by Shawn Inmon
They were sitting in their own house, in a neighborhood of other nice family houses. In fact, it was only a few doors down from where Veronica had woken up in what had been the Weaver’s home in 1958. It was a neighborhood full to bursting with parents and kids. Just as the Village had been the perfect home for them as newlyweds, this was the same for them as a family.
At that point, DJ had been working in construction for almost ten years. He had risen from gofer to foreman, and was making good money. He was also spending a huge amount of his life doing something he didn’t love.
“Let’s take a drive, honey,” Veronica said.
“Sure, let’s get the kids together, we can be ready to go in what, two or three hours?”
“It’s not that bad, and you know it. But, today, we are going without them.”
Just then, there was a knock at the door, and DJ’s mother, Maria, popped inside. She looked like she was holding a secret, but wouldn’t be able to hold it for long.
Veronica pushed DJ out the door and into their sensible station wagon. “I’m driving,” she said.
DJ narrowed his eyes at Veronica the whole time. He knew better than to try and get information out of her when she didn’t want to give it. They drove the loop that the teenagers still drove, then turned into Artie’s parking lot. Veronica pulled into the parking spot right in front of the door where she had carried thousands of trays to thousands of cars.
“The old place looks so sad,” DJ said. “I hate to see it like this.”
The paint was faded and cracked, and the overhead sign canted at a dangerous angle. Everything about the place screamed of neglected maintenance.
“It’s been like this ever since Zimm died, though. No one else could ever run this place and make it work like he could, even though he was a terrible bookkeeper. He was a great boss, though.”
“Let’s get out and look in the windows.”
“Why?” DJ said. “We already know every inch of the place.”
“You could humor me every once in a while.”
They peeked through the cobwebbed and dirty windows at the grill area, which looked sad and abandoned.
“I guess whoever owns it now will try to sell it again. I don’t give them much of a chance, though,” DJ said.
“Unless it’s us.”
“What?”
“I’ve been to the bank. Our credit’s good. We’ve got enough money set aside that the bank will give us enough to buy the place, and a little more to rehab it. If only we knew someone who was handy ...”
DJ’s eyes lit up. He took four steps back into the parking lot, looking at the place with new eyes.
“I think I smell smoke.”
“That’s what you always say when I’m thinking,” he said.
“So, what do you think?”
“What do I think about signing up for many hours of back breaking labor, followed by years bent over a hot grill, watching my wife, and eventually my kids, schlepping burgers out to the hungry citizens of Middle Falls? Well, I think that’s the about the greatest idea I’ve ever heard.”
THE HARDEST DECISION they had to make was what to name the place. They considered calling it “DJ’s, or “V’s, but they didn’t feel right. For the longest time, they talked about calling it “Zimm’s” in honor of Perry. In the end, they wanted to keep the history of the place intact, so they left it as “Artie’s.”
DJ wasn’t kidding about the long hard hours to get it back up and running. For the first few months, he continued working his construction job during the day, then putting long hours in at night. That saved their scant remodeling budget, but wore DJ down to a nub. He was still a young man—only thirty-six—but he was rapidly aging himself.
Finally, Veronica took him aside, reminded him that she had enough put away in their investment account to allow him to quit his other job, and he did. The work went faster, then, and Artie’s reopened in mid-November, 1977.
Veronica called down to KMFR and inquired if they would be interested in putting the old radio tower up and broadcasting live again on weekend nights. No one at the station had been there long enough to remember that, and frankly, they were a little doubtful it had ever been done.
As soon as Artie’s reopened, it was a hit. Happy Days was on television, and the whole country was in the mood for the innocence of the fifties.
By the time that fad had once again passed, Artie’s was back to what it had always been—a key part of Middle Fall’s makeup.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
From an outside perspective, Veronica and DJ’s life was an ordinary, if somewhat blessed, existence. All three of their children were healthy and bright. They all started work at Artie’s at an early age. Sarah was retrieving trays, emptying trash cans, and restocking soda cups from the time she was eleven years old. When she turned fifteen, she became Artie’s youngest carhop. Max and Nellie weren’t far behind her.
Eventually, all three of the kids held their weddings right there in Artie’s parking lot. Veronica and DJ made sure that everyone in town knew they were invited. There was no charge on those wedding days, and all tips went to the wedding couples. Between that and the envelope dance, they all began their married life with a nice head start.
Veronica and DJ became grandparents for the first time in 1989. Sarah blessed them with a beautiful dark-haired boy. She named him Dimitri, after the first man she had ever loved. Over the next dozen years, Max and Nellie chipped in with babies of their own. The crowds at family dinners grew.
Bunica lived to be over 100 years old, but finally passed away in 1990. At family gatherings, everyone agreed they could still feel her presence.
Both Wallace and Doris McAllister lived much longer in this life than they had in her first. Doris had a heart attack and died shortly after that, in 2001. She was eighty years old. Not surprisingly, when Veronica went into her childhood home to comfort her father, he handed her an envelope. On the outside, it read, “For when I’m gone.” She had made all the arrangements for everything well in advance.
