The Glow of the Spotlight: My Journey with Rebecca

I look at Rebecca desperately. Without hesitating too long, she holds out three fingers, then rests both hands flat on her desk. Then she slightly raises six more fingers. I guess thirty-six.

Miss Maloney’s ruler cracks against the nearest desk without warning, and the girl sitting there nearly jumps out of her seat. She says she caught Rebecca signaling the answer and orders both of us to stay in during recess to clean the chalkboard and erasers. She calls on another student to recite the nine tables from the beginning, and the moment her back is turned, a boy across the aisle mouths “dummy” at me. I fume silently, wondering why the teacher didn’t catch him.

After lunch, everyone else files out for recess while Miss Maloney hands Rebecca and me rags. We clap chalk dust from the erasers out an open window, and it billows into white clouds. Rebecca apologizes for getting me into trouble, but I tell her it is my own fault for never learning my nine tables.

Rebecca says she knows a trick. The first number of the answer comes from subtracting one from the number multiplied by nine. The second number comes from finding whatever makes the two digits add up to nine. Nine times six becomes five-four, or fifty-four.

I do not understand at first, but I work through it, and something clicks. I run the higher numbers through my head, and every one comes out right. I finally know my nine tables, and I tell Rebecca she is the best teacher I have ever had.

She sighs and confides that her family wants her to become a teacher, but what she wants is to act in movies. Mimicking her grandfather’s thick Russian accent, she shakes a finger and growls that acting is no good life for a young lady. I cannot help laughing. I admit I want to be a dancer, though my parents insist I be practical, and I cannot imagine when arithmetic would ever come in handy. Rebecca tells me it could turn out useful no matter what I end up doing.

After school, Rebecca’s mother sends the two of us on an errand to buy potatoes, onions, and carrots, handing Rebecca a small coin pouch. I tuck my own purse under my arm, my nesting dolls safely inside. Her mother reminds her which peddlers to trust on Orchard Street and warns her not to pay a cent too much, and to take Benny with us, since she still needs time to get ready for Shabbos. When I ask what that means, Rebecca explains it’s the Sabbath. They always have the best dinner of the week on Fridays, meant to welcome the start of a day of rest.

Orchard Street turns out to be a crush of peddlers’ carts selling everything imaginable, bananas and apples piled beside books and handkerchiefs, with rotted vegetables littering the cobblestones and old newspapers blowing under the wheels. People shove past each other in every direction, shouting and laughing, and I grip Benny’s hand a little tighter so I don’t lose him in the crowd.

Rebecca marches straight up to a peddler she clearly knows, asking for six large potatoes with no sprouts. When he names his price, Rebecca does the arithmetic in her head before he’s even finished talking, and counters with an offer of half that much. The peddler clutches his cart as if she’s wounded him, but Rebecca just bends down to comfort Benny instead, promising he won’t go to bed hungry tonight, all while sneaking me a wink over his head. The peddler grumbles that if she needs to buy and he needs to sell, they might as well meet somewhere in the middle, and knocks his price down until Rebecca finally nods.

Watching Rebecca haggle so easily, I decide it’s my turn to try buying the onions myself. I tell Rebecca I’d like to try, and she tosses me the coin purse and runs off to join Rose, who’s called her over from across the street. I am suddenly nervous. I thought Rebecca would help me with the haggling. I tentatively take Benny’s hand and approach the onion seller.

I ask for six onions, and the seller offers me them for five cents apiece. Six times five is thirty, and thirty cents for onions seems reasonable. It’s the same amount Rebecca paid for the potatoes. But haggling seems normal here, and I’m not sure how much is left for the carrots. I tell Benny to stay close and I set my purse down on the cart so I can count what’s in the coin purse.

I think there’s enough here without bargaining. But is the first price the peddler offers always too high? Other customers crowd around me, tired of waiting. I think of my own mother, patient and unhurried, refusing to pay a cent more than she believes something is worth. If she can hold her ground, so can I.

I bravely tell the seller that five cents is too high. How about three? I try to make a sad face like Benny did at the potato stand, but the peddler ignores me. I’m not as cute as a little boy with big brown eyes. A thin woman behind me complains that she can’t wait all day. More customers squeeze forward and I’m starting to feel trapped.

I offer four cents, maybe a little too quickly. I reach for my purse to count out the change, but the space on the cart where my purse was is empty. I look around frantically. My purse is gone!