The View from Here by Deborah Mckinlay

showed us, with novel pomp, to a table by the window. He took our drinks order himself and, a few minutes later, oversaw the careful work of a waiter unloading them from a tray.
    Mason began to drum a soft fingertip rhythm on the table edge, and Patsy, next to him, put down her cigarette and jumped to her feet. “Come on,” she said, taking his hand. Her hips swiveled figure eights as she wound him through the tables. At her back, Sally lifted her cigarette, which was still smoldering, between a manicured finger and thumb, and, expressionless, extinguished it, dropping the butt into a large black ashtray before brushing off her hand, as if some of the lipstick staining its tip might have adhered. It hadn’t.
    In front of the small raised area where the band played, Patsy turned and smiled, lifting her chin a little, and Mason, pulling her to him, smiled too. Watching them as they were drawn into the shadowy loop of the other dancers, I was surprised by a sudden tug of loneliness in the pit of my stomach.
    â€œFrankie…Frankie?” Ned had to shout over the music. “Dance?” He jerked his head toward the dance floor and winked.
    I was glad to dance with Ned. He was easy and smooth footed.
    â€œQuite the little mover, aren’t you?” He grinned.
    I laughed. He twisted me away from him and spun me deftly back.
    â€œYou’re a good kid,” he announced suddenly, leaning back to look into my eyes. And then, settling his cheek again nearer to mine, he said, “Watch yourself,” or at least I thought that was what he said; it was difficult to hear.
    Back at the table, as I retook my seat, he stood behind me for a moment with both hands on my shoulders. It was a gesture that felt paternal.
    The crowd had thickened with the night and the band was playing something loud when a man with a neat crease in his trousers approached our table and asked Mason’s permission to dance with his wife.
    â€œHe says,” I translated, “that she is a very lovely woman, and you are a husband very lucky and that, while he is dancing with her, he will leave with you his car keys…for security.”
    Mason glanced over at Sally and then turned to the man, who was staring intently at Patsy.
    â€œHe thinks Patsy is your wife.”
    â€œShall we tell him?”
    â€œNo,” I said. I was wary of the kind of embarrassment the contradiction would cause.
    Mason put his shirtsleeved arm on Patsy’s slender bare one and whispered into her hair. She listened, her brow slightly creased, with her head inclined. Then she laughed. When she stood up, the man took a set of keys from his pocket and laid them with some ceremony on the table.
    â€œTell him five minutes.”
    â€œCinco minutos.”
    After the man had collected his keys and deposited Patsy, giggly, back at the table, tequilas arrived. With the compliments, explained the patron, gesturing toward the bar where the man raised his glass to the lucky husband.
    â€œTo lucky husbands everywhere,” Ned said.
    â€œTo what?” Richard yelled, cocking his head.
    â€œLucky husbands.”
    â€œOh, yeah,” Richard grinned. “Here’s to ’em.”
    Bee Bee raised her tequila. “And Patsy’s pert little rear,” she added.
    Everybody laughed except Sally who, tequila untouched, slid one corner of her silk shawl onto her shoulder, readying to leave. She spoke across the table to her husband. “You should dance with Frankie before we go. It’s her party.”
    Mason, apologetic, asked me to dance. I was embarrassed. There was something vaguely adolescent about the situation, like being invited to parties by the prompted sons of my mother’s friends, but I stood anyway and went with him to the dance floor. He put his hand on the small of my back and said, “I like your dress.”
    I was grateful for that; it made so many things easier. Then, drawn against him, I noticed the