Except for the background song, the bar was dead silent.
Dave leaned over and touched Richard on the shoulder. “I’ll back you if you need the help.”
“Yeah, me too,” Sandy said.
“Count me in,” Carl said. “I got some extra if you need it.”
“Me too,” Fred said.
“Not me,” Billy said. “I barely got enough to drink and eat and pay my rent to Fred here. But I’ll buy drinks if you’ll serve me.”
Everyone laughed then, including Richard. Then Richard turned to them. “Thanks. But with my job and low expenses, I’ve been saving for something like this for a very, very long time.”
He turned back to me and extended his hand. “Mr. Radley Stout, if things work out with your new girl, you’ve got a buyer — as long as that damned jukebox stays with the bar. We can’t be changing traditions now, can we?”
We shook hands as everyone cheered, and it felt as if a huge weight had just lifted off my shoulders.
THREE
JENNY FIT IN perfectly with the regulars at the Garden. She and Dave and Richard hit it off perfectly, and after just a few evenings, she told me she felt like she had always been sitting at the bar joking with everyone.
And at one point or another every one of my friends told me in private that if I lost this woman, I was dumber than a post.
I had to agree with them, even though Jenny sure didn’t look much like the thin, long-haired girl I had fallen in love with all those decades ago. Just as I had done, she had filled out, and now her once-brown hair was short and silver. And she tended to wear dresses more than jeans. And she wore glasses, those thin kind that professors wore.
She actually had been a professor for over twenty-five years, teaching music theory and history before she retired to care for her husband in his last year.
Her husband had been a building contractor, so she and Big Carl seemed to sometimes talk another language that most of us just didn’t understand.
After four days, it was clear she and I were going to be together for a lot longer if I could just get past one more hurdle.
Dave reminded me that I needed to tell her about the jukebox.
I had to agree with him. It was important that a future partner would know that I owned — and was about to sell — a time machine.
So once again I passed the word to my closest friends to come in early in the afternoon to help me out in case I needed it. And I asked Jenny to come with me to open the bar. I said I had something I needed to show her.
“This sounds serious,” she said, looking at me with those wonderful brown eyes of hers. Those eyes hadn’t changed at all, and her ability to really see me hadn’t changed either.
“It is,” I said. “And I hope nothing serious. Just something you need to know about.”
The night before we had talked about me selling the bar to Richard and how happy I was about that.
And sad at the same time.
She double- and triple-checked that I was telling her the truth. After the last few days, she could see just how special the Garden Lounge was to me, and how hard it was going to be for me to let it go.
I told her I didn’t plan on leaving the Garden forever. We would be regulars when we were in town. And I told her that every Christmas Eve we had to be there, no matter what. We could fly back to her kids for Christmas Day, since Oregon and California were only a few-hour flight apart.
I told her she would understand why after I showed her what I had to show her at the bar.
Christmas Eve at the Garden Lounge was a special time for all the regulars. It was the only time I ever turned on the jukebox and let customers go back to their memories. Richard had told me that even though he had never gone through the jukebox, he planned on honoring that tradition, and hoped I would be back every year to run the party.
So as I finished getting the bar opened, everyone sort of showed up at once, laughing with Jenny. All of them knew what this was all about, and they were all determined to help if they could.
So with Jenny sitting between Dave and Richard at the bar, I stood against the back of the bar and had no idea where to start. I just sort of stood there as everyone looked at me. I hadn’t bothered to turn on the stereo yet, so the weight of the silence made starting even harder.
“Tell her about the glasses first,” Dave said, pointing at the case over the bar.
I looked into the eyes of the woman I loved and then said simply. “You are not going to believe most of what I’m about to say, but for now just trust me. Okay?”
She frowned, clearly suddenly worried.
“Trust him,” Dave said. “He’s not totally nuts, only slightly.”
Everyone laughed and I took the key for the cabinet out of the register drawer and went to get the four glasses.
I took three down and left the other in the case.
Then I walked the fine drinking glasses down the bar, putting the one etched with the name Dave in front of Dave, another in front of Carl, and another in front of Fred.
“I made these glasses for these men ten years ago this last Christmas. I served them drinks in these glasses, and none of them remembers that night. Except Dave, who came back after I closed the bar. Long story, but what this is all about.”
“If you are trying to explain something,” Jenny said, “remind me to never let you in a classroom.”
“Now that’s a deal, Professor,” I said.
I pointed at the old jukebox, dark and sitting in the corner. “You understand the power of music. Music can take a person back to a memory, to an emotion, to an experience.”
Jenny nodded. “There have been many studies on the power of songs to trigger memories to try to help some patients with different forms of brain injury and diseases.”
Everyone was deadly silent, which wasn’t a normal state for the Garden Lounge, so I just blurted it out. “That jukebox actually takes a person physically to a memory associated with a song.”