Wallace was lost without Doris to tell him what to do, and wasted away over the next year. DJ and Veronica asked him to come live with them time and again, but he stubbornly stayed in the same house they had always live in. “It’s the nicest house on the block, you know,” he told Veronica, again. He, too, had a heart attack and passed away in 2002. He was eighty-two years old.
In 2004, DJ turned sixty-five and Veronica sixty-four. They knew they had run Artie’s long enough, and sold it to Nellie and her husband Kelly. DJ couldn’t stay away forever, though. He still came back to man his grill for a shift now and then, whistling along to the music and telling all the carhops they were beautiful.
In 2006, Veronica and DJ decided to travel while they were still young enough to enjoy it. They started in England and worked their way east across Europe, covering many of the same stops Veronica had when she rode the train across Europe in her previous life. They loved the trip, and Veronica particularly enjoyed seeing Romania, where so many of DJ’s family traditions had begun. When all was said and done, they realized they loved their grandchildren even more than they loved seeing the world.
They built a swimming pool in their backyard, which made them a popular destination over the summer months. They added a massive playset for the times when the sun wasn’t shining.
They lived a happy, fulfilling life that neither ever wanted to end.
When they were alone, they often spoke about what was next for them. Neither had any intention of leaving this life early, but when the inevitable time came, neither one knew what would be next.
One day in 2015, as they sat on their back patio, watching a grandchild do dive after dive into the pool. DJ said, “If we thought it would work, either of us could end our own life right after the other died.”
Veronica shook her head. “No. I think each of us will start over and find the body of the other, but not the spirit. Not the soul. I can’t imagine what it would
be like to meet you all over again, but have you not know me. That would break my heart. This has been such a wonderful life, but I don’t want to start it over again. Not without you.”
“Luckily, we don’t have to, any time soon.”
THREE YEARS LATER, Veronica felt a familiar pain. That it was still familiar to her across so many years and lifetimes of not feeling it, shows how memorable the pain was. With sinking hearts, they made her an appointment with their doctor, who referred Veronica to an oncologist in Portland.
They felt they were only going through the motions, but they did it anyway. The news they received from the specialist was exactly what they had expected, and it was terrible. Veronica was told that she would need to undergo chemotherapy first, then radiation treatments.
DJ and Veronica thanked him, but told him she would not seek either treatment.
I’ve been down that road once, and I will never do it again. I’d rather die naturally.
The oncologist then referred her back to her family doctor, who would see to it she was as comfortable as possible.
Initially, she didn’t even want to take the pain medications. She wanted to be as present as possible as she watched the final weeks, days, hours, and seconds of this perfect life slip away. Before long, the pain became too intense, and she had to give in and take the medication.
DJ arranged for all their living room furniture to be removed, and replaced it with a hospital bed. They didn’t bother with all the monitors and paraphernalia that would have given readouts every hour. They already knew the story those machines would tell, and they didn’t want to see it.
When Veronica’s final day arrived, their house was filled with friends, relatives, and the sound of playing children. It was exactly as she wanted it. Everyone who had ever known and loved her, lined up to say good-bye. When that ritual was complete, everyone stood around her and sang the songs she loved. The songs were happy, but they all knew they were singing her good-bye.
At the end, DJ leaned in close to her and kissed her deeply. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes set deep in their sockets. “You are my life, my love. In my heart, you will live forever. My life will be empty without you. But, I know it’s time for you to go. I release you. If there’s a way to find you when I follow, you know I will.”
Veronica smiled and took one last look around the room, soaking up the love. She spoke her last words. “Thank you, my love.”
Veronica McAllister died for the final time.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Veronica McAllister did not open her eyes in the Weaver living room in Middle Falls, Oregon, in 1958.
She had completed her cycle. She was stuck no more.
She went on.
The Changing Lives of Joe Hart
Typically, I have the cover of the next book in the Middle Falls Time Travel series in this spot, along with a link that you can use to preorder it. However, internet issues with my talented cover designer has resulted in me not having that cover just yet.
Instead, let me just tell you a bit about this book.
Joe Hart is a good, kind, lonely man. He is scarred from a horrible birthmark that covers most of his face. The scars he carries inside him are even worse. He lives a quiet, completely solitary life until he dies in 2004. His entire life barely made a blip on the world’s radar.
But, Joe Hart lives in Middle Falls Oregon, so like Thomas Weaver, Michael Hollister, Dominick Davidner, and Veronica McAllister before him, he opens his eyes at an earlier point in his life, all his memories intact. Given a second chance, Joe decides to live a life in every way opposite to the one he just completed. He will make changes—both for himself and the world at large.
The Changing Lives of Joe Hart will be available on July 20, 2018. You can preorder it here.
