Middle Falls Time Travel Series, Books 4-6 (Middle Falls Time Travel Boxed Sets Book 2)

by Shawn Inmon

  “Oh, this is way better than that. Billy Hammonds had a booger in his nose when he kissed me.”

  “I did not need to know that, but thanks for planting that image in my mind. I think I need to get inside, though.”

  “Mike said he’d come pick us up at two o’clock. What time is it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  They hadn’t noticed the young swimmer who had spoken to them before, but he stood a few feet behind them, fins in hand. He looked at a watch and said, “It’s 11:45.” He cast an appraising eye over Veronica’s rapidly reddening skin.

  “We need to get you inside. You burn faster on a cloudy day than you do on a sunny one.”

  “Now you tell me. Where were you when I needed you?” Veronica said, wincing.

  “I was swimming,” he said, holding out his own golden arms, “but as you can see, I didn’t try to get a finished tan in one day. You haoles want a lifelong tan on your first day on the island.” He reached a gentle hand out to Veronica, helping her up and examining her more closely. “We need to get you inside. If you can see a burn outside, it’s going to look worse once we get you out of direct sunlight. If you don’t mind hitching a ride with a complete stranger, I’ll give you a lift. Where are you staying?”

  “The Royal Lahaina,” Ruthie quickly answered, then extended her hand. “I’m Ruth.”

  Ruth? Really? You’ve been Ruthie since I met you in kindergarten, but we meet one cute islander, and suddenly you’re plain old Ruth?

  “Guy,” the young man said, “which I know sounds like a made up name, but I promise you that’s what it is.” He nodded at an early sixties Volkswagen van parked twenty yards away. “I can give you a lift back to the resort, if you want. If not, we should probably move you over under the trees to wait for the wiki wiki to pick you up.”

  Ruthie didn’t even glance at Veronica. “Oh, that would be so nice of you. We would appreciate a ride.”

  Sure, Ruthie. No problem. Let’s take a ride with a guy we’ve known for two minutes. I suppose if he kills us, I’ll just start over in 1958 again. I’ve still got the stocks memorized. I can do this again, right?

  Guy smiled at Ruthie, then glanced at Veronica with raised eyebrows. “Copacetic?”

  “Sure,” Veronica said. “That’s very kind of you.”

  Veronica walked a little like the Mummy—arms out from her sides, legs wide, trying not to touch her sunburned parts to anything else. Guy hustled ahead of her and slid the door to the VW open. As they got closer, Veronica could see the edges of the van’s body were rusting, and there was primer covering a few spots.

  Guy cleared out a scuba tank that was lying across the seat, then swept some other debris onto the floor. “Sorry, maid’s day off.”

  What am I going to do, leave you a bad Yelp review? “No, that’s fine, thank you.”

  Ruthie climbed in the front, then, while Guy was walking to the driver’s side, looked at Veronica and once again mouthed Oh my God!

  “We need to make one quick stop that’s right on the way, but I’ll be in and out.”

  Guy turned the van around and headed back toward the Royal Lahaina. Halfway there, he pulled off the highway at a small grocery store. “Be right back,” he said, and dashed inside.

  Veronica looked at Ruthie. “I see stars in your eyes.”

  “Pssh,” Ruthie said, but she didn’t deny it any further.

  A few minutes later, Guy emerged from the store with a grocery bag, which he set between the seats. “Next stop, the Royal.”

  He pulled off the highway and into the drive of the resort, circling around the parking lot and coming to a stop at the front door. Immediately, a valet stepped forward. Smiling, he said, “Are you a guest, sir?”

  Guy jumped out and ran around to the passenger side, where he opened the middle door. “Just delivering one of your haoles that got a bit burned.”

  The valet peered inside the van and saw Veronica, struggling to get out. He extended his hand. “Allow me, ma’am.”

  Veronica took his hand and eased out of the van. “What’s your room number, ma’am?”

  “273.”

  “I can’t leave my post, but let me help you inside. I have someone there who will assist you to your room.”

  “No need, I’m not crippled. I just got a little too much sun.”

