Spark

by Holly Schindler

  Unlike any other movie I’ve ever watched, though, there are no credits, no sweeping overtures. Black-and-white images fill the screen—every once in a while, one particular feature is highlighted with a brilliant drop of vibrant color. Surround sound thumps against my ears.

  A train whistle screeches, and a passenger—a skinny boy with a window seat, wearing a somewhat stuffy tweed jacket—presses his first, third, and fifth fingers into his left leg. “E-flat major,” he murmurs as the whistle screeches again. One of the color splashes reveals that his fingers are the same shade as the insides of bananas. Too soft and pale ever to have known much sun.

  He puts his face near the glass as the train pulls into town and sees her—a little girl, running alongside, her pigtails bouncing against her shoulders.

  I smile. “Dahlia,” I whisper.

  Even as the train slows, applying its brakes, it still tosses up enough wind to push the little girl’s braids behind her shoulders. She opens her arms, welcoming the gusts as the train passes her completely.

  The locomotive comes to a chugging stop at the depot. A metal Fred Harvey restaurant sign squeaks, swinging from the side of the nearby Verona Hotel. As the slender boy emerges from the train, pausing at the top of the steps, I see his face full-on for the first time.

  “Nick!” I cluck happily, watching as he heads straight into the bustle of the busy depot—people whiz past, their voices chattering, heels clicking on pavement. Conductors retrieve trunks and bags while smoke from the engines creates a fog over it all. An atmosphere of hurry up, out of the way completely engulfs him.

  With a frightened look on his face, Nick tries to do just that—scoot to a spot where he won’t be blocking foot traffic—but finds that everywhere he puts his feet, he’s in someone’s way. He takes a step back, bumps the corner of a large suitcase, then darts to the side only to smack into an older woman, her younger female companion (surely a daughter) shooting him a protectively disapproving look.

  Nick nods an apology. “Excuse me, ma’am. I’m from Kennett.” As though he half expects her eyes to swell and for her to say, “Oh! Well, Kennett. That explains everything.” “From a farm,” he goes on. “The city looks so different. So many people.”

  “Nick!” a voice cries out from the crowd, causing him to gasp in relief.

  “Yes!” he calls through a happy grin. When he turns in the direction of the voice, though, he sees the little girl with the pigtails. The chaser of trains. His shoulders slump in disappointment as she waves to him.

  Dahlia sticks her hands on her hips, frowning right back.

  “How’d you know my name?” he asks suspiciously.

  “I know lots. I promised George I would come get you. Bring you to rehearsal.”

  “George,” Nick repeats. His face twists, like he’s concentrating. Turning the name over in his mind, as though it’s an object he’s inspecting for flaws.

  “Yeah. You know. The director at the Avery.”

  “Are you his daughter?” Nick swallows anxiously.

  “Nope. I’m Dahlia. Dahlia Drewery, which kind of sounds like a made-up name but isn’t. My mom owns Hattie’s, on the square, which doesn’t sound much like a made-up name but is. My mom’s name is Gladys, but she sells hats. So—Hattie’s. Get it?”

  “I do. And George—”

  “—is the director at the Avery. And I promised him I’d get you. Like I said. Weren’t you paying attention? The Avery—that’s the theater where you’ll play—it’s just across the square from Hattie’s. And besides, I know this town better than anybody else. So I can get you there better than anybody else.”

  “I’m supposed to be staying—”

  “With your cousins,” Dahlia finishes.

  “Yes. My cousin, Paul. He was the old piano player. He called me last week. His brother’s sick.” Nick’s voice gains speed; he rattles on nervously. “Paul—my cousin—was called to go help the family in Oklahoma. He needed me to fill in. As pianist. At the Avery. It was a shock. My older brothers, they’re the ones who always get jobs. They’re bigger. Stronger. Even though I’m the oldest. Just graduated from high school. And you know, until just now, just this moment, I’d never once realized that I have never played in front of an audience!” He cackles. “Ha! Can you believe it? Never once! And I was so flattered, I jumped at the chance. Without ever thinking about what it would actually entail. Until just now. I never thought of it when Paul asked me. Paul. My—”

  “—cousin,” Dahlia finishes. Her hands are still propped on her hips and her head is tilted down, and she’s staring up at him through her eyebrows. A look of complete disbelief saturates her face. “Boy, you sure talk a lot. You gonna be okay, mister?”

  “Well. I suppose I should be. Shouldn’t I?”

  “Come on, then. I’ll take you to the Avery. Don’t worry—George will have a place where you can stash your bag during rehearsal.”