Author’s Note
As is so often the case, the inspiration for this book came from different places and conversations and were ultimately poured into the large cooking pot that I call my imagination. In some ways, this book started in late 2008—before I had even published my first book. I had a long lunch with my oldest sister, Terri, that day, and for some reason, she chose that lunch to tell me many secrets from her past.
The fact that Terri and I were sharing secrets was nothing new. We had been each other’s primary secret-keepers for more than thirty years. What was a bit unusual, though, was that there didn’t seem to be a driving reason for choosing just then to talk to me about what it had been like being a young woman growing up in the late-fifties, and being a young working woman in the early sixties. I was saddened by the stories she told me that day, particularly by how offhandedly she told them—as if there was nothing unusual in them.
Those stories stuck with me. Even though I never had a chance to talk with Terri about those things again—she died just a month later—I carried them with me, and I knew that someday I would write a story about some of those very things.
The second inspiration for Veronica’s story came from a review I got for the third book in this series. If you ever wonder if author’s read their reviews, I can tell you that most do. I certainly do. I like to know what elements are resonating with my readers, and what, if anything, is taking them out of a book.
This particular review was for The Death and Life of Dominick Davidner. I thought it was a great review, although it was slightly negative. It’s a great example of why I choose to read what my readers are thinking. This reviewer complained that Dominick was so single-minded in his goal of getting back together with Emily, his wife who he had lost at the beginning of the book, that he failed to see any other possibilities in his life.
I took that review to heart. I didn’t mind that Dominick was so single-minded, because to me, that was the heart of the book. However, it got me thinking about a story where they character was more open to changing who or what they were chasing. Veronica McAllister was that character.
Did I successfully synthesize the diverse elements of what it was like to be a young woman in the Eisenhower/Kennedy era with that concept of being open to change? I hope so. I did my best. Ultimately, that’s your call as a reader.
I do know this. I came to know Veronica in the months I spent writing her story, and I came to love her. I hope you did, too.
Up next in the Middle Falls Time Travel Series is The Changing Lives of Joe Hart. It will be the sixth book in the series, and for the moment, it’s the last one I have planned. I have loved writing this series, but it’s taken up every ounce of my creative energy for the last twelve months, and I’m ready to explore a few other ideas. Of course, if a killer idea that is perfect for Middle Falls comes barreling down my street, I’ll return sooner rather than later. There are always tales of redemption to be told.
As always, I have thank-you.
First, to Linda Boulanger from Tell-Tale Book Covers, who designed this cover. Linda was the first person I added to my publishing team, way back in the spring of 2012, and she’s still with me because she is wonderful. I give her a basic idea and she goes into her magic place and comes back with a cover that perfectly represents what I was looking for. I don’t know where I’d be without her.
I owe a great debt to my two proofreaders, Debra Galvan and Mark Sturgill. It doesn’t matter how many times I read over a manuscript, tiny little mistakes sneak through. It’s like a cosmic law. Debra and Mark do a wonderful job of catching not only my wayward typos, but also in fact-checking me at every turn. You guys are the bomb.
I have an Advance Readers Group on Facebook. If you’d like to join, drop me a line. My Advance Readers often read the book as I am writing it, piecemeal. The rest of the gang waits until I am done, then gives me an honest review of the book. I appreciate you guys and want to say thank you for helping me put out a better book.
If you’ve made it this far in my Middle Falls Series, I hope you’ll stick with me one more book. I have a few good adventures lined up for Joe Hart. Thank you so much for reading. You are the reason I write.
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Shawn Inmon
Seaview, WA
May 2018
Other Books by Shawn Inmon
The Unusual Second Life of Thomas Weaver – Book one of the Middle Falls Time Travel Series. Thomas Weaver led a wasted life, but divine intervention gives him a chance to do it all over again. What would you do, if you could do it all again?
The Redemption of Michael Hollister — Book two of the Middle Falls Time Travel Series. Michael Hollister was evil in Thomas Weaver’s story. Is it possible for a murderer to find true redemption?
The Death and Life of Dominick Davidner – Book Three of the Middle Falls Time Travel Series. When Dominick is murdered, he awakens back in his eight year old body with one thought: how to find Emily, the love of his life.
The Final Life of Nathaniel Moon – Book Four of the Middle Falls Time Travel Series. Nathaniel Moon gains perfect consciousness in the womb, but when he tries to use his miraculous powers to do good, difficulties follow.
Feels Like the First Time – Shawn’s first book, his true story of falling in love with the girl next door in the 1970’s, losing her for 30 years, and miraculously finding her again. It is filled with nostalgia for a bygone era of high school dances, first love, and making out in the backseat of a Chevy Vega.
Both Sides Now – It’s the same true story as Feels Like the First Time, but told from Dawn’s perspective. It will surprise no one that first love and loss feels very different to a young girl than it did for a young boy.
Rock ‘n Roll Heaven – Small-time guitarist Jimmy “Guitar” Velvet dies and ends up in Rock ‘n Roll Heaven, where he meets Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Jim Morrison, and many other icons. To his great surprise, he learns that heaven might need him more than he needs it.
