Beyond the Music

By Shannon Brown

Ellen left her life behind when she moved to Canada. Is she ready to start over with a mysterious stranger?
Summer 1966. 21-year-old Ellen Daniels has moved to Canada to help out her family’s business. She’s left everything behind and now the business is failing, she’s all alone, and she’s just learned her boyfriend’s been seeing someone else. Then one day an enigmatic stranger shows up. Ellen finds herself falling in love even though her mysterious new boyfriend has something to hide. Can she trust him, or will she get sucked back into the rhythms of the life she left behind in Indiana? Prepare yourself for a blast from the past with Beyond the Music. This stand-alone prequel to Rock‘n’Roll in Locker Seventeen is a fun fantastic tale of secrets, music, pop culture, humor and fun that will take you back in time and leave you wanting more.
This fresh and funny new adult romance won an honorable mention in the Writer's Advice Scintillating Starts Contest. It's a sparkling blend of music, romance, and humor, all in an unexpected retro setting. So settle in and fall in love with Beyond the Music today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shannon Brown
• Release date: Mar 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370702206

Shannon Brown

Shannon Brown currently runs http://www.tshirtfort.com a funny online t-shirt and gift website, She holds a B.A. in communications from Chico State University. Shannon lives in the Bay Area.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Oh Canada Indeed

As I sat atop my old rickety white desk, I fantasized about my escape. Dad’s ’62 Buick was parked beneath my window. All I need to do is grab the keys and drive. Once I cross the border I will hop on a cross-country train in Seattle and be back home in a matter of days. Mom and Dad will understand. They’re not the type to press charges on their own daughter. I’ll simply leave the keys in the car for them along with an apology note.

I just hope I can evade the conductor long enough to reach Indiana. Maybe I’ll meet someone else on the train who can help, a dapper Cary Grant type like from a Hitchcock movie, but my age and not so straight-laced. A casual twenty-something Cary Grant wearing jeans and a t-shirt. That’s likely to happen, isn’t it? Yeah right. It’s about as likely as me actually getting up the nerve to borrow Dad’s car. Even if I do, no way is there enough gas to get me more than a block or two away from this dump.

I cracked the window open a bit and inhaled. I couldn’t smell many pines over the aroma of truck exhaust and machinery that emanate from the industries surrounding me, but at least I can see the mountains. Canada may be my prison, but at least it’s a beautiful one. Even our industrialized outskirt has majestic views once you look past the factories and junkyards that make up this neighborhood.

What kind of prison doesn’t even have smokes; I wondered as I listened to the sounds of the neighborhood waking up. A forklift was backing up and a large truck rumbled by. I longed for a cigarette. Sneaking a smoke was how I’d discovered this vantage point in the first place, but I finished my last pack months ago. I know it’s just as well since there are tons of new reports saying they can kill you, but one cig wouldn’t kill me, would it?

I pulled myself down from the desk and walked toward the kitchen. What mix of God-awful hash and ancient potatoes awaited me this lovely morning? Mom hadn’t made a decent breakfast in months, and judging by the odor of burnt something wafting into the hallway, today wouldn’t break her lousy breakfast streak.

Why don’t we drive to the city today? I said as I reached the kitchen. Mom was at the stove stirring up something in the pan with the charred bottom. She scrunched up her nose and let out a sigh. Perhaps she also hated the smell of her own cooking.

You know, how tight money’s been lately hon, she said as she scooped the unholy hash into a bowl for me.

We should head to Stanley Park again, I said as I grabbed the bowl. I’d gotten used to ignoring her constant money moans. Like how we used to after we moved here. We can go for a hike and get some fresh air. I’m feeling really restless.

It’s a Saturday, Mom said. Remember what Ray told us. Most people want to get their moving done on a weekend. We should stick close in case a van stops by.

Ugh, Ray. I hated that guy. With his little scrunched up eyes and a smirk that takes up half his fat face. I guess I would smirk too if I unloaded a tremendously unprofitable storage business to the first sucker that came along.

How ‘bout just me and you go. We don’t have to hit the park. We can do some window shopping over on Granville, Mom shook her head no like always. I’m going crazy over here Mom, I said.

I understand, Ellen, I really do, but the car is almost out of gas and your Father thinks it’s time to change the oil. All we need is one client. Then things will be better. If something happens to the car now, Dad will need to call Ray and borrow more money. Don’t you think he’s done enough for our family?

Yeah, Mom, he’s done enough, I said, as I wandered into the living room. Why did Dad choose a best friend who gets into even crazier business schemes than he does? Who even buys a business that’s not in the country where they live?

Northern Storage comprises three Buildings. One has the apartment, downstairs office, and smaller units while the others contain the larger spaces used by moving companies to keep peoples’ belongings safe until their new homes are ready to move into.

On paper, it sounded like an industry that even my father’s razor-sharp business acumen couldn’t mess up. All we need to do is hang around and make sure nobody breaks in. The moving companies are supposed to do the actual work; like hauling and loading all the stuff. Then they pay us. It all sounded easy enough. We should’ve known better.

