Richard looks the way I picture guys on sailboats - tall, blond, and very tucked-in, even on weekends. Well, he has a key to his apartment, but not to ours. Some of us have to come knocking.' It's true that he doesn't have a key.

In Germany, Richard says, I would be one of the Schlüsselkinder, which means 'key children.'

'Probably someone German,' she says, glaring at Richard, who is German but not strict or awful. She says it reminds her of dungeons, and must have been invented by someone strict and awful with an unlimited childcare budget. 'Latchkey child' is a name for a kid with keys who hangs out alone after school until a grown-up gets home to make dinner. He and I are going to help Mom practice every single night, which is why I'm sitting at my desk instead of watching after-school TV, which is a birthright of every latchkey child. They don't have fancy egg timers in the supply closet at her office.Īpril twenty-seventh is also Richard's birthday. She went out and bought a fancy egg timer that can accurately measure a half minute. She used a fat green marker, also swiped from work, to draw a pyramid on April 27, with dollar signs and exclamation points all around it. Mom has swiped a big paper calendar from work and Scotch-taped the month of April to the kitchen wall. It's all still there, like a movie I can watch when I want to. Sometimes I work on it in my head, trying to map out the story you asked me to tell, about everything that happened this past fall and winter. It nags at me, even though you're gone and there's no one to give it to anymore. I still think about the letter you asked me to write. There it is, in your tiny handwriting: April 27th: Studio TV-15, the words all jerky-looking, like you wrote them on the subway. I check the box under my bed, which is where I've kept your notes these past few months.

Unlike me, Mom has glossy red hair that bounces around and might obstruct America's view of her small freckled face.Īnd then there's the date she's supposed to show up, scrawled in blue pen on a line at the bottom of the card: April 27, 1979. Barrettes are optional, but she should definitely bring some with her. She needs some extra clothes in case she wins and makes it to another show, where they pretend it's the next day even though they really tape five in one afternoon. On the postcard there's a list of things to bring. She's going to be a contestant on The $20,000 Pyramid, which is hosted by Dick Clark. After three years of trying, she has actually made it. It says Congratulations in big curly letters, and at the very top is the address of Studio TV-15 on West 58th Street.

When you reach me pages