Jalopy by Wes Verde
New Jersey, 1928. All her life, Etta Wozniak has toiled on her family’s small farm on the outskirts of a lake resort town. After losing her mother and siblings to one misfortune or another, life has fallen into a rut of drudgery and predictability. That is until the day she discovers something in an unlikely place: an old car. Energized by the prospects of a world beyond the one she knows, she decides to make this her last summer on the farm. However, disaster has not yet come through with Etta, and there will be consequences for her upcoming departure. A recent college man, Art Adams, arrives in town for a family reunion. After years of moving from one city to another and avoiding conflict whenever it tries to find him, he becomes enamored with the lake. However, there is another reason for Art’s visit. He is to marry a woman he has never met, an arrangement made on his behalf and without his knowledge. More comfortable around numbers and machines than people, Art is reluctant to confront his parents. But if he decides to do nothing, he risks losing who and what he has come to love. In a small town of farmers and firemen, musicians and moonshiners, bossy parents, and barn parties, two people will come to understand what they must give up to have the chance to build something new.
