The bride is dancing. Her dress is huge, each puffed sleeve the size of a chef's hat, the skirt a great white bell. She looks tired, her eyes rimmed with shadows, yet there is no mistaking her happiness. It shines from her huge, dazed smile, seeps from the angle of her neck as she tilts her head to gaze at her new husband-- a wan-haired young man in a blue suit. It burns from within her-- happiness-- radiating from some source beneath the skin, the skin luminous with it. Sonia Grace, who is watching carefully, thinks: if you peeled the skin back, and then the muscle, her bones would blaze with light.

To attend this wedding, Sonia drove all night from Dayton, while Matthew, who is around somewhere, went over briefs with a flashlight in the seat beside her. She hasn't seen Dory in years, and for now this is what she wants-- just to see her. To watch her. She has refused two invitations to dance so she can stand alone between huge potted plants, gazing up at the dance floor which glows in the late afternoon sun like ice.

Sonia glances at the band. Already, they look bored. The man playing the stand-up bass is red faced and might be hung over. he saxophonist follows a blond bridesmaid with his eyes.

Now Dory dances with her father. As he takes her in his thick arms, her smile widens, dazzles. Sonia did not think she could look more happy. But look at her-- at her plump elbows, the thick eyebrows that arch like the stems of leaves. Her father's smile mirrors hers, only slighter, tempered with regret. She is his youngest daughter. He dances well. Sonia imagines all the weddings he has danced at-- his own, so many years ago in a hotel, perhaps, in Chicago, his new bride snug in his arms, her shy smile promising him continents-- the Asias and Africas of life. Think of his very first wedding, at seven or eight, how he danced with his cousins, girls of eleven who seemed so worldly in their first stockings-- their ribbons fluttering as they laughed, leading him across the floor. Consider the weddings of his sons-- with what delicacy, what redounding hope and skepticism he twirled their sly brides. Decades of weddings have prepared him for this moment, for this dance, to watch his daughter's dazzled face shine, to feel her happiness flutter in her warm fingers.

This is what Sonia imagines, wishing herself in his place. She longs for an outlet for the flood of feeling welling up in her whenever she looks at the bride, for this vast, poignant gladness. She wants a formal way to express her love and to offer her blessing. She wants a dance.

And look-- now the father relinquishes her to another. Men swarm around the bride, jostling one another in their urgency to claim her. Everyone wants a part of this, the luck of these dances. The groom is across the floor now beside a yellow column, and the father has disappeared, and Dory says Yes and Yes-- everyone may have a dance. Who are all these men, confident in their striped ties? Uncles and cousins, friends, the violinist who boards in the attic. Why have they more right to this than she? Dory casts about her a circle of light, and as each man enters it, he is transformed.

Now Sonia's date, Matthew, emerges from the house in a group of other men, laughing and chatting. He has a gift for meeting people, for conversation. He is so familiar-- brown hair, narrow nose, light freckles across his cheeks, a blue suit in a crowd of blue suits-- that she often forgets his gifts and is surprised. He seems remote from her now, in his carelessness and ease. She hides behind a plant so he won't notice her. But she needn't have worried; he has something else in mind. He, who met Dory only an hour ago in the receiving line, who at twenty six has never before been to a wedding, he heads straight for the dance floor and works his way through the crowd of dancers. He stands before Dory, smiling, and then he takes her into his arms.

When they were children, Sonia and Dory lived in the same neighborhood. The streets where they rode their bikes were quiet, but they pretended they were full of danger.

Look out over there, Sonia would say, that bush is a lion with its mouth open. She was almost a year older, tall for eight, with a loud voice and hair that was tightly curled, viciously tangled. The neighbor's car was a charging bull-- when she squinted she could see the ring in his nostrils, below the grill. The three trees by the fences were witches, the wind in the leaves their evil whispering.