  The valet looked her up and down, then said, “Allow me to get someone to help you.” Gently, he took Veronica’s elbow and helped her inside.

  Ruthie turned to Guy and said, “Thank you so much. I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t been there.”

  Guy reached into the van and retrieved the grocery bag. He reached inside and brought out a large bottle of vinegar. “Old Hawaiian remedy. Make her a bath. Cool, but not cold. Pour the whole bottle of vinegar in and have her soak until she is thoroughly pickled. When she gets out of the bath, let her air dry. Then,” he replaced the vinegar in the bag and pulled out a large bottle filled with a thick, green substance, “have her rub this gently over her burns. It won’t fix her overnight, but it’s the best thing for her.”

  “You are so kind, Guy. What can I ever do to repay you?”

  “Well, it was about four bucks for the aloe and vinegar.”

  “Oh!” Ruthie said, embarrassed, then dug into her purse. “Here’s a five. Thank you, again.”

  “Thank you,” Guy said, pocketing the bill. “Also, how about going out for a sunset swim with me?”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Veronica lay across the soft sheets of her bed, resting on her unburned backside. I will never fall asleep in the sun again.

  Doris insisted on asking the resort doctor to come and look at Veronica’s burn. When he walked into the room, he wrinkled his nose a bit and said, “Vinegar?”

  Veronica nodded.

  “You must have a local friend. That’s the number one home remedy here.”

  “That’s why we called you, doctor. You must have something better than that, yes?”

  The doctor put his black medical bag on the table, opened it, and withdrew a bottle of vinegar. “I was going to recommend this,” he said with a smile. “Did whoever told you about the vinegar also tell you about aloe vera, I suppose?”

  Veronica pointed to the bottle of green goop on the bedside table.

  The doctor replaced the vinegar in his bag, and said, “My work here is done. You won’t feel too well for another few days, but you’ll be up and enjoying our little paradise before you know it.”

  Veronica lay in bed for two more days. She watched as much television as she could stand and read whatever Doris brought her from the resort’s lending library, including James Michener’s epic, Hawaii.

  Meanwhile, everyone around her had a wonderful time. Wallace spent every day chasing a small white ball around endless yards of beautiful grass. Doris and Vera rode a wiki wiki into Lahaina, where there were dozens of shops, restaurants, and bars with decks that looked over the Pacific.

  And Ruthie? Ruthie had it best of all. She spent every day with Guy. Ruthie thought Guy was the best-looking man she had ever seen, and they bonded over their mutual love of swimming and snorkeling. Guy had been in the water since he was little more than a baby and Ruthie had a natural aptitude for it, albeit undiscovered until recently. He even promised her he would teach her how to scuba dive.

  On the third morning of Veronica’s imprisonment in her room, Ruthie brought her a breakfast of fresh fruit and her favorite tea. She sat the tray down at the end of Veronica’s bed, cast a guilty look in her direction, and said, “I’m being a terrible friend. I’ve abandoned you.”

  “Yes, you have,” Veronica agreed. “And for what? A washboard stomach, blue eyes to die for, and a sparkling smile straight out of a toothpaste commercial? How dare you?”

  Relief settled over Ruthie. “So you’re not mad at me then?”

  “How could I be? If Cupid’s arrow had struck me instead of you, you’d likely never seen me again.”

>   “Oh, it’s nothing like that. Just a little vacation fling, is all.”

  Veronica sat up in bed. “For you, or for him?”

  “For both of us.”

  “I have known you too long, Ruthie.” Veronica grinned. “I mean Ruth. What was that all about?”

  Ruthie shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve always thought it was kind of a little girl name. When I saw Guy, I thought that might be the time to make the switch. You can still call me Ruthie, though.”

  Veronica patted the bed beside her. “Here, come sit down and watch the Today show with me. Dr. Mom says I have to stay inside one more day, but I think she just wants to spend more time alone with your mom. They’ve been inseparable since we got here.”

