Middle Falls Time Travel Series (Book 3): The Death and Life of Dominick Davidner

by Inmon, Shawn

  “As a matter of fact, she has.”

  “What’s his name?” I know the answer, but I’ll just play along.

  “Charlie. Charlie Meeks. We haven’t met him yet, but he’s a dentist in the same clinic where she works.”

  Dominick had already been nodding in agreement, but stopped abruptly. “Wait. What? Charlie? Not Jim?”

  “Jim?” Laura said, puzzlement written across her furrowed brow.

  Dominick shook his head. “Never mind. I just heard you wrong.”

  Laura went on, telling Dominick all about this Charlie, and how well he and Connie got on. Dominick didn’t hear any of it.

  Charlie? I know things are different each life. Different things happen. But I’ve spent eighteen years in this life for one reason—hoping Emily will be here at the right time. That we are fated to be together. But, Connie and Jim were great together too. They loved each other. And now, she’s with the wrong guy. Maybe he’s the right guy for this life but he’s not Jim.

  “Did you hear what I said, honey?” Laura said, snapping Dominick out of his reverie.

  “Huh? Oh, sure Mom. He sounds like a great guy. I’m sure they’ll be cranking up the baby factory for you any day now.”

  “Oh, pshh. Stop it now.” She plucked a piece of garlic bread and wound a bite of spaghetti on her fork. “So, what’s next? You’ve got a good four year degree wasting away, and you’re gallivanting around the country playing firefighter and bartender. When are you going to get some use out of that diploma?”

  It’s like she’s playing all of Mom’s Greatest Hits. I guess it really has been too long between visits, so she’s got all her little nags lined up.

  “Actually, Mom, I’ve been thinking about settling down and doing some teaching.”

  “Well, praise the Lord!” Laura cupped her hands together and glanced to the heavens. That makes me so happy, Nicky.” She reached over and squeezed his hand. A thought occurred to her. “Oh! I heard from Janet at work that they were looking for a teacher at the high school here in town.”

  “Really? It’s August. They should have all their staff in place.” I was hoping to maybe sub this year and catch on next year.

  “They did, but Mr. Carmichael just recently became ill, and he’s not going to teach this year.”

  I don’t ever remember meeting a Carmichael at Middle Falls High. Interesting.

  “I’m sure they’ll be looking for someone soon, though. School starts in just a few weeks. Maybe you should go down and apply in person.”

  “Sure, Mom. I sure will.”

  “Oh, Nicky. It would be so wonderful to have you working here. It’s really a nice little town.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  The next morning, Dominick got up early, showered, and was dressed in his best “teacherly” outfit—khaki slacks and a blue button down shirt—by 8:30 am. He grabbed a quick cup of his mom’s coffee and jumped in his truck.

  Driving into town, on the familiar roads to the high school, he had an intense feeling of déjà vu.

  Keep it together. It’s been an eighteen year journey to get here, but I’m still freaked out that Connie is getting serious with the wrong guy. If I’ve lived all this time just to get this shot, then I find out it was all for nothing, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t do this again. I think I’ll go crazy if I try.

  He parked in the employee parking lot of Middle Falls High. It was still August, and school was out, but Dominick knew that at least some of the staff would be there, getting things ready for the new school year.

  He went directly to the office and recognized Sandra Mullins immediately. She had been sitting behind the desk of that office, keeping any number of different principles organized for decades. She had still been sitting there the last time Dominick had seen her, in his first life.

  Glad to see some things haven’t changed.

  “Hello,” Dominick said, as though he didn’t know her. “My name is Dominick Davidner. I’m a teacher, looking for a job.”

  Mrs. Mullins looked him up and down, then said, “How fortuitous. Let me get Mr. James for you.”

  That threw Dominick for another loop. There was no Mr. James who acted as principal, or anything, when I was at Middle Falls. So many changes popping up. Likely, I would have noticed them before now, but I was off breaking a new trail, so I didn’t.