Jenny looked at me frowning. Then she smiled. “Okay, what’s the joke?”
“Toss me a quarter, Stout,” Dave said, climbing off his stool. “She’s not going to believe you; no one does, until they see it. I’ll go visit Sandy being born again.”
I tossed him a quarter and moved around the end of the bar and plugged in the jukebox.
“Give us a minute to get earplugs in,” I said.
I quickly dug out the earplugs and handed each person a pair. When I handed the pair to Jenny, I smiled. “You said you trusted me. Just hold on for one more moment and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”
She was really frowning now, but she did as everyone did and put in the earplugs.
“Ready,” Dave asked, smiling.
I nodded, and he dropped the quarter into the machine and after a moment hit the number to the song that would take him back to the moment when Sandy was born.
I looked into the eyes of the woman I loved. “Cover your ears,” I shouted so she would hear. “And think of this moment right here and right now. Think of this bar. Okay?”
She nodded, and then the music started and Dave was gone and we were all still here.
“How?” Jenny said, but I could barely hear her through my earplugs.
I just held up my finger for her to wait and pointed toward the jukebox. Then I put my hand on hers, holding her solidly in the Garden Lounge.
The two minutes of the song stretched into an eternity.
Then, faintly, I could hear the song ending and Dave shimmered back into being, smiling.
We all pulled out our earplugs and Dave rejoined us at the bar. “You know,” he said to his daughter, Sandy, “you sure were a damn pretty baby.”
“You all right?” Sandy asked, just before I did.
Seeing his wife again had to hurt some. She had died a couple years back from cancer and we all missed her.
“I’m fine,” he said, taking a drink.
“So what the hell just happened h
ere?” Jenny said. “What kind of magic trick was that?”
“No trick I’m afraid,” I said, pointing at the jukebox. “That thing really takes people back to their memories. You end up inside the body of the person you were, only with old memories. When the song ends, you come back — unless you have changed something.”
Dave held up his glass. “One Christmas, ten years ago, Stout gave four of his best friends a very special Christmas gift. He let us go back and change something in our pasts we wanted to change. I went back and saved my wife from being killed in a car wreck; as a result, Sandy, here, and her sister were born.”
“That’s why we only turn that thing on for Christmas Eve,” I said. “And why we’re very careful. It’s very dangerous and can change a person’s life.”
I stared at Jenny for a moment, then said, “You still don’t believe us, do you?”
She looked me square in the eye and I could tell she was angry. A deep-down angry.
I wanted to throw up. This couldn’t be happening.
“You have to admit this is hard to swallow,” Jenny said. “And I don’t see why you would play this sort of trick on me, Stout.”
The silence in the bar could be cut with a knife, I swear. I could hardly breathe. Was I going to lose the only woman I had ever loved for the second time because of the jukebox?
“No trick,” I said, softly. “That really is a time machine.”
Again the silence became thick and smothering. I had to do something and do it quickly.
“Do you remember the song that was playing right after you told me about your job while we sat in the student union in Eugene?”
She nodded. “Longest song ever,” she said. “I was waiting for you to say something and you didn’t say anything.”
“Do you remember the name of the song?”
“It was a Mindbenders song about love. Why?”
I took a quarter out of the cash register and went around the bar to her side. I took her hand to indicate she should get down off the barstool. “Let’s go for a ride.”
She walked hesitantly to the jukebox. “Earplugs everyone,” I said.
Then I turned to the woman I love. “You can’t change anything while we are there. Nothing. Our older selves will be in control of our younger bodies, and our younger selves won’t remember our little visit. But change nothing, all right? Please. A lot of lives depend on it, including your wonderful children and grandchildren.”
She glanced around at the people at the bar, then nodded, suddenly very afraid.
I dropped the quarter into the jukebox and once again punched A-1.
A moment later I was sitting again across from the young Jenny.
Only this time Jenny’s eyes didn’t stay focused on the table in front of her as they had done the first time. They looked up at me, panicked.
The older Judy was in there this time.
Then she looked around, listening to the song over the sound system of the old student union, smelling the greasy fries and smell from the two jocks sitting far too close to us.
Finally she looked back at me. “Is this real?”
I nodded. “Can you remember your life with Stephen? Your kids being born? Your grandkids?”
She nodded, still looking around. “How is this possible?”
“There’s some kind of very advanced equipment in the jukebox I’ve never had the courage to touch. Somehow it lets the power of a memory from a song take the person listening to the memory.”
“And our young selves won’t remember this?”
“Do you?”
She thought for a second, then shook her head.
“This was our turning point the first time, wasn’t it?” she asked
“It was,” I said.
“If you had said you wanted to marry me, I would have stayed.”
“But sometimes things work out the way they are supposed to,” I said. “We weren’t ready that first time around.”
She nodded. “I would have been angry at you for making me stay.”
“I know,” I said. “And I would have been angry for you making me leave.”
