Free Cannie Shapiro 02 Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner Page A

out her next word carefully. "Elaborate as Tyler's," she finished.
    I shrugged. "Tyler's kind of a geek."
    "Well, it's up to you. Just let me know." Her voice was still neutral, but I could tell from the look on her face that she was pleased, as if I'd passed some kind of test. I wished I'd told her that I wanted to go, that what I wanted more than anything was to be a part of Bruce's normal family.
    I braced myself, waiting for her to say something or ask me what I was thinking. But she surprised me and managed to restrain herself, leaving me in the kitchen as she carried her tea into the office. After a minute, I heard the familiar sound of her fingers rattling across the keyboard.
    I looked down at the invitation, then slid all of the pieces except for the reply card back into the oversize envelope, which I left on top of the recycling bin, where my mother would be sure to see it. I stuck the reply card in my back pocket. After dinner, when my mom was watching one of her reality-TV shows and my father was editing some medical-journal article, I pulled it out and carefully wrote, Miss Joy Shapiro Krushelevansky will be pleased to attend. Then I slipped the card underneath a stack of underwear in my top dresser drawer, thinking, Maybe. Maybe not.

S EVEN
    "A ll right!" I said as we piled out of the minivan, doing my best to sound upbeat and cheerful, as opposed to desperate and panicky. "Who wants to start?" It was a sunny March morning, the weather warming, the sky a clear blue, the air soft and scented with honeysuckle. The trees were beginning to bud, and the path along Forbidden Drive was only slightly muddy. My plan was to go for a family hike--two miles up, then two miles back, with a stop to feed the ducks in between. Then we'd drive to Manayunk for brunch and hammer out the plans for Joy's bat mitzvah along the way.
    My daughter slammed her car door and stood in her familiar posture: chin tucked against her chest, shoulders drawn up toward her ears. Her long legs were encased in tight jeans that she'd topped with a fleece jacket that matched her bright blue fleece headband. Frenchelle's leash was wrapped around her right wrist, and her left hand was shoved into her pocket, presumably beside the fleece hat I'd made her take (I'd also told her she might want to bring a scarf, but she'd glared at me as if I'd proposed she wear a petticoat, so I'd just wrapped an extra around my own neck).
    While Peter rummaged in the glove compartment for the energy bar he was certain he'd left there, Joy started walking, head down, fists clenched, looking like she expected to find gates reading ARBEIT MACHT FREI at the top of the path, instead of a stand that sells sports drinks and ice-cream bars in the summertime. I resisted the urge to chase her, to run up the path and walk with her until she tells me what is wrong.
    "Joy," I called. She didn't turn. "Joy!" I said.
    She stopped ten yards ahead of us. Her entire body seemed to sigh as she let me catch up.
    "Joy," I said, panting slightly. "Slow your roll. Bat mitzvah. Ideas."
    She shrugged. "Well, I guess I'm having one, right?"
    I bit back the half-dozen replies that instantly occurred to me. "Yes," I said pleasantly to my daughter's back. "You're having a bat mitzvah. A fate worse than death, I know, but somehow you'll have to endure. Your father and I were thinking about a Saturday-morning service and a luncheon afterward."
    This earned me another shrug, coupled with a contemptuous look at my hiking gear: sweatpants, sneakers, a long-sleeved T-shirt with a short-sleeved V-neck on top. Was that so bad? Judging from her face, it was. Probably the two scarves, I thought.
    "Well, if you've already decided, what do you need me for?" Joy asked.
    I stopped walking, frozen in place on the damp dirt of the path, staring at my daughter and imagining my hands on her shoulders, digging into the fleece and the flesh underneath as I gave her the brisk, corrective shake that she so desperately