Spark (18 page)

W
e hear nothing the rest of the day. There's no word—nor am I even sure how word would come to us. Or what Mom's finding out. Or who she's calling.

Until the intercom buzzes.

My entire sixth-period English class turns their heads toward the old black box poised over the chalkboard. It's happening in every classroom, I think. Every set of eyes turning toward the old intercom boxes. A buzzing intercom all on its own is usually pretty good at stealing a student body's attention, but today, after the lightning strike, everyone's been saying: “Hey! Aren't you in drama? What about the musical?” Or “Tough break.” Or “Aren't you lucky?”

It's been on everyone's lips all day. Rumors have spread. Wrong info and “I heards” and flat-out untruths have caught
on—a different version after each class.

Talk about drama.

Now everyone's turning their curious faces toward the intercom, wondering if this is it—the official word. It has to be, doesn't it? The school day's quickly rolling to a close.

“If I could have your attention, please. . . .” It's not the principal's voice that crackles through the intercom—it's Mom's.

“No need to dwell on the obvious,” she announces. “We all know the Verona High auditorium was struck by lightning last night. What you don't know is that Advanced Drama is determined not to let it keep us from bringing you our production of
Anything Goes
. We mean to continue with our commitment to bringing attention to—and raising money for—the revival of the Avery Theater.

“One of my students has smartly suggested that we transfer tonight's show to the stage of the Avery. I have met today with two architects—parents of students here at our school—and the city building inspector, who's also a proud Verona High parent. They unanimously agreed that while it's looking worse for the wear, the Avery is, in fact, structurally sound. It poses no danger to the cast or audience. So the show will go on. At the Avery Theater, seven p.m.”

Around me, the class erupts into mumbles of “You've got to be kidding” and “How's that possible”—so much so that I almost miss Mom's final message. “And, per instructions from the costume department, the audience is to show up in their
finest vintage attire—whatever ‘vintage' happens to mean to them. Cast members, listen up: Be at the theater no later than five thirty. Be prompt—and bring your best
Anything Goes
attitude.”

My phone blows up the second the final bell rings. A flurry of texts pours in from everyone in Advanced Drama. And, surprisingly enough, the kids in choir. The art kids. And a couple of guys from the soccer team. All of them wanting to know what Mom's thinking.

Several of them want to know what
I'm
thinking. Because everyone in drama's blabbed that the Avery idea's mine. They're all acting like I've officially lost it. Their collective reaction feels even stronger to me than the way the town had once responded to poor, crazy Bertie.

When I don't answer right away, the sender shoots another text, quickly followed by another. I walk down to the parking lot with my nose in my screen. It stays there as Cass drives us to the square.

“What're you telling everyone?” she asks.

I sigh, lowering the phone into my lap. I know this is her own way of sending a text.

“I haven't replied yet,” I admit.

“To anyone?”

“Nope.”

“But when you do, though. What'll you say?”

“I don't know.”

“I mean—everybody in drama. We kind of need to know what we're doing here. What'll we do for costumes? They were in the auditorium. They're full of smoke now, and we're not allowed on the stage to get them, anyway. Quin? What're we supposed to wear?”

“Dunno.”

“The set?”

“Dunno.”

“Quin! The Avery was your idea!”

“I just—”

As she pulls to a stop in front of Potions, her eyes are pleading. But I have no idea what to say. I have no way to calm her fears. We've never talked about any of this out loud—not the Avery. Not the way she looked inside. Not the way Dylan spoke. Not about the bond that's been growing between them.

I shrug. “I'll see you in a couple of hours.”

“Quin!” she shouts over the putter of her VW engine.

I pretend not to hear as I unlock the door to Potions and race upstairs. So far, this afternoon, the Avery has cooperated with my wild idea. There's no rust on the door—at least, it let the inspectors and Mom inside. What if I mess up this whole thing? What if the Avery's listening, and I suddenly say the wrong thing? What if everything that's happening—this whole crazy, wild story—has brakes, like a train, and it could all come to a sudden, screaming stop right here?

I toss my backpack on my bed, more panicked than I've
ever been. I could actually hyperventilate—or have a stroke.
What am I going to do now?

I can hear the door swing. Mom's home.

And I need answers.

Even as she steps into my room, I'm reaching into my backpack. I need Bertie's journal. Her map. There has to be something—just one answer—in there somewhere. Something I missed the last time I looked at it.

