Spark (3 page)

C
ass stays tight-lipped through the entire drive to the town square. I want to fix the way she feels. But I have no idea how. And maybe you can't, really, ever fix the damage done by a word. Especially
that
word. Especially when you're Cass. And “ugly” is exactly how you feel about yourself.

Shock and hurt swirl through her car (we take turns driving to school each day—kind of like the car version of the teeter-totters of our elementary school years), and my brain keeps searching for some kind of word Band-Aid for what's just happened. I can't think of a single thing, so I reach for the knob on the radio.

Cass parks outside of Duds Used Clothing, staring ahead blankly for a minute before finally killing the engine of her VW Bug. The old one, with the engine in the back.

We pull ourselves out, the only two people around on the town square.

As the name suggests, the Verona square is literally a square, which now, for the most part, feels like skeletal remains. The only open businesses left are Duds (where Cass works after school) on the west side, which stands next to a restaurant so ever-changing, the current business hasn't even invested in a real sign. It's only a piece of cardboard with a handwritten “Mexican Food” propped in the front window. Mom's store, Potions Perfumery, is on the south side; Ferguson's Music (where Dylan works after school) is on the east. The rest of the storefronts on all three sides are empty, dusty, filled with signs that beg for someone to rent them.

On the north stands the old Avery Theater—a building large enough to take up the entire side of the square. The saddest of all the dilapidated buildings, the Avery these days is an old woman whose family contends was once the town beauty. Any ornate gold detail has tarnished and blackened. Many of the windows are both broken and boarded up; several along the first floor are concealed by overgrown, wild shrubbery. The second story is marked by rotten windowsills, the glass of the windows all old enough to have turned purple. The roof is littered with thick, clumsy patches of black tar; old gargoyles are missing parts of their faces. Darkened bricks across the front of the building are tattooed with spray-painted warnings: “Keep Out!” “No Trespassing!!” “Stay AWAY!”

“I always dreamed about that place being open,” Cass admits, pausing on the sidewalk to point at the old theater.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I know.” I hate the look Cass is wearing. The same look I figure most people wear when they're sentenced to jail time for something they didn't do.

“But this—I mean, I love the Avery. I love your mom. I love that she thinks I can—but I just—” She turns her pleading eyes toward me. “I don't think I can do this.”

“But it won't be
you
,” I try to reason. “Right? You'll be a character.”

She doesn't answer.

The bottom of Cass's purple-and-blue floral print maxidress flutters around her ankles as she hurries into Duds.

Vanessa, the thirty-something owner who looks young enough to pass for our sister, glances up from the back of her point-and-shoot. She does her selling online—so much so, I always wind up wondering about the need for a storefront. Or an employee. But Cass would hang out here for free.

“Whoa. You guys get in a wreck on your way over here?” she asks. “What's with the faces?”

“Mom's decided we're doing a production of
Anything Goes
. In order to raise money for the Avery,” I tell her.

“That's kind of fantastic, though, isn't it? I thought you two were always interested in that place. Aren't you the one,” she goes on, looking right at me, “who told Cass about what
happened inside? To those two kids? And didn't you get all teary-eyed about it? Get so worked up about it that you used the word ‘died'? The old place ‘died,' you said. How sad it all was. Now your mom's trying to save the place and you still look sad. Isn't saving the Avery a good thing?”

“Cass got the lead,” I say. “Hope Harcourt.”

Vanessa swivels in time to watch Cass rake her fingers through her dirty-blond hair in a way that makes it tumble over the birthmark.

“Oh,” Vanessa grumbles. She's still staring. Still trying to think of something to say.

But my
you'll be another person on the stage
line of reasoning didn't exactly make Cass feel any better, and I'm a little afraid if Vanessa says anything at this point, Cass might burst into tears. So I point toward a rack in the back—the one with the records—and say, “How can you stand to work in here without a soundtrack keeping you company?”

While Duds is primarily a vintage-clothing store—the place is crammed with round mirror-topped dress racks labeled by the decade—plenty of pop culture gems fill the side shelves, too: Enid Collins box bags and disco ball–shaped 8-track players and lava lamps and flatware with Bakelite handles. And records, in the back corner. A sign above a nearby turntable invites shoppers to pick out any of the albums up for sale and set them spinning.

