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He stood in the doorway for a second, his eyes getting used to the darkness in the store.
    Peter saw him first and came running up to him, hand outstretched. “Johnny!”
    Johnny dropped the valise and took Peter’s hand.
    “You did come back,” Peter was saying excitedly. “I told Esther you would. I told her. She said maybe you wouldn’t want to, but I said we’ll telegraph him anyway and find out.”
    Johnny grinned. “I didn’t understand why you wanted me—especially after the way I powdered on you. But—”
    Peter didn’t let him finish. “No buts. What happened we’ll forget. It’s over.” He looked around him for Doris; seeing her, he called: “Go upstairs and tell Mamma that Johnny’s here.” He drew Johnny farther into the store.
    “I felt you should come back. This was your idea, you were entitled to something from it.” His gaze fell on Doris. She was still standing there, looking at Johnny. “Didn’t I tell you to go upstairs and tell Mamma?” he demanded.
    “I only wanted to say hello to Uncle Johnny first,” she answered plaintively.
    “All right, then, say hello and hurry up to Mamma.”
    Doris came over to Johnny gravely and held out her hand. “Hello, Uncle Johnny.”
    Johnny laughed and picked her up and held her to him. “Hello, sweetheart, I missed yuh.”
    She blushed and squirmed out of his arms and ran to the stairs. “I gotta tell Mamma,” she said, and ran up the steps.
    Johnny turned to Peter. “Now tell me what happened.”
    “The day after you left, Joe Turner came in, and before I knew it I was in the picture business.” Peter smiled. “I didn’t expect it to be such a big thing though. It’s too much for me. Esther has been working the cash, but I’m too tired at night after a day in the store to run movies too. So we decided to ask you to come back. Like I said in the telegram, you get a hundred a month and ten percent of the profits.”
    “It sounded good to me,” Johnny said. “I seen a lot of these nickelodeons around and they’re getting to be a big thing.”
    Later they walked into the nickelodeon. Johnny looked around him approvingly. The machines had all been taken out and rows of benches had been placed in their stead, only the Grandma fortune-telling machine remained undisturbed in her corner near the door.
    Johnny walked over to the machine and rapped on the glass. “It looks like you were right, old girl.”
    “What did you say?” Peter asked, looking startled.
    “The old girl here told my fortune the night I left. She said I’d be back. I thought she was nuts, but she knew more than me.”
    Peter looked at him. “In Yiddish we have a saying: ‘What is to be must be.’”
    Johnny looked around the store before he answered: “I still can hardly believe it.” He thought back to the time when he got Peter’s telegram. He had shown it to Al Santos.
    “I don’t know why this guy wants me back after I skipped out on three months’ rent,” he had said.
    “Two months,” Al Santos corrected him. “You sent him one month’s rent last payday.”
    “I know,” Johnny answered, “but I still don’t get it.”
    “Maybe the guy likes yuh,” Al said. “What yuh goin’ tuh do?”
    Johnny looked at him in surprise. “Go back. What do you think I’m gonna do?”
    Johnny took his hand off the fortune-telling machine. “How many shows a day do you give here?” he asked.
    “One,” Peter answered.
    “From now on we’re giving three,” Johnny said. “One matinee and two evenings.”
    “Where we get the customers?” Peter asked.
    Johnny looked at Peter to see if he was joking. Satisfied that Peter was entirely serious, he answered: “Peter, you got a lot to learn about show business. I’ll tell yuh how we’re goin’ to get the business. We’ll advertise. We’ll plaster billboards all across the countryside, we’ll advertise in the newspapers. We’re the only picture show in the whole section. People will travel to see it,