I edged past her. “I hardly saw it at all. I went to the television studio and then straight home.”
Turning on the stairs to watch me, she clasped her hands together and just beamed. “To think, I know someone who’s been on television.”
Know me? We lived on the same hallway, but I had no idea what her name was. We just saw each other on the stairs sometimes. “I can hardly believe it myself.”
“What was it like?” She took a step up to follow me.
Nathaniel put a hand on my arm and sort of drew me to him. “Now, I’m sure you ladies could talk all night, but I haven’t seen my wife in two days. We’ll talk to you later?”
“Oh, sure!” She giggled. “That would be swell. Good night!”
With a “Good night” of our own, we escaped onto our floor. Nathaniel glanced over his shoulder and rolled his eyes at our neighbor. “Was I right that you needed an escape?”
“God, yes.” I kept my voice low, because sound could echo down the stairwell. “Do you know her name?”
He shook his head. “I was hoping you did. We’ll check her mailbox tomorrow. Tonight, though … I’ve missed you very much.”
“Likewise.” I leaned over to peck his cheek as he fumbled with the keys. “How shall I make up for being gone?”
“Hm…” He turned the key in the lock, and pushed the door open. “I was thinking more of ways to convince you to stay home.”
“It was just two nights. Can’t you—” The phone rang. “Bother.”
Nathaniel flicked the wall switch. It clicked. The room stayed dark. “Sorry—must have burned out.”
The phone jangled on the other side of the room. “Don’t worry about it.”
I made my way across our apartment, which really wasn’t that dark with the light from the hall and the city outside. A beam of orange sodium-vapor light fell across the phone as it rang again. “York residence. Elma York speaking.”
“Is this the famous Dr. Elma York?” My brother’s laugh conjured his face in the dark. The corners of his eyes always crinkled when he smiled.
“Oh, stop. No one calls me that.”
“Except for Mr. Wizard. Elma, you were great.”
Beaming, I wrapped the phone cord around my hand and sat on the sofa. “A compliment? You must be getting soft in your old age.”
“Well, I’d better get with the program. Look at you. I thought the newspaper clippings you sent were keen, but television? And Doris tells me you were in—what was that?” His wife said something in the background. “Women’s Day. Mama and Pops would have been so proud of you.”
I wiped my eyes with the back of one hand. “Well, I almost threw up all over the set.”
“Couldn’t tell.” There was a little hesitation there, as if he wanted to ask something, but he just said, “You were great, really great. And your fan club starts here. Speaking of … there’s a fan who wants to talk to you.”
The phone rustled as he passed it to someone. Nathaniel was fumbling in the junk drawer, still in the dark. I stretched over to reach for the table lamp on the other side of the couch.
“Hello, Aunt Elma.” The sweet breathy sound of my niece’s voice filled the receiver.
“Rachel! How’s my favorite niece?” I pulled on the lamp’s chain, but it stayed dark. Like an idiot, I tried again. “Hang on, darling. Nathaniel? I think it’s the fuse.”
“Yeah. I’m trying to find the flashlight.”
“Oh—sorry. It’s at the airfield. The Shabbat candles are in the bottom drawer.” I returned to the phone. “Sorry, Rachel. I had to help Uncle Nathaniel find something.”
“Was Mr. Wizard nice?”
“He was very nice, sweetie. Did you watch the show?”
“I always watch Mr. Wizard, even before you were on, but I like you better than him.”
I laughed, tucking my feet up under me on the couch. In the front of the apartment, Nathaniel lit a candle and brought light to our tiny studio. I gave him a thumbs up and he grinned. “Well, you know me.”
“That’s not it. I thought I wanted to be a scientist like him, but I want to be an astronaut like you.”
“I’m not … I’m not an astronaut.” I racked my brain, trying to remember what I’d said on the show. “I’m just a pilot.”
“But you want to be an astronaut. And you’re a doctor. And Daddy says that you’re really smart and you can be anything you want to be and you’ll be an astronaut someday, so I want to be one too.”
Pressing my hand over my mouth did nothing to stop me from crying. “Your daddy says a lot of things. Wanting something isn’t enough by itself.”
“I know that.” Ah … the scorn of a nine-year-old. “You have to work hard, too. What do I need to do to be an astronaut?”
“Things you won’t necessarily like. Like … eating your vegetables, so you can be nice and strong. And doing all your math homework.”
“Now you sound like Daddy.”
I laughed. “You were the one who said you wanted to be an astronaut.”
“Well, I do.”
“And I do too.” The little girl on the show had also said she wanted to be an astronaut, which I thought was part of the script, but she’d said it again when we went off the air. I was too limp with relief to really reply, but I wished I had now. “So, you need to make a list of all the things you need to learn, and then start working, all right? Someday, you and I are going to be on Mars together.”
“Really?” Her voice grew muffled, and fabric rubbed against the phone. “Aunt Elma says we’re going to Mars together.”
I could hear Hershel laughing in the background, and then his voice was in my ear again. “Now I’m going to have to buy her model airplane parts.”
“I’ll mail her a kit for her birthday.”
“That’d be swell. Oh—say. Have you gotten the invitation for Tommy’s bar mitzvah?”
I stood, grabbing the phone by its base. “Hang on. Let me check.” This was one of the benefits of our tiny apartment. Not only did I have less to clean, but I could drag the phone across the room to the kitchen table and the cord would reach. “I was out of town the past two days.”
That was a good excuse, but the truth of the matter was that once we started working on the air show, I’d been ignoring the mail. And since then … well, I hadn’t anticipated any of this attention. Nathaniel was unscrewing a fuse from the box, but when he saw me, he lit another candle. I took it from him, cradling the phone between my head and shoulder.
There was a stack of mail in the table and I flipped through, looking for the envelope. By candlelight, it was almost romantic. Maybe when I got off the phone with Hershel, I’d suggest to Nathaniel that fixing the fuse could wait. “When is the bar mitzvah?”
“December 15th. Doris says to tell you that we’ve got the guest room all set for you.”
“That’s wonderful—” One of the envelopes was yellow. On the outside, in bright red ink, a stamp read OVERDUE. “Um … Hershel. May I call you back? Tell Tommy that we’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss it.”
As we said our goodbyes and hung up, I wasn’t really listening. I’d torn open the envelope and had slid out the overdue bill inside. My stomach twisted as if I were about to address a crowd of thousands, but this time it was only an audience of one. I’d been so busy with the air show and interviews and television that I’d gotten behind on the bills.
“I … I forgot to pay the electric bill.”
The silence remained after my words vanished. Candlelight flickered on the table and I finally saw the rose standing in a vase on the table. At current prices, it was as if he’d bought me a dozen.
“Nathaniel … I’m so, so sorry.”