The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(46)

“How long you think he’ll stay at work?” Myrtle jumped over a puddle to reach the sidewalk.

“Long enough for me to bake cookies and then go back for him?”

On the sidewalk near the bus stop, a homeless man sat with his knees drawn up in front of him. A little girl leaned against him, clutching a scrap of blanket. I steered over to them and dropped a dollar in his cup. Some might see it as extravagant for tzedakah, but Nathaniel and I could have been them.

Myrtle trailed after me, and I heard the rattle of coins hitting the cup before she caught up. “So we have enough time for talking.”

I pushed open the door to the market. “Not you, too.”

“What?” Her eyes were wide and innocent. “Just thinking we could have a girls’ night. Eugene’s on rotation out at the Edwards Air Force Base, so I’m at loose ends.”

“Mm-hm…” I picked up a shopping basket and nodded to Mr. Yoder, who ran the Amish Market. Even with his broad straw hat, his simple dark suit always put me in mind of the Hasidic Jews back home in D.C. Entire family lines of which had been wiped out by the Meteor. I dug in my purse to check my ration book. “Darn it, I’m out of stamps for meat.”

“You should go on Mr. Wizard.” She picked up a bunch of radishes and put them in her basket.

My heart started racing, just at the name of the show. It had been a mistake to tell the women in the computer department, but I thought they’d laugh. I hadn’t expected them to encourage me to go. In hindsight, that was stupid.

“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 …