(Note: This story takes place 6 years before “Big Star”, which I published in the last issue of The Tempest.)

James was getting tired of faking his smile. 

Sitting in the park, behind a table with a sign that read “VOTE JAMES PILLMAN FOR MAYOR OF ROCKVIEW”, he slumped over and hid his mouth with his hand, just to allow himself to frown. He cursed under his breath.

Just then, his first visitor in hours stepped up to the table: it was his best friend, Bob.

“What’s up, Bob?” James asked, his voice dripping with disappointment.

“Rough day, huh?” Bob sighed as he looked down at the table.

His sad gaze passed over a pile of unwanted pins and stickers, and a clipboard with only five signatures on it.

“Why don’t you just call it a day, man? Let’s go do something fun,” Bob shrugged, trying to cheer up his best friend. “It’s Friday evening, people aren’t walking around out here anyway.”

“You’re right, they’re not,” James grumbled. “They’re at the other guy’s table. Giving him signatures.”

Bob sighed again as he leaned against the table. “Listen, James: instead of sitting here and pouting, why don’t you call Cora, and the three of us can go out to dinner?”

“Did somebody say my name?”

Over the hill, Cora herself came running. She held a ukulele in one hand and a bowl in the other. She was extremely cheery, like a ray of sunshine.

Cora was a new addition to the friend group. James and Bob had met her a month ago, and James immediately developed a crush on her. He was exceptionally bad at hiding this fact.

When she reached her friends, Cora said, “Oh, hey, James! I forgot you were collecting signatures today.” She added her signature to his pitiful list, before asking with fake enthusiasm: “How’s it going so far?”

James just scowled.

Cora glanced around the park, and James’ heart fluttered at the sight of the gears in her head turning.

“Lemme try something,” Cora said with a gleam in her eye.

She set down her bowl, and only then did James realize it was full of coins and dollar bills. Then, she sat down beside the table, positioned her ukulele on her lap, and started playing. She sang, as well.

James wasn’t sure if it was because he had a crush on her, but he thought it was the most beautiful song he’d ever heard.

Both he and Bob were awestruck when, like moths to a flame, parkgoers began crowding around the table, entranced by Cora’s music. What began as a tiny stream of people rapidly became a flood, a tsunami. 

For two hours, Cora put on a mini-concert right in front of James’ sad little table. 

When he arrived home that night, he had nearly 150 signatures. As he stood in his doorway, flipping through the pages on his clipboard, he declared to himself: “I’m in love with this girl.”

(To be continued…)