Maybe it would help make Mom remember something.

Mom flops down on my bed. “What a day,” she sighs. “Quin, what in the world are we about to do?”

I tug out Bertie's journal, accidentally knocking out a yellowing envelope along with it. The one I found in George's apartment. I never did open it—in fact, I'd forgotten I dropped it in my backpack in the first place.

“It's for you,” I say, holding it out to her. “Trouble” is scrawled across the aged front, in a man's cursive writing.

“No one's called me that in— Where'd you get this?”

“The Avery,” I say.

“You were inside? How?”

“I, well— A skeleton key lock's easy to pick and—George's apartment—upstairs,” I babble. I don't care that I'm admitting it. In that instant, it doesn't seem like dangerous territory anymore, not with Mom—not like talking about the Avery's magic with Cass felt dangerous a moment before.

“There's money in here,” Mom says, tearing it open. And
a letter—on similarly yellow paper. I'm already looking over her shoulder as she gently spreads it open:

Little Trouble,

You have always been my other girl. The one who loved my theater as much as I did. I watched you grow, and I missed having you around—sticking your nose where it didn't belong. I'm giving you my precious Avery. You're the one who'll know what to do with it. After all, you're the one who said you'd sell magic hats when you were grown. Hats that transformed the people wearing them. What is that, other than a costume? You, I'm certain, will be my helper even after I'm gone. The one who will ensure the magic of the theater will continue on.

I'm also sending along Emma's college money. We saved it—bit by bit, in an old glass jar, always with the best of intentions, dreaming of the chance she would get to spend it. She never got to use it. You should have it.

I know you've always hated being little. I know you've never heard that word as I did—as a term of endearment. But Little Trouble, there are no small parts. And in my story,
your part is the least small of them all. I believe in you, as much as I believed in my own Emma, and as I always believed in the magic of the theater.

                                 
—George

She scrambles to get back inside the envelope. “The deed,” Mom says, astounded. “The
deed
? And three thousand dollars,” she continues, quickly counting it. “Doesn't sound like much now, but back then, it was huge. I'm sure it took forever to save that much. Emma had a scholarship, but she would have needed to buy books and clothes, and she'd have needed money to travel back and forth to visit her dad. I can't believe this. I own it?”

“There's something else inside, Mom.”

When she tugs the envelope back open, the item we see inside brings instant relief; the universe has come full circle. It's a sign that, as Mom might say, all's well that ends well. The cloth flower. The one I found on the balcony. The one she dropped the night of the accident. How it got in the envelope is the stuff of mystery, but I'm not questioning it. No more than I'd ever question any good turn of fortune.

The moment Mom touches the flower, the front of the Avery explodes. A shower of sparks flies across the entire square. The night sky returns. The marquee comes to life, proclaiming
in black letters and brilliant white light, ANYTHING GOES! Beneath the glow of nearby streetlights, graffiti disappears. Hedges are green. The grass is lush. The awning over the front walk blows in the breeze—instantly repaired.

Mom trembles, pointing. “I can't— Did you see—?”

“Of course I did,” I say.

She races outside; I'm on her heels, journal in hand.

Halfway across the square, Bertie's journal flops open. I watch as every last one of her handwritten words flies from the pages, straight up into the air. They hover, then slowly begin to blink over the patch of grass outside the Avery. Her words are fireflies, blinking and swarming feverishly.

I take a few steps down the front walk, marveling at the sight of Bertie's words. Just as quickly as they all fanned out, they congregate again, forming a ribbon that zips straight back to Bertie's pages.

I slam the journal shut, hug it to my chest. I don't know what this means yet, but I glance up and down the square, half expecting Bertie to emerge. She doesn't, though—and Mom's already stepping through the entrance, which has been left wide open, like an invitation. I'm shaky, but race to catch up with her.

Inside, the lobby is welcoming. The concession stand is full. The smell of butter wafts. As if freshly dusted, the chandeliers sparkle. On the opposite side of the large double doors, the rows of seats are plush. The velvet curtains have been drawn open,
revealing a stage with a gleaming wooden floor. The
Anything Goes
set is artistic—and complete—and unbroken.

Mom stands in the center aisle, mesmerized. I pass her, pointing to the rack on the side of the stage and shouting, “The costumes! Look! They're here!