“I just had on some classic Queen, for your information,” Vanessa says, obviously grateful for a chance to change the subject. “Feel free to continue on with the metal fest. I'm obviously in the mood today.” She stands, pointing toward the Van Halen '81 Worldwide Tour concert T-shirt she's paired with an acid-washed jean skirt.

Together, as usual, Vanessa and Cass make me feel horribly underdressed. Or maybe the right term's “understyled.” While Vanessa and Cass both have the vintage thing going for them, I'm in my usual khaki shorts and plain, solid-colored T-shirt. I haven't done anything to my shoulder-length brown hair other than brush it—a widow's peak makes it impossible to do something strategic with the front of it. The only things about my daily appearance that really show much pizazz are my glasses. Cass bought them from Duds for my last birthday: forest-green cat's eyes with blue rhinestones in the pointy corners. I had prescription lenses put in.

But today I couldn't care less about feeling a little less than special in the outfit department. Not with Cass's mouth still turned down. Since my own mom's the one who's given her this role, I feel like I'm the one responsible for making her upset. I feel like it's my job to fix it.

“You got it,” I tell Vanessa. Because vintage metal has nothing to do with the theater. So maybe if I can find another record in this stack, one that gets us all dancing around the
store in a goofy way, it will soothe something inside Cass.

I've just started to flip through the vinyl when the front door flops open. And in walks Liz. The same Liz from Advanced Drama.

“Hey, Cass,” she says in a perky voice.
What is she doing here?

Cass looks every bit as confused as I feel—until Liz says, “I thought I should probably go ahead and get started.”

“On what?” Cass asks.

“The costumes,” Liz says.

“
You're
in charge of costumes?” Cass asks sadly.

I look at Vanessa, who shakes her head. Liz fidgets, tugging at her blue sundress. That tug is surely meant to remind Cass that she does, in fact, show up in a dress every single day. That maybe there really are good reasons why she got the costume gig. In response, Cass crosses her arms over her chest, emphasizing the fact that she's got a bright-yellow shirt tied at the waist over her blue-and-purple maxidress. She's reminding Liz that there are all sorts of reasons why she wears such funky outfits—sure, she wants to take attention away from her birthmark. But she also has a great love of all things vintage. The bottom line is that Cass knows clothes. Cass would have been far more comfortable handling the costumes than being Hope Harcourt. Cass wants Liz's gig. Resents Liz for the gig—more, even, than she feels bad about the hallway
scene. It's more than obvious to both me and Vanessa—but Liz remains clueless.

“Do you have anything from that era? It's the thirties, right?” Liz asks, beginning to flip through a rack of blouses near the checkout counter.

“It'll depend on everyone's sizes,” Cass mutters, tugging on her lip as she turns toward another rack—this one filled with older dresses and skirts. “We can probably get by going with some basic shapes, some silhouettes that are reminiscent of the time but are actually newer garments.”

There it is—the positive sign that Liz has been after. She exhales loudly, obviously interpreting Cass's words as a
That's okay, Liz. All forgiven.
She blurts, “Congrats on the lead.”

Cass pauses, her hand hovering over a hanger, ignoring Liz's remark.

“What a crazy coincidence!” Liz shouts. And giggles.

Cass and I both glance up as Liz points toward the display of records. The
Anything Goes
cast recording.

“That's Cass's album,” I say. “Most of the musical theater albums in here are hers. For sale on consignment.”

“That's the 1962 off-Broadway cast recording, with Eileen Rodgers and Hal Linden,” Cass explains, her words clipped. Liz is still treading on fragile ground. “I prefer the 2011 Sutton Foster version.”

“Then you know the musical already! Good for you!”

Cass and I both flinch against Liz's slightly condescending tone.

Liz leans forward, now judging herself to be one of Cass's close friends—and entitled to give her advice. “You know, if you're worried about it, you could use Dermablend. My sister uses it to cover up a tattoo.”

A smack. This is a smack. Another one. How could Liz be so dense? I'm about to speak up when Cass sucks in her breath and tightens her fist. “I've tried it,” she mutters.

“It—doesn't work?”

“It bleeds through after a while. And the skin's still bumpy. So even with a perfect color cover-up—”

“Oh. I just thought. You know. From the audience, they wouldn't see—”

“Everyone knows it's there, anyway,” Cass says, trying to shrug off another attack.

“Doesn't your dad work at the hospital?”

Cass frowns. “He's an anesthesiologist,” she says quietly, afraid of where this is headed.

