INT. KESSLER'S DRUGSTORE, DAYTON - NIGHT (1945)

A jukebox plays a crooner. DOT KESSLER (16), bobby sox and saddle shoes, wipes down the soda counter. Her brother FRANK (22), in uniform, drops a duffel bag and takes a stool.

DOT
Hubba hubba. Look what the Army sent back.

FRANK
One tired dogface. I sweated out two months in a repple depple to get here.

DOT
Peg says you came home a real hunk of heartbreak.

FRANK
Peg's whistle bait. What happened to that wolf you wrote about?

DOT
Shot him down in flames. He was a book beater anyway.

FRANK
Scuttlebutt says you're going steady with a sailor.

DOT
Latrine rumor. Every bobby-soxer in town is khaki-wacky, and I'm not every bobby-soxer.

In a booth, a jive kid in a zoot coat can't stop staring at the door.

FRANK
And him?

DOT
Dame-dazed. He's waiting on Peg. It's all snafu around here, Frank.