Roses Are Red

Chapter 05

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Summer

June 18th, 1957

Paul sat at the head of the table, a cheesy party cap on his head and a bright smile on his face. A chorus of people were singing happy birthday, including George and Samantha who stood inseparable from each other in the crowd of Paul's friends that surrounded the McCartney kitchen table. Jim McCartney followed Samantha's mother out of the kitchen. Maria held a beautiful cake, iced and baked to perfection while Jim shielded the fifteen candles on the cake with his hands. As soon as the cake was set in front of a giddy Paul and the song was finished, he took a big breath to blow out the candles. The room cheered and Maria sliced and passed around the cake.

Paul had a small circle of school friends he had invited to his fifteenth birthday party. Samantha and George were the two outsiders in the group. George was a year younger than all the boys there, and Sam, well, she was a girl. The pair stood in the corner of the living room with cups of punch in their hands. George had grown slightly taller than Samantha. He wore a collared shirt underneath a pull over green sweater and a pair of dark denim jeans that were folded up. His eyebrows were furrowed slightly as he looked around, and his hair was up in an Elvis style quiff. He had worked on it for a good ten minutes, trying to get it right. He was running out of gel for his hair, and needed to ask his mum for some money to pick more up.

"Paul's gonna get into yer cousin's band, y'know," George stated. The two boys had been working on Paul's Twenty Flight Rock rendition every day. George didn't really critique Paul much anymore, just sat next to him and read or plucked away at his own guitar. Samantha had gotten into the habit of lending George books. He enjoyed reading them, it was like reading bits of Samantha's mind. She would go on and on about the books she read and then he would read them, and understand her reviews and get to know a little bit more about the American girl. "He's got it down, and yer cousin will take him now that he's fifteen," George grumbled the last bit. He was a bit jealous of Paul's older age. He wanted to be in the band too, but Samantha had told him that John was staunch and picky about who he allowed in his band. She had also mentioned that John didn't know how to properly play guitar, and though she tried to tell John that he tuned his guitar wrong he never listened. George wasn't sure what to think of Sam's cousin John with this mix of information.

Samantha swirled around her punch like it was a glass of wine. "Well, John isn't stupid. If he wants a good band he'll take Paul," she said and glanced at Paul who chatted away with his friends from school, one of them being Ivan Vaughn, whom Samantha knew. It apparently was his birthday as well. John had introduced the pair of them when he had forced her to go to one of his first gigs at his school. Ivan was a lanky blonde boy who played the tea chest bass in John's band.

In one swift movement Samantha downed her punch and set it on the coffee table next to her. "Georgie, you'll get into the band too," Samantha leaned closer to George, "You're even better than Paul," she said lowly with a smile and George's face heated up.

He coughed and said, "Ta," with a nervous smile. He finished his punch as well and tapped his foot to the music that flowed throughout the small living room. Paul, who had excused himself from Ivan, made his way over to the two outsiders.

"Ivan said he'd introduce me to John, Sammi. Apparently their playing a show at the church on the sixth!" Paul exclaimed and Samantha scowled.

"I was gonna introduce you two at his next gig," Samantha said.