It wasn’t until Mom, Dad and I got settled in and our work visas were taken care of that we realized the reason Ray Washburn was so eager to unload the warehouse in the first place. Turns out, three of the major moving companies built their own warehouses further out in the suburbs. Northern Storage only got their occasional overflow jobs so smaller companies made up the bulk of our business. They don’t give us enough business to pay Ray back let alone make a profit.

…

The hash was terrible, but I knew it would be. I ate two bites then tossed the rest, hoping Mom wouldn’t notice. I was in no mood to hear her food waste lecture yet again. After dropping the bowl into the suds, I headed downstairs. Maybe Dad would be more receptive to getting the hell out of here for five minutes.

Dad was in the office going through some receipts he stored in boxes left over from Valley of Shoes, our old store. He was grumbling as he did. Not a great sign. Look, Dad, I want to say. It’s not my fault you assumed Beatle boots are just a fad and bought way too many saddle shoes. Nobody’s worn those since 1957. I tried to tell you, but you’re stubborn and hopelessly old-fashioned. It’s 1966, not 1926. Instead, I asked him if we could go for a drive somewhere and he gave me the same excuses as Mom had.

Breakfast ready? Dad asked after he pulled out a paper, mumbled the words Lord, finally, and stuffed it into a file cabinet. Yeah but it tastes a little burnt, maybe we should find a restaurant instead.

Not gonna happen, Ellen, he said then brushed past me and headed upstairs. I reluctantly followed.

I wandered into my room and rummaged through my closet hoping to find one last smoke, instead, I found my Instamatic camera deep in a bin that contained a bunch of 45’s, a hand-me-down Raggedy Ann doll from my sister, and a rolled up poster of Ricky Nelson. Great, there was still film inside.

I climbed back up onto my desk and took three photos of the mountains. Then I headed downstairs and took a few snapshots of the dull industries that surround me every day. Next door is a warehouse that makes cardboard boxes, and down the street is a salvage yard where they take cars and crush them up into cubes. Salvage yard is just a fancy way of saying junkyard, but there are no decent vistas within walking distance, so I snapped away. Maybe someday these photos will end up in a gallery. The name of the exhibit would be: Still Life of Boredom circa 1966, or maybe Bad Life Choices: A Retrospective.

Not that they are my bad life choices. I’m not supposed to be living by a junkyard. This was never part of the plan. I sighed, sometimes life throws you a wrench you can’t dodge, and Canada was the world’s largest wrench.

After the closing of our shoe store, my parents went broke, and that’s saying something. We’re not temporarily in the red like after the closing of our sewing shop: Ted’s Notion Niche. It’s also much worse than the setback our Christmas tree lot experienced during the great Douglas fir shortage of ’59. This time things are serious. The Daniels’ family is on the brink of bankruptcy. Ray Washburn was the only one willing to give us a fresh start. Of course, Mom’s always quick to inform people that my father’s life’s been nothing but a string of fresh starts.

…

I originally moved to this dumpy little apartment with the understanding that I will help Mom and Dad out with the business for only a little while. It was supposed to be until the business was profitable, then I could move out and re-enroll in college, or settle down and marry my boyfriend Ned.

My parents like the second idea better. I suspect Dad regrets sending my sister, Sally to college. He probably thought the money would have been better spent on imitation leather wingtips, saddle shoes, and Doctor Von Polish shoe shine kits for our old store. Mom thinks the only purpose of going to college is to meet a man and Sally ended up marrying her high school sweetheart Mike and moving back to my hometown, Greendale Indiana.

I kept snapping photos until I finished the roll, then I took the camera back up to my room. I plopped myself and the camera onto my saggy mattress with a sigh. Who knows when I would get a chance to develop the pictures. Not that I care much about junkyard and box factory pictures. It’s whatever pictures are left on the camera from before I moved here I want to see. The film is probably full of shots of my friends at football games and pep rallies, or just hanging around town. Documents of my old life, a time now past but a place I’d give anything to go back to.

Chapter 2

Ellen Versus the Hippies

Ever since I moved here I’ve been lonely, and homesick. I miss Indiana and my friends. Western Canada is full of Americans but they’re not like my friends back home. I’ve seen plenty of them at the park. They’re all hippies.

While everybody at home likes normal music, the flower children are satisfied with listening to one guy play folk on a beat up guitar, or a drum circle. That isn’t even music. It’s just a thump, thump, thump over and over again. No, thank you. My friends are I into fun music. We like bands like The Animals, The Beach Boys, and Ricky and The Sleepers. The music they play on the radio or at school dances. My favorite songs are a soundtrack for cruising around town looking for something fun to do. The music I like has guitars that are plugged in and lyrics about relatable stuff like going on double dates or breaking up at the drive in. That happened to my friend Judy once. She threw her entire Coke on the front of Joey Malkin’s shirt afterward.

None of my friends want to live in a van and sleep in the mud. They want to get married, either to our high school sweethearts or to some new college beau who looks like Tab Hunter. We eventually want children, along with a house, a car, and a color TV. Everybody I know back in Indiana is normal.

