then we were done. I was free to go. I’d made my appearance, faced my past, seen that shiny bald head of Dave’s—and now I could go home to bed.

I looked over at Duncan. “Ready to go?”

He nodded. “I can’t believe she asked you to do that!”

“Me, neither.”

“What was she thinking?”

I shook my head. “She’s just a mom trying to help her kid.”

“Of course,” Duncan said then, “though if youhadbeen in the mood to do it—not for her sake, of course, but for your own—I happen to be an awesome dancer.”

I looked over. “You are?”

As if in answer to the question, the DJ started playing the “Cupid Shuffle.” I didn’t recognize it at first, but when I did, I turned around to eye the empty dance floor.

“Helen?” Duncan asked.

“I know this dance,” I said.

Watching me, Duncan suddenly knew what I was thinking, and he broke into a grin. Then he waggled his eyebrows at me. “Is it time to get funky, Lady H?”

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