  “Rehearsal,” Nick repeats, growing still another shade paler.

  “Aw, don’t worry, mister. You’ll be fine. Promise.” Dahlia points toward the Avery.

  Nick takes a step in the direction Dahlia’s instructed him to take.

  “One thing—” Nick says, stopping so abruptly that Dahlia crashes into his back. As they untangle themselves, he asks, “How’d you know—that I was Nick?”

  “Because no one was there to meet you, and you looked like you didn’t recognize anyone else. Plus, you had that look on your face, like Verona was something brand-new. I know Verona so well, I can’t imagine it being new at all—to anybody. But, anyway—that’s how I figured it out. Really e-genious, huh?”

  “Ingenious,” Nick corrects. “Big word for such a small girl.”

  Dahlia frowns. “Not so small,” she grumbles.

  Nick takes a deep breath. “Well, Grace? I thought you were going to show me the way.”

  “Say! I told you my name was Dahlia.”

  “Not to me, it isn’t,” Nick announces, trying to turn on some charm. But he’s sweating, and he has to fight to stand up straight beneath the weight of his bag. And nothing about him, right then, seems very charming at all. He tugs at the tie near his throat as if vying for more air. “To me, your name is Grace. Like grace notes—the smallest, sweetest notes in all of music.”

  “Not so small, I said. The sweet part’s maybe not bad.”

  Nick grins. Encouraged, he asks, “Shall we, Grace?” as he tries to offer her his arm.

  “Come on already,” Dahlia barks. “Let’s go. We’ll be late, and George depends on me.” She skips around the corner of the depot, ready to show him her favorite path to the square.

  From the audience, I shake my head as I watch Nick struggle to keep up. This guy is not exactly the Romeo I had expected. Not after all Dahlia’s bedtime stories. Skinny’s one thing. But this guy isn’t healthy. It isn’t the way I ever thought she was asking me to picture him. Up on the screen, he drops his suitcase, fights to catch his breath.

  Once she realizes she’s lost him, Dahlia backs 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.”

  “I’m not a good runner.”

  “You’re not kidding; I wasn’t even running.”

  Nick chuckles as he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, wipes his forehead.

  “What’s wrong with you, anyway?” Dahlia blurts, as only little girls can and get away with.

  “Weak heart.”

  “Mister, that’s just about the saddest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”

  Nick chuckled. “Is it, now?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why 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 beneath me. 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.

  “What 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.

  “Humming. 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?”

  “Loose 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.

  “Not 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 puckered for a kiss. Emma drops the wrench and snatches up the magazine, curling it into a roll and returning it to her back pocket, her face as red as a hot barbecue coal.

  George laughs softly. He’s seen Emma’s magazine. “Oh, I’m so glad that’s the only thought you ever give to romance.” As though his daughter should forever remain above silly fantasies of love.

  But does anyone, really? Sitting there in the theater, with the Avery’s heart thumping in my ears, I can feel Emma’s long-held wish to star in her own Love Fiction Monthly issue. Romance wasn’t something the first female valedictorian of Verona High could study for. It was something that could only be experienced firsthand. And with no man in her life, the only way for Emma to feel love was vicariously. Her face betrays her attempt to disguise her thoughts. She aches to know what it’s like to be kissed. To hold a man’s hand.

  “Got another job for you,” George announces.

  “What’s that?” Emma asks, shoving the magazine farther down into her large back pocket.

  “Geraldine quit.”

  “Qui—quit? But—she—” Emma takes a step forward, accidentally slipping her right toe into the giant cuff of her left pant leg. She tips forward, tumbling straight for the skin-shredding gravel at the front of the car.

  George’s hands break her fall. In a swift motion, he straightens her up.

  “You’d think you’d done that before,” Emma mutters sarcastically, pushing her glasses up her nose again.

  I’d been waiting for some sign of Emma’s awkward ways. Mom often told me that the bat-blind thing had been known for her clumsiness, her unsteady feet. Little Dahlia had seen it with her own eyes, and knew it had been legendary at Verona High, the stuff of well-meaning jokes. She can fall around corners, that Emma Hastings. Apparently, it was no exaggeration.

  “The musical,” George reminds Emma. “Geraldine quit. That means you’re up, understudy. Finally, I get you on the stage. I never thought it would happen.”

  “Geraldine’s engaged, isn’t she?” Emma asks in a disciplined tone while rubbing her greasy hands with a likewise greasy rag.

  George’s mustache droops as he detects something decidedly unhappy in her voice. “You want the part—don’t you?”