Dory was easy to frighten. She had a newer bicycle than Sonia's, a turquoise banana-seat which she'd named Princess, and she clung to it, coasting through Sonia's teeming jungles. At the threshold of dragon's lairs she closed her eyes, giving herself up to Princess and to fate.

"Don't close your eyes!" Sonia cried, circling back to usher Dory on. "It's dangerous to look away-- you have to watch closely to see if it's going to pounce!"

Dory nodded, then closed her eyes again, passing the Johnson's mailbox that was really a swarm of killer bees.

"Ostrich!" Sonia taunted. "Mole! Come on, be brave!"

Often, Dory cried. Watching her perfect features wrinkle, her smooth skin blotch, Sonia would experience a moment of utter triumph. Quickly, repentance followed. "Dory, don't cry. Come on Dory-- I didn't mean anything." Sometimes, when Dory lay sobbing under a tree beside Princess's thick handle bars, Sonia tickled her. Dory's thin neck was a good place, and down between her bony shoulders. At first this torment would make Dory cry harder, but she almost always gave in to it and laughed, shriekingly, and tickled Sonia back, yanking off her sandals to get to the soles of her feet.

It went on like this for years, and often Sonia thought, having done or said something particularly cruel, This is it, she's had enough of me. But Dory kept showing up to play, kept letting Sonia boss her. In school, they didn't speak, each had her own friends. But later, in the afternoons and on weekends and in the summer, they'd meet as if by chance at the creek or in the field behind old Mr. Barker's driveway. That was a place no one else ever went. It was an overgrown field full of clover and dandelions, and at the far end by the woods the land dipped down. You could lie there hidden from the mile-long drive which no one ever drove on anyway (they had never seen Mr. Barker). If you lay very still you could hear the distant murmuring of the creek up by the quarry.

Suddenly, the summer Sonia was eleven, all Dory wanted to talk about was boys-- how Stevie Tanner was cute but Jonathan Goldblum had nice eyes, or how Danny Lowenthal had walked into the girl's bathroom last April and Mrs. Anderson had caught him.

One evening in August they lay in the long grass of the hollow looking up at the sky that was just starting to darken. It was after dinner, a few weeks yet before school would start. The air was thick with damp heat, but it was a little cooler here by the woods, close against the earth.

"Who do you like?" Dory asked, turning on her stomach and propping her head on her fists.

Sonia looked at her. "What do you mean?"

Dory giggled. "What do you mean what do I mean? Who do you like?"

Sonia shrugged and lay back in the grass, staring at the sky.

"Come on," Dory insisted. "Tell me."

"Who do you like?"

"I'm not telling if you're not."

The dandelions were white with summer fluff and Dory was picking them, lying on her side in a purple sun dress. She twirled them in her fingers and blew the seeds into the air. Sometimes the breeze carried them back towards Sonia and they fell, warm and soft across her skin.

What are you wishing for?" Sonia asked, but Dory wouldn't answer. She blew another dandelion and laughed.

"Tell me," Sonia said.

"If I told you it wouldn't come true."

It was getting very dark now. The sounds around them seemed louder-- the birds calling their last goodnights, the gust of wind rushing through the branches of the trees, the cars speeding by on the distant highway. Far away, thunder rolled. Perhaps later it would storm. "Have you ever kissed a boy?" Dory asked her.

"No. Have you?"

"You ever wonder what it feels like?"