“Did he—is it—inoperable?” Liz whispers.

Vanessa swivels. My eyes widen behind my glasses. Liz has gone way too far. But Cass continues, almost as if she's talking to herself. “Dad said I wasn't the world's best candidate for removal treatments. And it requires several visits. And the treatments, while maybe not painful in the sense of having
your right foot smashed by a Hummer, aren't exactly a pleasurable day on the massage table, either. And there's always a chance that the treatments could actually make the birthmark darker. And, after all that, even if it worked, the birthmark could always come back.

“Besides,” Cass adds sarcastically, “a birthmark is harmless. It isn't cancer, and it isn't a bullet hole, and it isn't a giant pile of gangrene that makes bits of rotting flesh fall from my skull into my Cheerios every morning.”

“Oh, I didn't—”

“Why don't you read the script before you look for costumes?” Cass suggests. This is a scolding. Even Liz knows that.

Liz nods slowly. She heads reluctantly for the door, clearly not wanting to leave on this note.

We all watch her slip back outside. At the same time, on the opposite side of the front window, the city bus rolls to a stop. Dylan gets off, tugging his bike down the bus steps, and heads straight toward Ferguson's Music.

“Hey. There's—” I start.

“Yeah. And we get to work together for the rest of the play. Yay.”

“Why don't I go over there and talk to him? Get some ideas rolling for first practice. The director and the musical director will have to work closely—”

“No,” Cass moans. “That's not why you're going over
there. I can read your mind. And I've had more than enough for today. Seriously. Let the whole thing drop. Okay?”

“No way,” I say. “Someone needs to clear the air before the first rehearsal. And this is my mess, too. I've got to direct you guys, right?”

“Quin! Don't!”

But I'm already out the door.

I
race to the opposite side of the square and throw open the door of Ferguson's Music, where I find Dylan digging through a plastic bin propped on the front counter. I take a few steps inside, but he's too intent on his search to glance up.

“What are you doing?” a voice thunders at the same point the door flies open again.

It's Kiki Ferguson, with her wild orange hair and a vicious scowl carved into her face. But then again, in addition to her incredibly attractive tattling addiction, Kiki's always had a decidedly nasty streak. She probably frowns in her sleep. Growls with disgust at pictures of puppies.

It could only happen in small towns or soap operas (where the same fifteen characters keep bumping into one another over and over), but yes, this is the same Kiki from Advanced
Drama. And her family is the Ferguson in Ferguson's Music. And here she is. Staring at me and Dylan.

It's not just a nasty look that Kiki has on her face—it's protective, too. Like the old guy in the neighborhood who shouts at kids to get off his lawn. Which is beyond odd. Kiki has, since middle school or so, talked about Ferguson's Music like it's a burden. She's refused to work there, preferring instead to flip burgers at the Sonic off the highway in the summer. She wants to take over the family business like most sixteen-year-old boys want to take over their father's appliance stores.

What's she even doing here?
I wonder. Usually, Kiki spends as little time as possible on the square. Stops by every few months when her dad (still hopeful that she'll eventually take an interest in the store, passed down for the last three generations) ropes her into doing inventory.

I've always figured Kiki really did inherit the Ferguson music gene—that the lessons her dad forced on her (everything from guitar to voice to tuba) really did sink in. But like anyone else in Advanced Drama, she's never been the sort to form garage bands or post YouTube cover videos.

“T-t-t-ttttt—” Dylan attempts. “T-tt-t-tttttt-t—” as his sweaty hands leave silver streaks all over the glass counter. “T-tttttt—
ool
,” Dylan finally manages, at the same moment that Kiki reaches the counter.

“You know, Dylan,” Kiki grumbles, “if I wanted to cool off in a sprinkler, I would run through one.” She scowls, acting
as if she's wiping his spit from the side of her nose. In reality, she's sweating buckets from the unnatural heat that's settled across Verona.

He fishes an order form from his shorts and slides it across the counter toward Kiki, who keeps pawing at her wilted face. She smears her sloppy, gunky makeup until her cheeks look like pools of half-melted ice cream. He points at the form. “V-v-v-voi-c-ce t-t-t-
tool
.” He says the last word with such force, the overly long front of his hair bounces against his forehead. He shakes his head once to knock the sharp ends of his thick brown bangs from his eyes.