Even if my father allowed me to hang out with the war protest crowd, I wouldn’t. You know how people say hippies never ever wash themselves? It’s true. They all reek, and they are rude to you if you’re not one of them. I have no desire to become a flower child. I’m a fan of personal hygiene for one thing and they are way too obsessed with the war.

Now I know you’re not supposed to admit this, but here goes. I pay as little attention to the war as I can. It’s hard to avoid hearing about it constantly. We watch the Seattle stations, and all Walter Cronkite ever talks about is Ho Chi Minh and parallels. I don’t get what the big deal is. I don’t have any idea what parallel Canada is on or Indiana either. Are they in the same one or are they different? It’s not like you go walking down the street and you see a big sign that says, You are now leaving the 33rd parallel-hope you enjoyed your stay!

The news is something I sit through while waiting for the Ed Sullivan Show to start. Ed is a major stiff in a suit but he always books the best bands. When he says it’s going to be a really big shew he means it. I’m usually thinking about whatever band is going to play while the newsman is talking about yet another battle in Ho-chi somewhere.

Maybe if I knew more army boys, things would be different but I don’t. I never hung out with any of the boys who got drafted. All the guys I know well headed off to college. Most of my class got into State or a private nearby college like Delacourte University. A few of the others went out of state, or they take classes at the junior college in Indianapolis. I was enrolled there myself but could only afford to take the bare minimum of classes.

Lewis Smallcliff was the only kid from my neighborhood who enlisted and the rumors swirled that if he hadn’t, he’d be headed to prison instead. Of course, I never knew Lewis well, so I don’t know if the rumors were true or not.

…

What always amazes me about Canada’s draft dodger crowd was how many girls there are. It seems like there are hundreds of them, hanging out in the middle of the park and living in those junky looking vans. I wonder where they came from. Are they all from towns where there are no cute guys? Instead of falling for their own school’s popular guys, hippie girls followed some guy named Moonflower all the way to Canada. I wonder if they are more attracted to the tangled long hair or the aroma of body odor. I would feel sorry for them if they are not so mean. One of them once yelled at me and called me part of the establishment. (Funny, don’t you need money to be part of the establishment?)

I have this theory about protest mobs. They start with one or two people who are passionate about the cause. Then a couple more people decide that one of the original protesters is cute so they pretend to care. More join for the same reason. By the time it becomes a full-fledged protest the only people who actually cared have either overdosed or went back to college to become bankers.

Since I don’t want to become a hippie and you can’t befriend them unless you are one, I’m stuck. I don’t know where to meet normal guys. No one lives in this part of town. We’re the only residence for miles. We tried attending church a few times after moving here but everyone was old. We stopped regularly attending because Dad became convinced that the moving companies wanted to drop by on Sunday mornings.

All I want to meet is a normal guy who likes good bands. Bands like The Lovin Spoonful, The Animals, the Kinks, The Vogues, or Jay and the Americans. He can even like outdated stuff like Buddy Holly and The Crickets.

He should be clean cut and have a great smile. He doesn’t need to be the big man on campus or the prom king, but he should be athletic and tan. I want the type of guy makes other girls jealous when he’s on your arm. Even stupid hippie girls. Especially stupid hippie girls.

In short, I still want Ned.

Chapter 3

Ned

Ned and I are still officially together, despite the massive geographical distance now separating us. I’ve yet to inform him my situation is not quite as temporary as originally planned. I thought I was going to spend the summer with my sister and enroll at Dexter community college in the fall. Dexter’s in the same town as Delacourte University where he goes. I’d gotten accepted there too but I can’t afford the tuition.

The plan shifted to spend the summer at Sally’s and worry about college later, but we don’t have enough money for the summer trip. Now I’m praying we’ll scrape up enough for me to spend a month at my sisters, or even a week or two. I’m so tired of our apartment that I’ll settle for one lousy weekend. I’m sure things will work out, once I return home.

Ned will take me out to dinner in the city at a romantic restaurant on top of one a hotel. If it revolves, even better. Once there, he will order a bottle of their finest champagne and pull out the ring he’s finally gathered up enough money to purchase.

I can picture the flickering candlelight and scenic vista below as Ned explains how his parents understand my family’s financial situation and are more than willing to pay for my dream wedding. My answer will be yes. Of course.

I will forgive him for waiting so long and making me move to a cramped apartment in a foreign country. I won’t point out how my life would be so much easier if he’d simply asked before I left.

Ned will explain how he only waited this long because he can’t afford a decent ring. Once he asks he will realize, the ring itself is not that important. It’s only a symbol, and when he gets me a fantastic one later, all will be forgiven.

I looked down at my naked hand and sighed. Outside I heard the chirp of a bird followed by a loud meow. Thinking about rings always brings out the paranoia in me. What if Ned forgets about me altogether? Canada is so far away, and he’s in college. While the only people I interact with on a daily basis are my parents and an emaciated gray cat who occasionally wanders our property, Ned meets new people all the time.

I sat up and tried to push all the negative thoughts from my head. So what if Ned is surrounded by blond college girls? So what if these girls don’t need glasses and are willing to give him all the experience he hasn’t gained from me? We are meant to be