  Mrs. Mullins came back from the inner office, accompanied by a short, heavy-set man. He was balding, but with a fringe of copper hair.

  “Mr. Davidner, Mrs. Mullins tells me that you are a teacher. We’ve had a bit of an unplanned occurrence this week, so I’m happy to see you. Please come in.”

  Once inside his office, Mr. James said, “Do you have a resume with you?”

  Dominick shook his head and said, “No, sir. I’m afraid this is a little spur of the moment. Until just a few days ago, I was living in Las Vegas. I came up to visit with my parents, and at dinner last night, my mom mentioned that you might be looking for someone.”

  “And, were you teaching in Las Vegas?”

  “Well, no.” Anticipating the next question, Dominick said, “I was a bartender there. Oh, and a blackjack dealer.”

  “But,” Mr. James said, searching for something, anything, “you have taught before?”

  It’s been a few lifetimes ago, but sure I have. I could walk you to my classroom right now.

  “No, sir.”

  Mr. James winced. “I see. So, no resume, no experience. You do have a degree, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz.”

  “Good! Well, that’s something.” He glanced at the calendar on his desk. “School starts three weeks from Monday. Our regular English teacher, Mr. Carmichael, has taken a rather sudden leave of absence. How are you with the subject?”

  “It’s what I love most.”

  “Who’s your favorite author?”

  “Vonnegut, but I love to teach Dickens.”

  “Very good.”

  Tough interviewer. I needed to know the names of two authors.

  “Well, marry in haste, repent in leisure. I’m sure you understand. We’re having a board meeting this evening to decide our path. I’ll be in touch with you. Please, leave your number with Mrs. Mullins.”

  Dominick said, “Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity,” shook Mr. James’ hand and went back to see Mrs. Mullins.

  He pulled out of the high school parking lot and checked his watch. Only 10:15. Way too early to go home and sit around the house waiting for his parents to come home. Without realizing where he was going, he drove to Middle Falls Elementary, where Emily had taught.

  She didn’t start there until 1988 though. We met at a district teacher’s meeting just before school that year. So, what’s that, then, another year? After all the waiting I’ve been doing, I can do that standing on my head.

  He drove past the school and pulled into the parking lot to turn around and head back toward downtown. Maybe see what’s playing at the Pickwick. Did they have matinees during the week?

  Then, Dominick’s mind went blank. Coming out the back doors of the school were two women, both carrying stacks of books. One was an older woman, with gray hair and glasses. The other was Emily.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Emily. You’re here now?

  He stopped the truck and jumped out. He jogged up to the two women.

  “Can we help you?” the older woman asked.

  “Actually, I was thinking I could help you. I thought maybe I could carry those books for you.”

  “Well, thank you,” the older woman said. “Are you a knight in shining armor, wandering the countryside, looking for good deeds to perform?”

  Think fast.

  “Actually, I just interviewed with Mr. James over at the high school for the English teacher’s position. I thought I’d drive around town and check out what the rest of the district looks like.”

  He risked one glance at Emily. Her hair was shorter than when
he had last seen her in Sheboygan. She was so lovely she stunned him into silence.

  Thank you, God.

  He did his best to recover his senses. “I’m Dominick Davidner. I’m new in town. My parents just moved here, and when I came to visit them, they told me about the job at the high school.”

  The older woman handed her stack of books to Dominick. “I’m Mrs. Bilas, Mr. Davidner. And I will never look a gift horse in the mouth. We’re carrying these back to the storage room in this building.”

  Dominick balanced her stack of books in his arms, then reached out, offering to take Emily’s as well. “Mrs, ...?”

  “Miss,” Emily said with a dazzling smile that warmed Dominick all the way down to his cowboy boots. “Emily Esterhaus.”

  Thank you...Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Bilas, and Miss Esterhaus.”

  The women led Dominick along the sidewalk and into a storage room. They indicated an empty spot on a shelf in the back and Dominick stacked the books neatly there. He dusted his hands against his khakis and said, “Is that it? Any more?”

