Free My New American Life by Francine Prose

him. Lula was exiled to the end, celebrating her party from the far edge of the children’s section. Even though they liked Lula, the men would rather talk to each other.
    â€œOf course you win,” Don told Mister Stanley. “Ginger has always taken the cake.” Lula couldn’t ask what Don meant by “the cake” with Zeke and Abigail listening.
    Lula had promised herself not to drink much, no matter how good the wine was. The watery mojitos had probably lowered her tolerance to the point at which she might say something that made no sense, or more sense than she wanted. But the seating arrangement was making her ill-tempered and reckless. Put her at the children’s table, and she’d be the baddest child. When the waiter appeared with the wine, Lula beamed up at him and mimed upending the bottle into her glass. Unamused, he filled it to the precise level he’d learned in red-wine training. La Changita had a rum sommelier, a conga player whose English was so bad he could fake knowing one rum from another.
    â€œTo Lula and her new American life!” said Don, and all except Abigail raised their glasses.
    â€œTo peace in our time,” said Mister Stanley.
    â€œAmen!” said Don. “To bringing the troops home from Iraq!”
    â€œThat’s not going to happen,” said Lula.
    â€œTo our little Albanian pessimist,” said Mister Stanley.
    â€œRealist,” muttered Zeke.
    â€œ G’zoor ,” said Lula.
    â€œ G’zoor ,” said Mister Stanley and Don.
    â€œTo whatever,” toasted Zeke. He was bringing his water glass to his lips when Lula grabbed his arm.
    â€œIt’s bad luck to toast with water!”
    â€œWhat am I supposed to do now?” asked Zeke, horrified by the attention.
    Lula pinked Zeke’s water with a few drops of wine, ignoring Mister Stanley’s dirty look. Two drops. Why couldn’t he be charmed, as always, by her quaint Old World customs, instead of worried that he was paying her to turn his son into an alcoholic? Then Mister Stanley remembered—European!—and relaxed back in his seat.
    â€œI already took a sip of water,” said Zeke. “Does that count?” Zeke stared into his water glass as if he was watching bad luck rise from it like a genie.
    â€œOne sip doesn’t count,” said Lula, wishing it were true.
    Lula’s first mouthful of wine tasted like drinking velvet or pipe smoke or liquefied brocade. A cascade of flavors brightened the future enough that, if she didn’t feel happy yet, she could imagine feeling happy before the night was over. To speed along the process, she drained her glass and signaled the waiter to refill it. Only a few times in her life had she drunk wine this good, always when a table at La Changita ordered from the top of the list and then got so blasted they left half the bottle, which Lula hid so that she and Dunia and Luis and Franco could finish the two-hundred-dollar Amarone.
    â€œJesus,” said Don Settebello. “Speaking of bad luck. One of my clients, Salvadoran guy, he’s just got his green card, the guy was a journalist back home and now he’s got a job with CNN, he’s on his way to sign his contract, crossing Broadway and Fifty-first, a taxi jumps the curb, the driver’s first day on the job, the fucking stupid moron—excuse me, kids—runs over my client’s foot.”
    â€œNightmare!” said Mister Stanley. “That’s why defensive driving is so critical, Zeke. The streets are swarming with nut jobs.”
    â€œWait. It gets worse,” said Don. “The guy’s foot is smashed, they operate on him for hours, chewing-gum and duct-tape everything together, good as new, or practically. They’re writing him a scrip for physical therapy when somebody notices he has no health insurance, and they deport him because no facility will take him.”
    â€œDeport him deport him?”