Free Spark by Holly Schindler Page A

up, returning to the front of the depot, where Nick has decided to use his suitcase as a chair. He clutches his chest, struggling to catch his breath.
    Dahlia frowns as she stomps to his side. “What’s the matter with you? You’re pretty slow.”
    â€œI’m not a good runner.”
    â€œYou’re not kidding; I wasn’t even running.”
    Nick chuckles as he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, wipes his forehead.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with you, anyway?” Dahlia blurts, as only little girls can and get away with.
    â€œWeak heart.”
    â€œMister, that’s just about the saddest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”
    Nick chuckled. “Is it, now?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œWhy don’t you sit here with me a minute? Let me catch my breath. Think I’ve had too much excitement.”
    Dahlia sighs, sitting cross-legged on the ground beside him. She props her elbows on her knees and her chin in her fists. And hums. But she doesn’t hum a little girl’s song—no “Ring Around the Rosie” or “Pop! Goes the Weasel.” She hums the tune she’s been listening to during all the rehearsals she’s been watching at the Avery lately: “Anything Goes.”
    The image of the depot fades to black. The projector pauses momentarily, as if changing reels.
    When the screen returns to life again, it’s showing me the town square as it had been in its glory. I let go of my legs and lean forward, digging my fingers into the brittle seat beneathme. I’ve never seen Verona this way—not as a town with a bustling square filled with voices and car horns and doors swinging open as errands are run to the post office, to the hardware store.
    Everyone’s dressed up just to come downtown. Plate glass windows of fashionable shops allow me to see purchases being made by women in hats and gloves, by men in suits and ties. One woman stops to admire the sweet smell of the lilies being offered outside the florist’s shop. A hand-painted sign in a café advertises its lunch special: a toasted ham salad sandwich and a hand-mixed chocolate shake for seventy-five cents. Next door, the drugstore displays a syrup sure to settle overfilled stomachs.
    And there it is: the Avery, still both playing the latest movies and hosting community theater productions. The Avery—the center and heartbeat of Verona, Missouri.
    In front of the old theater, a young woman smiles as she pulls her head out from underneath the hood of a ’39 Plymouth. When her face fills the screen, I recognize her, too: it’s Emma.
    â€œWhat do you think, Dad?” she asks.
    Like she needs an answer. The man who’s staring at her is already smiling so broadly, the hairs of his dark mustache are completely mussed, like a hairdo in the midst of a windstorm.
    â€œHumming. Like I knew it would be. We’d never have a car if it wasn’t for you,” he says. “What was wrong with it?”
    â€œLoose distributor wire.” Emma drops the hood with a final-sounding thud. She uses a clean spot on the back of her wrist to hoist her unbearably thick glasses up her nose. Those horn-rimmed specs eclipse everything, work like a fun-house mirror, distorting her features, giving her the giant eyes of a frog.
    â€œNot a problem you can’t solve.” Her father beams. “Not if you look at it long enough.”
    Emma opens the driver’s-side door and leans around the wheel, trying her best not to get her grease-splattered coveralls on the mohair seats. She pulls the key from the ignition, shuts the door behind her.
    As she leans forward, reaching for the wrench she intends to drop back into the toolbox, a rolled-up magazine falls from her back pocket.
    The June 1947 issue of Love Fiction Monthly hits the ground, exposing the cartoonish drawing of a blond woman on the cover, her eyes lowered to ecstasy-drenched slits, her red lips