Above them, bats darted across the sky, swooping for insects. Sonia heard the soft swish of grass as Dory edged toward her, the shrill beginnings of a giggle dying in Dory's throat. She lay still, waiting with her arms tense at her sides to see what would happen, and saw Dory's face loom above her like a pale, excited moon. The face approached slowly, the wide, bright eyes growing large, until Sonia could feel Dory's breath warm on her nose and cheek, sweet and minty from her gum. Then Dory stopped, her mouth so close to Sonia's that Sonia could feel its heat. They looked at each other for a long, appraising moment, and only when Sonia was positive Dory would draw back, when disappointment had edged out apprehension, only then did Dory brush her lips lightly against Sonia's, tongue darting, warm and moist against her dry lips, and Sonia closed her eyes the way Dory always used to, giving herself up to fate. She thought of the bats above them, catching mosquitos on their long tongues. Now Dory touched her stomach with the calloused tips of her fingers. Sonia reached out her own hand and touched Dory's knee below the hem of her dress. It was knobby, hard. Below it, the skin was smooth, the long bone a ridge beneath the surface, and then Dory sighed, a long, foreign sound that seemed to rise from the deepest center of her being, and Sonia was suddenly afraid. She could hear the water in the distant creek flowing, and although it was not loud it seemed to fill the darkness-- the voluptuous sound of water rushing across the hard stones of the creek bed, over the protruding roots, pouring on and on through the still summer night toward the sea.

The band takes a break. The man Dory's dancing with lets her go, and for a moment she seems lost. She looks around with quick, anxious glances. Sonia sees in her face the dim image of the eight-year-old Dory-- the way her jaw tensed and her lips pursed when Sonia threatened to abandon her in the middle of the woods. Then Dory sees her husband-- he steps out from behind a crowd of older women wearing hats-- and her face relaxes, and her smile rekindles. A woman in pink comes up to her and says something, gesturing towards a balcony. Dory nods, and they move together towards the stairs, towards Sonia's niche at the edge of the dance floor.

Sonia smiles, catching Dory's eye. "You look beautiful," she says. "Radiant."

Dory's smile widens, brims over into a laugh. "Thank you," she says. Her eyes follow the woman in pink past Sonia and up the stairs. Then she meets Sonia's gaze. "I'm so glad you came-- all the way from Ohio. Are you having a good time?"

"I wanted to dance with you," Sonia says, and laughs, trying to put Dory at ease. "All those men get to dance with the bride."

"I'm glad you didn't," she says lightly, and touches Sonia's hands, and already she is going. A crowd on the stairs is calling her to toss her bouquet.

Later, in the hotel, Sonia and Matthew catch the end of the ball game. Matthew lounges on the bed in the pants of his suit. Sonia wanders around the dim, beige room, opening drawers, switching lights on, then off again. She pulls back the curtain and looks out across the parking lot to the dark, silent shape of the city.

She takes a bath and puts on a white cotton nightgown, sits on the bed with her knees pulled to her chest. "It's not fair," she says, "that women don't get to dance with the bride."

Matthew waits a moment until a long drive to center is caught, then he turns to her and strokes her hair, runs his fingers through it. "But women get to be brides."

*nbsp;Only once," Sonia says. "Anyway, it's not the same."

The ball game ends. Matthew turns off the TV and Sonia feels overwhelmed by the ugliness of the wallpaper, the fraying bedspread, the close, dingy silence. She switches on the radio beside the bed, and from its dusty speaker a waltz swells, filling the room with music.

Matthew smiles. He gets to his feet and bows to her, holding out his arms. "Excuse me, Mademoiselle, you are not engaged for this waltz?"

She stands. Her nightgown floats around her bare legs. As she takes his hand, he folds his arm around her, spins her across the carpet. It feels good to dance. She inhales deeply, breathing oxygen and music out into her arms, down to her feet. She can feel the heat of Matthew's bare chest through the thin material of her nightgown, warming her breasts, and she presses close against him, her feet between his, their stomachs brushing against each other. She feels if she can get close enough she can absorb some of the leaven of his dance with Dory, that through the medium of his body she can dance with her. She wants to express to Dory how moved she is by her happiness and good fortune. She wants to tell her, forget everything I ever told you-- those trees are just trees, that bush merely a bush. She wants to say, to try to believe herself, that life is only what it appears to be, that there are no dangers, no darkening skies. She could never say this in words, but with her body she could say it, dancing, and as they moved together perhaps Dory could reassure her, too. See how easy it is, she could say, how easy to be happy, to move like this in graceful circles, above the cool, secret earth, below the unastonished sphere of the sky.