As he moves, a necklace falls out from the top of his T-shirt. It's a skeleton key on a cord. He grabs it, tosses it back inside his shirt.

But not before I notice.

“Why are you going through the orders yourself?” Kiki snaps. “Why aren't you waiting for Dad? He's in the back. He'll be out any minute. Besides, you fix instruments. You're not supposed to work the cash register.”

“C-c-can y-you j-jjjustt . . .”

“C-c-c,” Kiki mimics.

Dylan's shoulders sink. He is a bull's-eye, a clay pigeon, a punching bag. The easiest target in the entirety of Verona's public schools. Always has been. Anytime someone's upset, they feel free to stop ignoring Dylan long enough to take their
aggravations out on him.

“How are you going to manage that gig? Musical director. Please.”

“You don't have any other customers—nobody's around—so why don't you just give him what he wants?” I ask.

When Dylan sees me, he recoils like a wild animal who isn't quite sure, when you come out the back door to find him standing in your yard, if you're going to offer him a bowl of water or shoot him with a BB gun.

Kiki turns a set of narrow eyes my way. “Giving orders already? Settling into that director role? Must be really nice.”

I shrug. I have no problem putting myself in the way of Kiki's personality—which is a little like jumping in front of a honking Mac truck. I've had my fill of snippiness and nastiness. Cass is right—we've all had more than enough for one day.

“He's obviously paid for it, though,” I argue.

“And I guess you know all about running a music store.
I've
been around this place my whole life. Maybe not by choice—but still. He's going to have to come to me to rent any equipment he needs. Why not ask me to be musical director? Why put me onstage?”

There it is, the reason for this particular attack: she's upset about Dylan getting the gig she'd apparently wanted. Being musical director must look better to her than being assigned a role. Her frustration is spewing out everywhere,
like water from a busted hose.

Kiki glances into the bin, shakes her head. “The whole thing is dumb,” she mutters. “The Avery. Please. A fund-raiser for a corpse.” And stomps off, disappearing into the back.

“Th-thanks,” Dylan breathes, and stares at the bin.

“She doesn't like her assignment,” I say. “She probably only came to the square today to punish you for getting her gig. You're always here. You love this place. Which is surely why Mom gave you the musical director job.”

He nods limply, refusing to lift his eyes from the bin.

“If the world were fair, you'd be in line to inherit Ferguson's Music.” I try to chuckle.

Still, he stares into the bin. Like he doesn't want to look me in the eye.

“You didn't mean it,” I say.

When he glances up, a blank look on his face, I go on. “In the hallway. At school. You didn't mean it. That insult to Cass.”

He exhales with relief. Nods. “Sh-she ww-aas b-being rr-otten,” he says. “Wh-whatt sh-she sssaidd w-was ug-gly.”

“About you guys being stuck together?”

He nods, sticking his hand back in the bin of special orders.

“She didn't mean it in a bad way, either, you know. Just that you guys are in the same boat. We all are.”

“Tt-tell h-her I'mmm s-sor-r-ry.”

“I will.” I nod to his hand. “What is that thing?”

Dylan pulls out a horrific-looking tool with needles poking out the front. It almost looks like a tattoo gun.

“Vv-v-voice tttt-ool. F-for the pppiano.”

He eyes that tool in a way that makes me wonder how many times Dylan's dreamed of sitting on some paper-lined examination table, saying, “Ahhh,” and letting a doctor hit him a few times with his own voicing tool.
Voilà!
Instant fix. No more bearing the brunt of snickers. No more being an easy target—like the one that Kiki's turned him into.

But we're classmates. Not friends. We exchange polite hallway smiles. If one of us stepped on the other's toes in the lunch line, we would apologize and fall into awkward silence. We are not the sort who unload on each other—share a bunch of painfully private thoughts. The voicing tool is making us both uncomfortable. Instead of stepping on a toe, one of us has caught the other coming out of the gym shower completely nude.

I need to get this back to our comfort zone: acquaintance-level chitchat. So I smile and ask, “Are you working on a piano in the store?”

He shakes his head.

“Where, then? Is that what the key around your neck is for?” I bite my lip. That was dumb. Just as we were getting
comfortable again, there I had to go, prying in a way that polite nonfriends never do.

He puts a finger to his lips as he starts to pull away, heading toward the back of the store. “A m-mannn nn-needs hh-is s-secrett-ts.”