  “Of course!” But she screeches her answer—it’s overeager, a little too willing. It sounds as though she’s far more interested in pleasing her father than she is in being the star of his musical.

  “Rehearsals in two,” George announces. Emma gasps, letting her eyes travel over his clothing. And she grimaces, realizing that he should never have had to make this announcement. He’s already dressed for rehearsals, in a three-piece suit, the shine of pomade in his mustache, the glisten of polish on his watch fob.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Emma glances down at her baggy coveralls. She rubs her greasy hands even harder. “I should clean up. Change.”

  “No need for all that,” George tells her. “Everyone’s starting to arrive.”

  Emma whimpers pitifully as her father drags her down the front walk. They stand at the door, greeting the Verona players.

  On the far side of the square, Emma sees them: Nick and Dahlia. “Who—” she starts.

  “I sent Dahlia to the station to get our new piano player,” George answers.

  “You did what? Sent a little girl to get him? And he’s coming now? Today? And I look like this?”

  “Oh, Emma. Don’t make a fuss.”

  “Don’t you think a professional musician expects to be treated as a professional?” That time, her voice borders on sounding like a growl.

  “No need to make this a bigger deal than it is.”

  Emma pushes her glasses back up onto her face, leaving a smear of grease behind. “What’s the poor guy’s name, anyway?”

  “Nick, I believe.”

  “Nick,” she mutters. “Poor Nick.”

  “Don’t you think that a musician who’s just accepted his first paying gig might feel a tad bit nervous? And don’t you think that young man might also want something—anything—to calm those nerves?”

  Emma nods, her face relaxing into the tiniest smile. “Nothing as disarming as a child.”

  “Your old man might have a few tricks up his sleeve,” George says, offering her a wink.

  Emma leans toward her father to confess, “I hadn’t expected someone so young. He looks my age.”

  “Yes.” George frowns. “Awfully young.”

  Dahlia pushes Nick down the front walk, straight toward George and Emma. “Hey, George! I brought ’im. Told you I could do it. You can always count on me.”

  She sticks her stomach out and smooths a sunset-pink cloth dahlia into the sash of her blue plaid dress. “I’m good at lots of things. See how pretty the flower still looks? After being around all the smoke from the train even!”

  “I never had any doubts about Nick. And you’re doing quite an impressive job there, too,” George praises, pointing at the cloth flower.

  I smile from my auditorium seat, instantly remembering how Mom had often laughed, telling me (usually around the time of her birthday) about how much she hated being little. How being a child was something she couldn’t wait to kick off—l
ike shoes that pinched. How she hated the way her mother slapped her hands when she reached for the grown-up lady stuff in Hattie’s: white gloves (which her mother always said she dirtied too quickly), or purses (which her mother liked to remind her she lost less than ten minutes after slipping a strap over her shoulder), or hats (which her mother claimed always came back from Dahlia’s outings looking like a herd of elephants had trampled on them).

  “This flower came from a real grown woman’s hat,” Dahlia informs Emma, who’s staring at the new musician and still trying to wipe her hands clean. “Mom didn’t want me to have it. She said I’d mess it up. But that’s what she knows. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of grown-up things. I’ll show her. I’ll keep the flower clean and perfect. I’m very grown-up. Just watch. I promised her. Isn’t that what grown-ups do? They make promises. And keep them.”

  Emma chuckles halfheartedly. She sucks in a deep breath, bringing her eyes to meet Nick’s.

  At that moment, I’m seeing them as they really were. Not as the newspaper clipping or Mom’s old bedtime stories described them. I’m seeing them as real people, flaws and all: Nick with his pale, sweaty face, his wheezing shortness of breath. Emma with her dirty coveralls and her greasy face and her big glasses, twittering in her gawky way.

  As Nick takes a step closer, Emma shoves her Love Fiction Monthly even deeper into her pocket.

  Across the square, Bertie clutches her journal and points at the sky. “Talking,” she insists. She turns to look directly through the screen—right at me. I shiver, straightening my back. My eyes swell. “The skies are talking,” Bertie goes on, “just like I’m talking to you. Right now. And they’re telling me what’s going to happen. I know what’s about to go on. Just watch. You’ll see it, too.”

  As she turns and races toward the Avery, the bustling square leaves a giant circle of space around her. No one even glances toward the young girl they refer to as Crazy Bertie. She’s invisible.

  Nick leans forward, offering George his sweaty palm. They shake while Dahlia continues to smooth her cloth flower.