Free Yesterday's Stardust by Becky Melby

help. I’ve tried everything I know to do for obstruction and it’s not working.”
    Francie nodded. Tears stung, spilled onto her cheeks, and left darkened spots on her overalls. She had found Suzette’s address and sent a letter saying she would be there by the middle of October. She couldn’t tell her parents. So here she sat, looking like a selfish, spoiled child, crying about money while her favorite horse writhed in pain in the barn. “I’ll go get it.”
    “Thank you.” Daddy stood, put on his old plaid coat, and took his hat off the hook. “I’ll ring the doc from the feed mill.”
    The door opened to the cool, late-afternoon air. When it shut, the room seemed to close in around her. Stew simmered on the mint-green and cream-colored stove. Francie remembered the day Daddy brought it home. “Things will be better from now on,” he’d said back then. He bought the icebox the same year. Mama had oiled and shined its golden wood every day for months. Now black fingerprints surrounded the handle. The War had been good for farmers. But it didn’t last.
    She stared at the Currier and Ives print above Mama’s chair.
Home to Thanksgiving.
In the picture, snow covered the ground and the barn roof. The front door of a cozy house stood wide open as a woman in a long dress greeted guests. Oxen pulling a wood-sided sled; a dark horse was harnessed to a sleigh. A peaceful scene of life on the farm. Francie turned away and walked up the stairs.

C HAPTER 7
    M onday. Finally. The day most people dreaded was the day he lived for.
    Nicky stared at his reflection in the flawless black finish on the car hood, threw the polishing rag onto Todd’s workbench, and slid into the car.
    Squinting through the garage door at the glare of midafternoon sun ricocheting off concrete, he groped for the sunglasses he’d left on the bucket seat a week ago. He slid them on then turned the key in the ignition. The Javelin purred as he drove out of the garage.
    He parked facing the street, got out, and rolled down the door on the single-car garage. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He wiped his forehead with his arm. Only a real mental case would run half a mile to pick up his car so he could drive a mile and a half to the park in air-conditioned comfort to go Rollerblading in the middle of July.
    If the shoe fits.
    He climbed back in. Todd and his brother had done the bodywork, and he was slowly paying them off. Two more payments to Todd and the Javelin would be his, free and clear. Since Nicky didn’t own a garage, Todd kept it in his—in exchange for using it whenever Nicky was working.
    He turned up the radio on the way to Simmons Island Park. He parked the Javelin then got out and sat on the ground to lace his skates. After using the bottom of his torn Kenosha Kings T-shirt to mop his face, he stood and pushed off. In minutes the muscles in his calves burned with the welcome strain. He wove around a middle-aged woman walking a cocker spaniel. Beyond the breakers, the lake shimmered, white sparks glinting on the waves.
    Miles of pavement and a free afternoon stretched ahead of him. He breathed in the lake air and exhaled all thoughts of a struggling business and a rebellious sister.

    Rena Fiorini slid her notebook into her dresser drawer. Working on a new song usually lifted her spirits. It didn’t work today. She wasn’t looking forward to meeting Jarod.
    Someday, maybe, she’d have choices.
    Hoisting her bike onto her shoulder, she thudded down the stairs toward the propped-open back door. Someday she’d own a house with an attached garage in a safe neighborhood.
    Right.
And someday pigs would sprout wings. Her skate bag swung into the wall as she descended. The narrow stairway mirrored the rest of her life.
    A door opened behind her. “Where you off to?”
    Rena froze. She hadn’t heard him come home. Her father’s voice, heavy with sleep yet tinged with suspicion, switched on her defenses. She turned and gave him