“You’re bringing it up just like that, no lead-in or sliding up to the subject?” The lettuce looked good, but we had some growing in the window box at the apartment. I hadn’t considered the orientation of the fire escape to the sun when we rented the place, but we’d gotten lucky. So long as one of us remembered to water the boxes, that is.
“Tried that. Girls’ night, remember? So…” She weighed a bunch of grapes in her hand but put it back, tsking at the price.
“I don’t know…” How could I explain that I panicked? In a way that made sense to her—or to anyone, really? Even me. “Are those tomatoes?”
Nestled among the greens was a box of pale-greenish orbs with only the barest blush of pink. It hadn’t been warm enough for tomatoes in ages. Sure, you could get greenhouse tomatoes from farther south, but they were almost always mealy and tasteless by the time they reached Kansas City.
Behind me, Mr. Yoder said, “We had some ripe ones earlier today, but they went fast.”
“That’s fine.” I picked up three of them and grinned at Myrtle. “Come over. I’ll treat you to fried green tomatoes, and you can make martinis and try to convince me to go on Mr. Wizard.”
SIXTEEN
PUNJAB FACES FOOD SHORTAGES
Special to The National Times.
KARACHI, Pakistan, June 26, 1956—Mian Mumtaz Daultana, chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan’s granary, has told the Legislative Assembly that Punjab will face an acute food shortage next year if the Meteor winter continues.
I hate vomiting, and this was the second time today. The taste of the morning’s coffee still clung to the back of my throat.
Goddamn it. I was going to have to fix my makeup again, after those nice women had taken such pains to make me presentable for the television cameras. What really angers me when my body betrays me like this—and I try to focus on the anger—is that I haven’t always been terrified of crowds.
But I can’t shake the memory of being in college and all those young men staring at me. And the mockery. The teasing. The … the hate. I could solve problems in my head that they couldn’t even do on paper, and the teachers, damn them, kept shoving that in their faces until I just wanted to quit and hide … but I was also my father’s daughter. He believed in me so thoroughly that I couldn’t shame him by not trying. And I still want my father to be proud of me, even though he and Mama have been gone for four years.
Let’s just say that I’ve learned how to vomit discreetly. And I still hate it.
Someone knocked on my dressing room door. “Mrs. York?”
I gripped the edge of the toilet as my stomach cramped again. Swallowing, I snatched a piece of toilet paper. “Just a minute.”
It took only a minute to blot my face and reapply a thick red layer of lipstick. As I walked to the door, I pinched my cheeks back into brightness. My hands were still shaking, but if I kept them by my side, it shouldn’t be too obvious. I had tried smoking in college so they’d have something to do, but it just made the shaking worse, and it tasted like a rocket fueled by a pigsty.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” My voice might have even sounded normal—if you didn’t know me. As it was, all breathy and low, I sounded more like Marilyn Monroe than myself.
The waiting assistant smiled over his clipboard. “Not a problem, Mrs. York.”
But he led me down the hall at a brisk clip toward the studio. My stomach cramped again.
3.1415926535897932384 …
At least Watch Mr. Wizard was a children’s show, so there wouldn’t be that many people watching. Only ninety-one stations. That was just two million viewers. Or more?
How could new studios have such poor air circulation? 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41 …
The soundstage was brilliantly lit. They’d given me a quick tour earlier, and the assistant now led me onto the fake back porch of Mr. Wizard’s house. 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71 … This would just be a conversation with a man I knew from the war. If I didn’t think of him as Mr. Wizard—if I could remember him as Captain Don Herbert—I’d be okay. I just had to talk to him. Only him.
Beyond the door, someone said, “We’re live in five, four, three…”
Live broadcast is go.
Confirmed live broadcast.
I pressed my hand against my stomach and breathed through my mouth. Don was a good man, and there wasn’t a live audience. It would just be him and the child actor. Goddamn it. Why had I said yes?
The assistant—he’d had a name, I should know his name—held his clipboard and nodded to the stage. That was my cue.
Beyond the wall, Don was talking, waiting for me to walk through the door. I just had to open the door. The knob was right there. Get it together, Elma. If your father could see you, standing here trembling in the dark …
The assistant solved my problem by knocking on the door.
On the other side of the fake wall, Don said, “Come in.”
And then my mother’s voice sounded in my head. Shoulders back. Head up. You’re a young lady, not a camel.
Shoulders back, head up, I opened the door and walked onto the stage. Don was standing by a kitchen counter with his shirtsleeves rolled up. A young girl, no more than ten, stood at the counter with him, in a cherry red skirt and snug pink cardigan. Her glossy brown hair had been smoothed back from her face in ways that wouldn’t have lasted five minutes when I was a child.
Don had a model airplane in his hands as I entered. “Well, look who’s here!” He set the plane down on the counter and turned to the little girl. “Rita, this is my friend Elma York.”
“How do you do, Mrs. York?”
He held up a finger. “Actually, you should call her Dr. York—she’s a doctor, but not a medical one.”
“Gee, really?”
My eyes stung a little. He hadn’t told me he was going to do that. “I suppose that’s right. I have doctorates in physics and mathematics from Stanford. But most people just call me Mrs. York.”
“Well, you’re Dr. York today, because I need your help with some physics.” He picked up the plane again. “I was just trying to explain aerodynamics to Rita, here.”
“I’d be happy to help with that.”
As I walked to the mark they had chalked on the floor for me, Mr. Wizard leaned down to Rita again. “You see, Dr. York is also a pilot.”
Rita smiled like a consummate child actress. “Keen! She’s the perfect person to help me understand how airplanes fly.”
“And rockets, too.” Mr. Wizard grinned. “But more on that later. For now … let’s look at the wing of an airplane.”
Nathaniel had my overnight bag in one hand as we walked up the stairs to our apartment. He swung it to the side when we passed the bottle blonde from 3B. She was tottering down the stairs in heels and bright red lipstick, which suggested a night out. She smiled at me. “Saw you on television last night.”
“Oh. Um.” I gripped the banister and smiled vaguely at her. Did you say thank you for that?
“I didn’t know you were so smart!” Her front teeth were stained with smoke, though God knew how she could afford both tobacco and rent.
“Thank you?”
Nathaniel took a step back down toward me. “I’d better get her home. She just got back from Chicago.”
“Chicago! That must have been something.”