  The two women looked at each other and laughed. Mrs. Bilas said, “Are you looking for a full time job today? We’ve got a few hundred books we still need to move. We had just been talking about seeing if the kindergarten class had a wagon we could borrow.”

  “Until my folks get home from work tonight, I am completely available. Feel free to use and abuse me.”

  “Well, Emily, if you’ve got this strapping young man to help you, I think I can go back to my own classroom.”

  Thank you, Mrs. Bilas. I think I love you.

  “Show me the way, ma’am,” Dominick said to Emily.

  “I am thankful for your help, but if you call me ‘ma’am’ again, all bets are off.” She stopped and squinted at Dominick. “I’d be willing to bet you are quite a bit older than me.”

  Dominick pointed at his chest and said, “27.”

  Emily nodded. “I knew it. I am only 26.”

  “Yes, that is a substantial difference,” Dominick said.

  Emily. It’s like we have never been apart. I love you!

  The two of them spent the next ninety minutes hauling dozens of copies of The World of Science and Primary Mathematics textbooks to the storage room, then unboxing new textbooks. Dominick had a difficult time keeping the smile from his face, but did his best. He didn’t want Emily to think he was mentally challenged.

  When the last of the books were unboxed, Emily said, “I think I owe you something for all this. Will you settle for a burger and fries at the Burger Pit?”

  I haven’t heard that name in three decades. Will I settle for the most delicious hamburger in three states with the most beautiful girl around who just happens to be the one true love of my life? You know it.

  ”The Burger Pit, huh? Sounds like my kind of place. I’ll go, but we’ve got to split the tab, okay? If my mom hears that I let the first beautiful girl I meet pay for my meal, she’d skin me alive.”

  They rode to the Burger Pit in Emily’s yellow Chevette.

  Man, these Chevettes. They’re small, but they make up for it by being slow. If you’re gonna drive one of these, you need a mechanic in the family.

  At lunch, they made small talk about Middle Falls. Emily told Dominick that she was new in town, too, that she had just arrived from Wisconsin to take this job teaching third grade. Dominick told her a little about being a fire jumper and working in the casinos in Las Vegas. He managed to get through the whole lunch without blurting out that he loved her, which he considered a moral victory.

  Lunch was finished much too soon for Dominick’s tastes. Before he knew it, they had thrown their trash away, and Emily had driven back to the school. She pulled around to the back parking lot and stopped by Dominick’s Ugly Truckling.

  “Thank you for all the help. I would have been at it all day. And, good luck with your job interview. I hope you get it.”

  “Me too,” Dominick said with a broad grin.

  Damn. What do I do? Ask her out? Ask for her phone number? Don’t want to be too forward.

  Dominick climbed out of the Chevette, then leaned down to say goodbye. When he did, he saw that Emily was jotting something down on a slip of paper. “Here,” she said. “This is my number. You can call me sometime, if you want.”

  “Sure will,” Dominick said, because those were the only two words in his head.

  Dominick got in his truck and floated home.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  At dinner that night. Dominick told his parents, “I met a girl today.”

  This was met with more excitement than when he had told them how his job interview had gone, at least by Laura. Joe mostly smiled to himself and kept eating.

  “Well, you can’t just say something like that and then leave it lying there. I need details!”

  “After my interview, I was just driving around town, checking things out. I turned around in the parking lot of the elementary school, and saw two ladies carrying heavy books, so I jumped out to help them.”

  “I always raised you to be a gentleman.”

  “One of them, her name is Emily, needed more help, so I stuck around her classroom and helped her get things organized. Then, we went to lunch.”

  “Well, that’s a good start.”

  Dominick nodded. “I’m going to marry her.”

  That got even Joe’s attention. He put down his fork, took a pull on his Budweiser and looked long and hard at Dominick. “You’re twenty-seven years old, and never even had a serious girlfriend, unless you’ve been hiding her, so you might want to slow down a bit. Go on a few dates. You’ve always been too impetuous. Marriage is nothing to take lightly. Not all pretty girls running around out there are as perfect as your mother is.”

