The Art of Appearing Wanted — Alice Adams

Frank Dowling tramples Alice through a dance he believes is splendid, then suggests the corridor while she scans the room for better partners. When no one appears, she grants him another turn and learns his mother wants him dancing with Mildred Palmer and Henrietta Lamb, not with Alice Adams. Frank insists he told Mrs. Dowling he would rather dance with Alice, which flatters without convincing. From the box-tree nook Alice watches Mildred with Arthur Russell, a cousin of the Palmers rumored to be her future husband, and feels an instant, wordless certainty that he is exactly the kind of man she would marry. The discovery that Mildred never mentioned him punctures Alice's claim of most intimate friend and stings worse than Frank's clumsy feet. Mrs. Dowling invades their retreat, performs wounded motherhood in public, and hauls Frank away to manage Ella and Henrietta. Alone again, Alice executes a practiced art: claiming a second chair, tapping her foot, half-smiling as if an amusing errand has pulled her partner away. The narrator reveals she has had two years to perfect the illusion since the shock of a dance with no takers at twenty. At sixteen the Adams veranda was crowded; now she is learning to look wanted when she is not.