Free Stage Fright by Gabrielle Holly

theatre and the van was parked there. The smell of savoury fried bar food wafted out onto the sidewalk and overwhelmed the cloud of tobacco smoke. Toni’s stomach lurched. These encounters always took a lot out of her and their snack of hotdogs seemed hours ago. “I’m starving. Anyone else?” she asked.
    “I could eat,” said Mike.
    “ Quelle surprise !” Bridget chided in an exaggerated French accent.
    Thomas pulled Toni closer and weaved his way through the crowd. “I could use a drink.”
    The cosy warmth of the tavern soothed her nerves in spite of the rowdy crowd that jostled inside.
    “We’ll never find a table,” Bridget shouted above the crowd.
    Toni scanned the room and noticed a subtle glow of red, orange and yellow light hovering in the far corner. “There,” she said and shouldered past a cluster of young men wearing matching university hoodies. She made her way to the back of the bar and stood beside a booth. Three men and three women were mowing through a plate of gooey chips and nachos.
    “Maybe we should try somewhere else,” Bridget said in her ear.
    “Just give it a second,” Toni muttered, then focused on the pretty blonde at the table. She was clearly the source of the aura.
    “You asshole !” the woman shouted then pitched her beer in the face of the man opposite her. The three on that side of the booth shot up, brushing the overspray from their clothes.
    The rest of the party followed and hurried out of the bar, the angry blonde trailing behind unleashing a string of obscenities at the object of her outburst.
    Toni turned and smiled at her group. “Tada!”
    Bridget pulled a handful of paper napkins from the dispenser and sopped up the puddle of beer before the four slid into the vinyl seats—she and Mike on one side and Thomas and Toni on the other. Toni clutched the album against her chest. She couldn’t ignore the vibration that emanated from it and struggled not to let her concern show on her face.
    “How’d you know they were going to—” Bridget stopped when Toni raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah, right. Never mind.”
    Toni winked.
    A rail-thin young waiter leaned across the table, handed out the menus then tugged his tip from beneath the nacho plate. “I’ll have someone get this stuff out of your way. Can I get you folks something from the bar?”
    Thomas ordered a pitcher of beer.
    “And a shot of whisky,” Toni added. Thomas narrowed his eyes at her. “My nerves are shot,” she explained.
    A busboy cleared the previous diners’ plates and wiped down the Formica a moment before the waiter returned with the drinks. He jotted down their order—a plate of nachos, burger baskets for the men, a chef salad for Bridget and a turkey club for Toni. As soon as he’d left, Toni laid the album on the table. Before opening the cover, she drained the shot glass of whisky, grimaced, then chased the liquor with a swig of beer.
    “Okay,” she said, “let’s see what Priscilla has to show us.”
    On the first page of the scrapbook was an onionskin copy of an invoice for freelance photography services from P. Stringman to the Evening Star Newspaper. The corners of the translucent sheet were darkened by the dabs of glue that held it to the yellowed page. The brittle paper crackled as Toni dragged her finger over the faded print. The invoice was dated July 29, 1945 and was for twenty-seven photographs recording the opening day of the Douglas County Fair. Toni tapped the total. “This wouldn’t even cover our dinner!”
    Thomas leaned in. “It wouldn’t even cover the beer,” he said.
    Written in pencil on the scrapbook page was, ’My first job as a professional photographer!’
    Toni carefully turned the page and found a collection of snapshots arranged in a neat grid and secured to the paper with tiny black photo corners. She rotated the book so Bridget and Mike could see. The four scanned the black-and-white images of cows, and pies, vegetables and blue ribbons.
    “She