“And the piano,” I go on, pointing toward the pit. “It looks new. This whole place is perfect.”

“But I swear it wasn't just earlier today,” Mom says tearfully. “When I was here with the inspectors.”

Overwhelmed and confused, we turn toward each other and laugh.

Relaxing my grip on Bertie's journal, I glance down to find that my name is in dark letters on the cover—now it's “Alberta” that's barely visible under “Quin.”

Standing on the stage, I open it and begin to read.

The words in her journal now make perfect sense. They've rearranged themselves outside and no longer sound at all like the rantings of a madwoman. I see Dahlia in these pages. I feel her heartbreak—which Bertie witnessed and described after Emma died. I see a little girl who thought she broke her promises. I see, too, that Dahlia broke nothing. She saved it, all of it—this journal and the map and me. And here we are, nesting dolls a step apart, here for the same purpose. There's no longer a need for a key.

I flip to the back, where my own words fill the last pages. Now I understand exactly what I have to do.

B
ut just because I suddenly know what I need to do doesn't mean I'm not terrified. It's like I've realized that in order to pull this whole thing off, I'm going to have to jump from a cliff, leap across a canyon, and safely land on the other side—while dragging the entire class with me.

When the first few Advanced Drama nobodies arrive, their footsteps clicking loudly through the theater, I step to the edge of the stage and shade my eyes with my hand. The footlights seem especially harsh—every bit as harsh as my fear.

I step out of the glare to find Kiki and Liz standing in the center aisle waving me over.

Yes. Kiki's here, and the Avery's still lit up and looking new.
This
is the right time. This is the moment it all comes together.
The moment that Bertie foretold all those years ago. It's happening, it's happening. . . .

“This was inside all along? Did you have any idea when you suggested we use the Avery?” Liz asks.

“How could this be? It doesn't even smell old,” Kiki chimes in. “It used to—” But she stops short of admitting she was here, interrupting Cass and Dylan's private practice.

“How can the neon sign outside still be working after all this time?” Liz asks. “Wasn't it broken?”

“Yeah!” Toby shouts as he bursts into the theater. “The electric's on! And I've got the screen.” He holds up a finger. “It's in my truck. Wait just a second.”

I remind Liz she has a job to do, pointing at the costume rack on the stage.

The first dress on the rack is perfect for Kiki. The next garment—a suit—works fine for Toby. He grabs it, then quickly rushes to attach his enormous screen to the rigging—with the help of the other two red ball caps, who have arrived as well.

The rest of the class trickles in slowly. And each time a new face shows up, it's washed in shock, confusion, even bewilderment—but never disbelief. How can you not believe something that's right in front of you? Especially when everyone else sees the same thing you do?

Up on the stage, Liz's eyes sparkle joyfully. Each time she
removes one costume, another slides to the front of the rack—and it's perfect for the next person in line. “Everything's the right size,” she keeps muttering. “How's that possible?” Then giggles. “Isn't it wonderful?”

Toby keeps calling me over, asking for feedback on his hopeless screen. “Is it straight?” he asks. “Are you sure?”

Between nods, I peek through a tiny gap in the middle of the now-drawn curtains. “Quiet! Everyone's coming,” I hiss over my shoulder.

I wave Liz over to take a look, too. They're all in vintage. For the most part, they appear to have pulled out a few old pieces from the backs of their own closets—or their parents' closets. Some of the parents are even in the letter jackets they wore years ago to parade through the halls of Verona High. Those faces from the school fire are all here—in their vintage garb, they all look just as young as they had the night of the lightning strike—and I feel it again: that sense that the story bubbling around us is ours, all together. Not just mine. Or Mom's. Or Cass's. It belongs to those who are flipping down their seats, settling in to watch the show, every bit as much as it belongs to those of us who are about to perform it.
Now
, I think,
if I can just present it in a way that makes them feel that, too.

The crowd murmurs, pointing at the gilded embellishments, the sparkling chandeliers, the floral carpet. The same cluster of choir kids who crashed our rotten first rehearsal
are all checking their tickets—the same tickets they surely bought weeks ago, when the announcement of our production was first made. They're pointing at seats, their ticket stubs matching up with the rows in the Avery—as though it were somehow predestined all along that this was where our performance would take place.