“You’ve sat here before from the future, watching me, haven’t you?”
I nodded. “A number of times. It’s how I discovered the power of the jukebox.”
“And you never said anything? Never changed our future? Why not?”
“I loved you too much,” I said. “And then, after a while, I knew if I changed my future, a number of people wouldn’t be alive right now. And that was before I knew about your wonderful family.”
The song was slowly nearing its end.
“You are a very special man,” she said, smiling.
“Then will you stay with me this time? In the future, of course.”
“I want to more than anything. In the future, of course.”
I smiled. “Would you marry me the second time around?”
She looked around at the old student union and laughed as the song finished and we appeared back in the Garden.
She put her arms around me and said, “Yes, you stupid fool. Of course I’ll marry you.”
Then she kissed me in a way I knew I would never forget, song or no song.
And our friends in the Garden Lounge cheered.
This time, it was my life the jukebox saved.
Starting into a brand new series, USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith asks a simple question: What happens if ghosts can fight crime and bad guys?
Just fifteen minutes after Dr. Jewel Kelly meets Deputy Sheriff Tommy Ralston, they both die. They simply become ghosts, hanging around their own death scene in the mountains of Montana, waiting for something to happen. But even as ghosts they find each other still really attractive.
In life, they both worked to help people. It seems that in the afterlife, their job continues.
The strangest crime-fighting ghost duo ever. And the most sexy.
HEAVEN PAINTED AS A POKER CHIP
A GHOST OF A CHANCE NOVEL
For Kris
Long live popcorn for the brain.
Section One
THAT’S GOT TO HURT
ONE
TWENTY-SEVEN MINUTES before she died, Dr. Jewel Kelly stepped out of the front door of her small office in Buffalo Jump, Montana, and set her medical bag on the sidewalk beside her. She then made sure the office door was locked tight. With a control on her key chain, she triggered the alarm. She doubted anyone around this town would take anything, but better safe than sorry.
She picked up her bag, pulled her ski parka in close around her, and stepped over under the eve of Bernie’s General Store. Her little office was like an outbuilding off of Bernie’s store. Three rooms and a bathroom.
Enough for her to get the job done, but not by much.
She again set her medical bag down on a dry spot near the building and turned to face the small town and wait for her ride.
She was a tall woman at five-ten, with long brown hair she loved to keep pulled back, and green eyes people said could stare right through you. At twenty-five, she liked more than anything else to run to stay fit. And she loved reading a great romance novel. In med school in Seattle, she had had time to run, but not read.
Now she had more than enough time for both. She usually put in a five-mile run up near the high school every afternoon, staying off the main highway as much as possible.
The run every day at least made her feel alive.
A cold mist of a late April spring day covered the main street of Buffalo Jump, Montana, which was also a major two-lane north-south highway. The air had a bite to it, and she had no doubt that later tonight the mist would turn to snow and the road would freeze over.
She had planned to spend the night in her log cabin a half mile to the south of town, in front of a nice fire, sipping on a glass of white wine and reading the new Nora Roberts novel. Then maybe later, after a nice bath, she would have a date with her best friend, Mr. Buzzy. She had a hunch that in
Buffalo Jump, Montana, she was going to wear out good old Buzzy before she found a real man she wanted to date.
To her right and south was Jay’s Gas and Minimart, across from that was Carol’s Restaurant, a diner that actually had some pretty good food and was pretty clean. Beyond that, the two-lane highway disappeared off into the pine forest, now growing dark as the early evening wore on.
That was the road out of these mountains to Missoula.
To her left and north sat the twenty buildings that made up the main part of Buffalo Jump, including an old hardware store and some basic offices, two bars, and two antique stores to catch the occasional tourist who thought to stop.
She had been in the antique stores, but not the bars. She wasn’t much of a drinker except for a nice glass of good wine after dinner.
On the other end of town, she could barely see through the light rain the white tower of the only church, a Presbyterian church, whose basement doubled for a meeting room for the big town events. She hadn’t been in there yet either. She had never been much of a church-goer back in Boise where she grew up.
A sprawling red-brick school sat off the main street against a pine-covered hillside and serviced all grades for most of the county, with dozens of lumbering, bright-yellow school busses pouring in and out of town every day. There was even had a high school football team.
Her favorite running route was from her office, up past the school, out a dead-end gravel road for two miles, then back.
Right now she could run up the middle of the main street and no one would even notice. There was no traffic at all and just a few cars parked in front of the bars.
A typical late Thursday afternoon in small town Montana.
Silence closed in around her and she shuddered. Not even a slight wind through the pines around the town broke the oppressive stillness.
She pulled her dark-blue ski parka in around her, making sure it was zipped, then pulled her ski gloves out of her pocket and put them on. She could never seem to be warm enough here, except when sitting in front of the fire in her cabin.
Smith's Monthly #10 Page 8