Free City Boy by Herman Wouk

passed Felicia and Lennie near the table wolfing huge chunks of a white cake, and Herbie tried to avoid them, but the sharp-eyed sister called out, “When's the wedding, Herbie?” and Lennie graciously added, “Hooray for the sheik in short pants.” (His own trousers were long.) Herbie said nothing, and hurried out through the little door at the back where Lucille had disappeared.
    To his astonishment he was in a gloomy garage. Lucille climbed into the back seat of her father's new Chrysler and beckoned him to follow. Herbie had never been in any kind of automobile but a Chevrolet, and as he sat down on the soft gray upholstery he became dizzy with pleasure. Ice cream, cool dimness, solitude, a Chrysler, and Lucille! The world of fact was uncovering its treasures, and all his daydreams seemed tawdry. The underground palace crumbled in his mind.
    The children ate their ice cream slowly.
    “What are you going to be when you grow up?” said Lucille at last, putting her well-cleaned paper plate and spoon on the floor.
    “An astronomer,” said Herbie.
    “You mean look at the stars through a telescope?”
    “That's right. I can pick out first-magnitude stars right now. I'll show them to you some night.”
    “What are their names?”
    “Well, there's lots. Orion, Sirius, Betelgeuse, Andromeda, Gemini …” He paused. Herbie did much reading about stars, but very little looking at them. The figures of their sizes and distances fascinated him, but they all looked pretty nearly alike in the sky, and anyway, they were none too visible beyond the street lights of Homer Avenue. He was not sure of the difference between a star and a constellation and was fairly confident that his listener wasn't either, so he reeled off any names out of the jumble he remembered. It worked.
    “Gee, those names are beautiful.”
    “I know lots more.”
    “Can you make money that way?” asked the girl. “Just looking at stars?”
    “Sure. Plenty.”
    “Enough to get married and have a family?”
    “Easy.”
    The girl pondered for a moment, then said doubtfully, “How?”
    Herbie hadn't the least idea. But he was not the first male to be challenged by a woman's common sense, nor the first to override it. “By discovering new stars, of course,” he said promptly.
    “Then what happens?” inquired the girl.
    “Why, you win a prize,” said Herbie.
    “How much?”
    “I forget. A million dollars—maybe ten million. Something like that.”
    “For
one
star?”
    “I'll show it to you in the encyclopedia if you don't believe me,” said Herbie. “What can a guy do that's more important than finding a new star?”
    Lucille was convinced, and silenced. There was a pause.
    “This is a swell car,” said Herbie. The remark fell into the silence like a stone into a pond and vanished, leaving ripples of self-consciousness in the air. The boy and girl happened to look into each other's eyes. Both blushed.
    “Are you—are you going to get married?” said Lucille.
    “Not till I'm old,” said Herbie.
    “How old?”
    “Real old.”
    “How old is that?”
    “I don't know.”
    “Twenty-five?”
    “Older than that.”
    “Thirty?”
    “Fifty-five, more likely,” said Herbie. The tendency to go higher was irresistible. Lucille seemed properly awed at being in the presence of a man who was not going to marry until he was fifty-five. She was still for a moment, then said, “Have you got a girl?”
    “No,” said Herbie. “Have you got a fellow?”
    “No. What kind of girl are you going to marry?”
    “I don't know,” said Herbie. Then, with a burst of audacious gallantry, “But she's gonna have to have red hair!”
    There, it was done. The ardent look which went with these words made them a plain declaration of love. Lucille rewarded him by timidly putting her little hand into his and returning his look with tenderness. What were golden thrones or underground palaces now, compared to the rosy glory of this moment? Here in an attached