With no wisecracks—and too stunned even to think about getting out their phones—they settle into their plush seats. Eyeing each other. Shrugging. Shaking their heads.

When Cass arrives, her eyes are the widest of all. The Avery has never done this before, not to this extent—the lights, the perfect interior.

The dress now at the front of the costume rack is blue. A perfect match for the familiar pillbox hat with mesh resting on the top shelf, beside the mirror.

Cass's hand shakes as she reaches for the hat. Stepping before the mirror, she secures it to the top of her head. A shower of sparks tumbles down the side of her face, scrubbing her birthmark away.

“Cass,” Liz gasps.

Which draws the attention of the rest of the class. Suddenly, they're all talking, pointing. One races to pull the last person from the dressing room. But this attention doesn't sting. It tickles Cass into a round of laughter.

Dylan steps into view, reaching through the students who have clustered around Cass to retrieve the next garment on the
rack: Nick's jacket. The moment he slides into it, another puff of sparks flies from his shoulders.

“Should I warm up the piano?” Dylan asks me with no struggle or stutter or hiccup.

“Not yet,” I say. “I'm going to need you onstage. I'm changing things around.”

But hardly anyone hears me. Everyone's still marveling at what's happened to Dylan. “He— How?” they all ask.

I catch Cass's eye—she's waiting for my response. My shock, my hurt, even, that this secret of hers is in the open. I smile—and in that smile, I say,
It's okay, Cass. It makes me so happy to see you this way.
It all makes me happy—the new face she wears, the way it makes her feel, even Dylan. What's happening between her and Dylan makes me happy, too—no jealousy about it.

How can I be jealous when they obviously opened this thing up? Together, with their first impromptu performace, they unlocked the Avery. They unleashed that first burst of sparks and let me see the old theater in a new way. Dropped this new scene right into my lap.

Always before, I've taken others' stories and made them into something I could use—all those novels in my room becoming furniture. Now it's up to me to take pieces of others' stories—Bertie's and Mom's and Emma's and even Cass's—and string them into a story of my own. But can I? I never have before. Not out loud. Not like this. I start to sweat.
Noises trickling through the curtain from the audience sound louder than before—every murmur punches my eardrum.

And suddenly, I'm reliving the joy that found me as I scribbled new passages in the back of Bertie's journal at the same time I'm remembering Bertie's words:
This is a once-in-forever love that has the power to change the world around it.

This was Alberta's prediction for me all along—why my name was on her journal. My love of words—but is it enough? Can I pull off what I'm imagining?

Cass must read all that in my face, because I swear, when she smiles back at me, I see her saying,
You can. You have that kind of power.

Her smile fades as the lights dim.

“Who did that? Is the curtain about to come up?” Kiki asks. “You haven't told us what we're doing. If it's not what we practiced . . .”

Darkness explodes. The entire cast is backing up, eyes glowing like animals looking for a place to hide. Let's face it—we've never been good. We've had a few decent moments in rehearsal, sure. But any time we've even dared to think we were getting somewhere, the outside world—a radio station interview, a few comments under a YouTube video—would haul us right back into reality. For the most part, we've all been afraid of becoming an online laughingstock.

The curtains are starting to slide open.

It's showtime.

I step to the center of the stage, wearing a red-and-white seersucker dress. The same dress I saw on Bertie the first time we met face-to-face on the square. “Welcome to the Avery Theater,” I announce. “I'm Quin Drewery, the director—and”—I take a deep lungful of air—“the writer—of tonight's production. You all arrived tonight expecting to see the Advanced Drama class perform the original
Anything Goes
. But tonight we're going to be sharing another story, one that has been waiting a long time to be told.

“Our production is also called
Anything Goes
. But it's a story whose beginning is rooted in truth. In the past—in
our
past. What's past is prologue, as the Bard said. So we invite you to come with us as we relive the final tragedy that played out right here on this stage. A tragedy not of the page but, as I said, of real life.”

I take a deep breath. Open Bertie's journal as if to read from it. “It's June 1947,” I announce. When I sweep my arm out to the side, a shower of sparks explodes; in their wake, the square appears. The old square, the bustling square. Right there on the stage. All of it—the cars, the streetlights. On one end of the square, the Avery looks new. The class takes up the roles of the Verona residents of 1947, all of them racing from one store to the next, calling happily to one another.

The auditorium fills with gasps.