  “You know, what your dad said the first night is true. All of this—your dad getting to golf every day, your mom and my mom becoming friends like this, me meeting Guy—none of it would have happened if it wasn’t for you. You’re like Cinderella’s fairy godmother, waving your wand and making magic happen. I hate to think what our life would be like without you.”

  “If it wouldn’t kill me, I would give you a hug right now, Ruthie Miller.”

  The next night, Guy and Ruthie invited Veronica to come out with them. They drove into Lahaina and went to The Outrigger, an open-air bar that had live music. The drinks were strong, the music was loud, and, no matter the best efforts of Guy and Ruthie, Veronica felt like an unnecessary appendage. After an hour, Veronica asked Guy if he would mind dropping her off back in Kaanapali. He did, then he and Ruthie drove to his favorite beach for a midnight swim.

  After that, Veronica spent more time with her mom, dad, and Vera. It was not as exciting as the nightlife of Front Street in Lahaina, but everyone soon learned that Veronica had another skill. She was a killer pinochle player.

  After a week at the resort, they went to the luau that was held right on the grounds of the Royal Lahaina. They invited Guy to join them. Everyone had fun, watching the fire dancers, drinking fruity drinks, and eating too much food.

  As they walked back toward their rooms, Guy said, “Thank you for inviting me. I have never seen a luau quite like that.”

  “Authentic then, eh?” Wallace said.

  “Mmmm, how can I say this? That’s more for tourists.” He snapped his fingers. “Hey, do you want to come to a real luau? I have some friends who are having one this weekend. Real luaus are a celebration of something. My friends are celebrating the birth of a grandson. They always say I can bring whoever I want, so what do you say?”

  “I say we’ll be there!” Veronica said. “Is it all right if all of us come?”

  “I’m sure it is. I’ll let them know. You’ll be the honored guests. I’ve never seen a real luau where there wasn’t too much food.

  THE FAMILY LUAU BORE almost no relationship to the show they had seen at the Royal Lahaina. There were no fire dancers. In fact there were no dancers, period, aside from three young girls who were showing off their hula skills. There was however, food. Lots and lots of food, although it was not food that the McAllisters or Millers had ever seen before.

  Instead of being on the manicured grounds of the resort, this luau was held in the back yard of the Kalamas. Their backyard wasn’t manicured. In fact, the grass was sparse and there were a few bare spots. It did slope right into the Pacific Ocean, though, which was tough to beat. An immensely long table had been built out of whatever materials were at hand, and it bowed slightly in the middle from all the food.

  A large man sat on the back steps of the modest house, playing the guitar. He had long hair, pulled back into an immense puff of ponytail.

  Ruthie and Veronica stopped in front of the guitar player and listened, mesmerized.

  “Never heard a slack-key guitar player before, eh?” Guy asked.

  “No,” both women answered in harmony.

  “I’ll just leave you here, then,” Guy said, moving down to the food.

  The guest of honor, week-old Kai Kalama, was passed around from person to person, each one telling the truth—that he was a gorgeous, happy baby.

  Each of the visitors tried poi, the Hawaiian delicacy, and although they loved everything else that night, none of them could manage a taste for it. They decided poi was something you needed to be born into. The rest of the food had names they weren’t familiar with—poke, kalua pig, lomi lomi salmon—but it was a variety of flavors that would stay in their minds forever. Months later, sitting around the dinner table, looking at a roast with mashed potatoes, Wallace McAllister’s eyes would grow distant, and Doris would say, “You’re thinking of the Kalama luau again, aren’t you?” He always was.

  As the sun set on the luau, everyone grew quiet. Red fire mixed with golden rays reached up across the sky, lighting the scattered clouds on fire. When the last of the sun disappeared over the horizon, everyone returned to their previous conversation.

  Long after dark, everyone piled into Guy’s beat up VW van for the ride back to the Royal Lahaina. Doris spoke for everyone when she said, “That. That was something we’ll never forget.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  They returned to Middle Falls at the end of the month, but for Ruthie it was a temporary stay. She did her best to put a brave face on during the flight home, but she was so miserable. That attitude didn’t improve with the passage of time, and by the end of summer, she gave up and made arrangements to fly back to Maui.