  “But, Dad. How many times did you need to meet Mom before you knew you were going to get married.”

  “Once.”

  “What?” Laura said.

  This was obviously news to her.

  “I saw you at that dance. You were with that Falkner boy. I knew he wasn’t right for you. And I knew I was.”

  “The things you learn after 35 years of marriage,” Laura said. Her eyes twinkled at the memory.

  “So, doesn’t that prove my point, then, Dad?”

  “In a way, but I didn’t go around telling everyone I was going to marry your Mom, just because I knew it. Some things are better kept under your hat. You don’t want to scare ‘em off to early. Women are mysterious, divine creatures. Men, well, we’re not. So we’ve got to sneak up on ‘em a little bit.”

  Dad, the dating philosopher. Who knew?

  OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS, Dominick did his best to “sneak up on her a little bit.” He got the job teaching English at Middle Falls High, and he saw Emily every chance he got, but not too often.

  The last time I saw Emily, everything seemed so much harder. I had to pursue her. Every step I took was liking walking in wet cement. Everything I did pushed her further away.

  An image flashed through his mind: his father, back in their little one car garage, putting the tools away after working on a project. “A place for everything, Nicky, and everything in its place.”

  And, a time for everything, and everything in its time. I wonder why it took me four lifetimes to figure that out. No matter whether something is meant to be or not, it won’t happen until its own time.

  Dominick had moved off his parents’ couch as soon as he had gotten the job. He still had dinner with them a few times a week, but it was important to set up his own life, too.

  After they had been dating for a month, Dominick bowed to parental pressure and brought Emily home for dinner. He watched with a little wonder as his father met Emily. Joe reached out to shake her hand, but she would have none of that. She wrapped him in a hug that surprised him so much that Dominick laughed a little.

  You never had the chance to meet her, Dad. It means a lot that you can, now.


  Around the dinner table, Laura quizzed Emily—about her family, what college had been like, what Wisconsin was like, and, finally, whether she wanted to have children.

  Dominick tried to throw himself in front of the speeding train of questions, but Emily reached out and laid her hand on his. “It’s okay. Really. I’d love to have children.”

  Laura smiled at her, and Dominick could see Emily had her blessing. He never doubted how his dad felt. From the first hug on, he could see that Joe felt the same way about her that Dominick himself did.

  The following summer, Dominick took a job with a roofing company, just to bring in a little extra money. He followed his Microsoft stock in the newspaper occasionally, but it hadn’t really started to take off yet.

  Things change from life to life. Maybe a totally different company will take off in this world. Doesn’t matter too much one way or the other.

  He worked long hours putting roofs on houses that summer, because he wanted to buy a ring. He wanted something nicer than he had bought that fateful second time he had asked Emily to marry him, but he didn’t want to cash in any of his shares yet. He had other plans for that money, if and when it arrived.

  So he hammered nails in the sun, got a great tan, and stayed in shape that summer. He also squirreled away an extra couple of thousand dollars.

  On the one year anniversary of the day he had helped Emily stack books, he asked her to go to Portland with him, and to pack a bag.

  He made reservations at the Sentinel Hotel, and for dinner at the El Gaucho. Not coincidentally, these were the same places he’d had reservations on their tenth anniversary, which was thirty-seven years ago, from Dominick’s perspective.

  They checked into the historic hotel in early afternoon and got dressed in their best—Dominick in his one suit, Emily in a black cocktail dress that made Dominick wish it was something she wore more often.

  Even though they were in their late twenties, and Dominick was much older than that every way but physically, they still felt like little kids playing dress up as they walked through the doors of the El Gaucho. The interior of the restaurant was dimly lit, but the whole atmosphere, from the leather booths, to the deep pile carpeting, to the open beam ceiling, linen tablecloths, and candle light, made them feel like they were part of a fairy tale.