“This story involves a real-life Romeo and Juliet,” I
announce. When I point, Cass and Dylan emerge, both of them dressed as Emma and Nick.

Those scenes that we'd put together in rehearsal that had never seemed to have much of a place fit perfectly now. I hadn't been revising the boy-wants-girl story in the script as much as trying to find a way to write down the love story I'd been watching play out between Emma and Nick. Cass realizes it, too, falling right into the dialogue I've already penned and that she's already memorized. Dylan follows suit.

Another surprised murmur ripples through the theater. Her birthmark. His stutter. Both gone.

I take up the role of Bertie as narrator, pointing at the skies, saying, “This is a tale of star-crossed lovers. Ill-fated. But I know there's more to it. I know about the magic that exists in the world. If only you'll let yourself see it.”

A wild yellow streak bursts in the air above Cass. It snakes along the ceiling of the theater, swirling and cascading over the audience.

As their characters begin to fall in love, an electric-green light shoots above Dylan, dancing alongside Cass's yellow streaks.

“These are the same colors that rose from the horizon on that tragic night in 1947,” I continue in my storytelling voice. “The same colors I always knew could not be the aurora borealis. Verona's in the wrong place, after all—too far south. Tonight, though, we're all in the right place to bring them back.”

As we move deeper into the first act, the players lose any last semblance of clumsiness. They're no longer stiff or robotic. Cass's and Dylan's lights continue to curl about the air, and that somehow changes what the entire class thinks they're capable of. They're suddenly all infused with confidence, some of them even going so far as to exhibit a newly acquired swagger.

When I'm not on the stage myself, I hiss directions at my classmates, giving them the gist of the next scene, telling them what their motivation is before pushing them back out to perform. The colors of the overhead light show deepen, intensify as the story moves forward—the color of a first crush becomes the color of a first kiss becomes the color of not wanting to ever let go.

The cast's improvised words are spot-on, filled with just the right sprinkles of emotion. As though in answer, lights begin to rise from them: purples and pinks and blues, joining together in the space above our heads to complete the display.

The audience responds, giggling at Emma's clumsiness. Sighing as Emma and Nick grow closer. Clucking their tongues in disapproval when George tries to tear them apart. Shaking their heads at little Trouble and her meddlesome ways. Cocking their heads to the side, feeling sorry for Bertie.

The cast begins to feed off the audience—every response encourages them, makes them better than they were just a moment before.

Mom was right—they're rising to the occasion.

And she knows it. When I glance her way backstage, she's smiling. Tears glitter behind her glasses.

When the curtains fall on the first act, I'm anxious to see what the response is. I peek through the gap in the red velvet; the audience is visibly moved. The powerful last scene—the death of the two star-crossed lovers—has them dabbing the corners of their eyes. Shaking their heads. Murmuring to the person seated at their side.
I've got them,
I think.
They see what I see. Feel what I feel. We're doing it.

As Act II opens, I return to the stage, wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a white T-shirt, along with my cat's-eye glasses. “Now, we leave the past behind,” I insist. The set responds, following my instruction. The bustling square of 1947 turns into the empty, dilapidated square of today.

The audience falls into stunned silence.

Behind me, the entire class emerges, all of them in their normal daily clothes—red ball caps, jeans, Cass's vintage polyester maxidress, Dylan's black T-shirt and skeleton key necklace.

“How do you uncross stars?” I ask. Behind me, Toby lets out a yelp of triumph as his screen takes flight, soaring up into the air. The screen fades, as do the wires of the Christmas lights, replaced by a ceiling full of twinkling stars.

“How do you rewrite history?” I ask. “How do you fix something as tragic as Nick and Emma's story?”

I let my question hang beneath the aurora borealis swirls and the stars.

“You don't,” I say simply. “You don't rewrite history. You don't revise the past.” I couldn't—not even when I was crying out to Emma from the balcony, yelling at her to watch out before she took that final tumble. She couldn't hear me, no matter how loud I screamed. “You don't bring Nick and Emma back. You can't change what's already taken place.

“The past isn't just written,” I go on. “It's etched. Bertie's is. The Avery's is. You don't erase that. But if you keep moving, keep pushing the story forward, adding brighter sentences—then it isn't a tragedy anymore. The dark time becomes a sad scene in the middle of a tale of triumph. A sour note that can lead to a richer, more beautiful chord.”