  As soon as she got off the plane, Guy dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him, so they would never have to be apart again. They planned a wedding for early 1966.

  That left Veronica living next door to Vera Miller. She loved Vera like a second mom, but it wasn’t the same as having a best friend to talk to about everything.

  Veronica spent her days managing her stock portfolio. She had branched out from betting on just her magical stocks and used her knowledge of what was coming to make many more good investments. She grew richer and richer, but was no happier.

  She did her best to get out and mingle, to meet new people, maybe even have a relationship, but nothing ever materialized. Now that she was a wealthy woman, Veronica found herself looking at each new man as a potential opportunist, and that did not lead to moments of shared intimacy.

  Since a relationship couldn’t be found, she decided to be a connoisseur of experiences. She visited Europe, where she rode the train as far in either direction as she could without running into unfriendly borders. She spent some nights in the finest hotels, others in hostels with teenage wanderers.

  In Spain, she gave a pregnant girl a thousand dollars to get back to America in time for her parents to see her baby born.

  She spent three months traveling through Africa, and another two months in Australia. She flew to Portugal just to watch a full solar eclipse. In the summer of 1967, she flew into New York, bought a ticket to a show at Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York. She watched Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, and the other legends do their sets at Woodstock. She even took an acid trip, accepting a purple tab from a friendly woman who was squatting behind the same tree to pee that Veronica was.

  She and the woman, whose name she never knew, sat well behind the crowd and let the music of Ritchie Havens wash over them. My life is one long acid trip, so why not do it for real?

  When Woodstock was over, she flew home, grateful for the hot shower and clean towels after a few days of being a hippy.

  The next day, she sat, once again, at her kitchen table, watching the squirrels eat. No matter where I go, I end up here, and that’s not bad. It’s not fulfilling, though. There’s always an emptiness. For the first time in many years, a dam broke and memories of Sarah and Nellie washed through her. I don’t even have a picture of them. I’ll never have a picture of them, because I will never see them again. She gasped at the almost physical pain that thought brought.

  What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to learn? If I’m supposed to be advancing on some pat
h I can’t see, I don’t think I am. She watched one squirrel chase another away from a peanut, even though there were dozens more scattered around the deck. I am a nearly-blind woman, walking an invisible path, using a flashlight with a weak beam to light my way.

  Finally, she walked down the block and had lunch with Doris and Wallace. She regaled them with tales of the sights she had seen at Woodstock, but didn’t tell them about the acid trip. They worried enough about her already.

  Lying in her bed in her lovely quiet bedroom that night, she tossed and turned. Her bedroom window was open, and she could hear the faint sound of the man-made waterfall and the cacophony of frogs and crickets that went with it. Those were her favorite sounds in the world, but on this night, they brought her no succor.

  Is it because I cheated? I used an unfair advantage to make myself and everyone around me rich. Is that why everything I buy, every trip I take, feels so empty? I suppose I could live this life forever, but I’m not sure why, or what I gain by doing so. I’ve experienced everything I ever thought I wanted, and still, it doesn’t make me happy.

  She didn’t sleep at all that night. As soon as the first rays of sun peeked through her blinds, she slipped a sundress and sandals on, grabbed a few thousand dollars from her closet safe, and left the house.

  Without talking to her parents or Vera, she drove to Portland and parked at the airport. She went inside and paid cash for a first class ticket on the next plane to Acapulco.

  She found some sense of peace and fell asleep as soon as the wheels lifted off the ground and slept all the way to Acapulco.

  Veronica stepped off the plane with only her purse. She hired a limo driver to take her to the same resort she had gone to with Ruthie a literal lifetime ago. She tipped her driver a hundred dollars, then turned and walked down to the beach, carrying her sandals and feeling the sand between her toes.

  It was well after midnight, and the beach was deserted. She dropped her sandals, shucked her dress off over her head, then slipped out of her bra and panties. She stood, naked to the world, invisible to everyone in it.