Yesterday's Stardust by Becky Melby Read Free Book Online Page A

Miss Chase Award? Feet on the ground yet?”
    A flash of her three-point landing, butt in the air, hands on the ground, with Dominick Fiorini kneeling at her feet, started a hard-to-squelch giggle. “No more head in the clouds. Just listened to a message from my mom.”
    “Always good for a reality check.”
    Resting bare feet on the coffee table, Dani settled back on a giant black couch pillow. “I’ll be a nothing until I write for the
New York Times.”
    “Keep strivin’.”
    She sat up and plucked an olive from what was left of her supper salad and stuck it in her cheek like a piece of hard candy. “I called to get… What’s the opposite of a reality check?”
    “A lie.”
    “Yeah, that’s it.” She chewed the olive.
    “No prob. You’re an average writer, a mediocre dresser; you’ll never be really successful, but you’ll be relatively happy; you drive like a girl, but you’re supposed to. People don’t mind inviting you to par—”
    “Stop!” The olive lodged halfway to her esophagus. She hacked it up. “I said lie to me!”
    “I did. You are a seriously brilliant chick, and if I wasn’t just swamped with girls my own age wanting to date me, I’d fall head over heels for your brain.”
    “Just my brain? Don’t answer that.” She picked up the diary. “I found something. In the trash behind China’s apartment.”
    “Perfect place to get story material. And rats.”
    “Thank you for that picture. Now shut up and listen to this.” She told him about the book.
    “Wonder how it got here from up north. What’s the date of the last entry?”
    “September 14, 1928. I didn’t read it, but she stopped in the middle of a sentence. How mysterious is that?”
    “Read me something.”
    “Here’s January 2, 1924: ’Mrs. Johnson gave us her Marshall Field’s catalogue. All the models look like Suze, at least the way I remember her. If I only drank water for a month and did calisthenics all day long, I could never look like her. It’s not fair, but doesn’t stop me from working on it. Maybe someday styles will change again and curvy girls will be the bee’s knees.’”
    “Hmm. She’s a workout freak like you. That really could be story material—how ‘what a girl wants’ hasn’t changed all that much in a hundred years.”
    She sat up straight, nerves tuned to the low hum of adrenaline racing to ignite with an idea spark. “You could be right.”
    “I am, generally. Hey, the guys are coming for study in a few minutes.”
    “Okay. See you Saturday? You’re going to the funeral with me, right?”
    “Unless some big story breaks, I’ll be there. Against my better judgment.”
    “I don’t need your better judgment. Just your camera.” The teakettle whistled and she lunged to stop the noise. “I don’t want to go alone.”
    “I’m amazed you’re going at all. You’re the bee’s knees, girl.”
    September 15, 1924
    Francie spit out a word forbidden by Miss Ellestad and threw her empty syrup pail at the ground. “One more month. Just one more month.” Four more weeks of sitting in front of Earl Hagen and his nasty mouth and she would be gone. She had her Christmas money. Four more Saturday nights of minding the Huseby children and she’d have enough for a train ticket. There’d be no Christmas presents for anyone this year, but Suzette needed her. Hugging her books to her chest, she ran down the hill, away from the laughter.
    A whistle split the autumn air. One long, one short. “Vait up.” Francie grabbed a low limb and swung around. Mad as she was, she almost laughed. She still wasn’t used to Theo Brekken’s man voice. When he’d left school in the spring, he’d been a boy like all the rest of them. When he returned, a shadow darkened his upper lip and a voice like his father’s carried across the room. A preacher voice.
    Plowing gold leaves with his boots, Theo half slid to the bottom of the hill. He skidded to a stop two feet in front of her and held out her