And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 3: Today's Breakfast Menu: Eggs, Toast, and a Sense of Reality

"So, what are we doing today?" John asked, putting his hands in his pockets, turning his head towards me.

"What are we doing today?" I repeated. "We need to figure out how to get you back home."

"Why?"

The question struck me. Why? Because without you the Beatles would never have existed and we need them to exist, that's why. And I'd never know Paul McCartney. I swallowed these thoughts and said instead, "Because you belong back in 1960."

"No, this is a dream. And I don't want to go back yet." He hesitated, and then plunged forwards. "Give me a tour of the house, a tour of London, a tour of 2013, let me stay overnight. Then I'll go."

"All right, Lennon, you've got yourself a one off deal," I grinned. Then he spoke. "John. You can call me John."

***

I made him do the dishes.

"But it's the bird's job, Cora," he protested feebly, but I ignored this and tied an apron round him for fun. "Come on, you're already in the attire. I won't tell anyone, and you owe me for breakfast." He looked so funny, standing over the sink clad in black leather, his hair done up in the typical Teddy boy style, with a pink floral apron round his waist. I couldn't help but giggle as I reached out for my phone to take a photo of him. Suddenly I found a hand round my wrist. "You said you wouldn't tell anyone," John hissed, and I was scared for a minute, searching for the laughter in his eyes. I meekly nodded, and he released my arm.

"Sorry," he said shortly, reaching for the dish soap. My phone lay on the counter next to the sink, slightly wet. "If the lads knew they'd never let me hear the end of it."

I was silent. And then, "Because you washed dishes?"

"Told ye. It's not a man's job."

Slightly shaken, I breathed out, letting the air escape through my front teeth. "John, 1960 was so different than nowadays. It's actually barmy." He nodded. "I'm seeing that, love. Hey, we always make George do the dishes anyways, and he's a man of sorts... oh, you don't know about George, or maybe you do," he threw in. "You knew about Macca."

I tried to rearrange my Yes, I know about George Harrison face into a face that asked, Oh really? Tell me more?

"Ask no questions and hear no lies," I told him instead.

"I'm in a band," he said, leaning against the countertop while I dried the dishes. "Ain't got a name, but we're currently called the Silver Beetles," he said, throwing the Americanism into his phrase. The sun bathed his face in light, and I could see his eyes light up as he talked about his beloved band. He was still wearing his leather outfit from the night before and two different colored socks, one black and one white, having taken the boots off at my request.

"I want to be in a band too," I told him.

"Ye play anything?" he asked.

"Bassist," I said confidently, not expecting his reaction—laughter. "What? What's so funny?"

"Cora? A bassist? I mean, what we think when someone says bassist is a fat guy in a corner, not a teenage bird! Bass is one of the easiest and most idiotic instruments. No one wants to be the bassist. Stu is our bassist," he told me. "He can't really play—that's why he—"

"All right, Lennon," I said, dying to tell him the names of the world's best bass players: James Jamerson, Jaco Pastorius, and of course, Paul McCartney, but I settled for, "You stick around and see what happens to the instrument in twenty, thirty years." And your bandmate, I thought to myself.