Shelter In Your Love (Beatles Fan Fiction)

17. Chains

'Come on,' Minnie says, sounding tired. 'We'd better start getting dressed.'

*

'I don't understand,' I say, perplexed, and more than a little uncomfortable. 'Why have I got to wear this, when you three are all in the same?'

We're standing, waiting, in the narrow passage way between the main studio floor and the dressing rooms. I lean on one wall and the other three of them - Bet, Cat and Minnie - lean on the wall opposite me. People keep squeezing past. We're clearly in the way, but there's some sort of delay.

We usually always wear the same outfit. Tonight the dress is the same style, but mine is a baby blue colour, and their's are dark purple. The show is broadcast in black and white but it's still going to look different. I don't like being singled out from the other girls like this. Since I started going out with Ricky, I have been pushed to the front of the group somewhat. We're supposed to share equal billing - or at very least it should be Cat and Bet. It's their group really. I don't like it when they try to make out I'm the lead. We all sing lead, but I'm usually the only one who sings with Ricky. I'm not alone in this opinion. Bet hates it too. She can't usually do much about it, but that doesn't mean she can't complain, loudly and frequently. Tonight though, she's strangely acquiescent about it.

'You look fine, Hannah,' Bet says, uninterested, looking off down the corridor. She leans with her hands behind her back, flat against the wall, Cat next to her. They look uncannily alike, except Bet always seems to have a sullen look on her face and Cat never seems to stop smiling.

'I think you look absolutely lovely,' Cat adds. She clasps her hands together. 'You're like... like Cinderella or something.'

She's behaving oddly too. Cat is daft as a brush at the best of times, but tonight she seems to have moved up a gear. She's the sweetest girl I've ever met. For every ounce of dourness and cynicism her twin has, Cat has ladles of positivity and love.

'Oh, Hannah, I can't w...' she starts but stops abruptly as Minnie, standing the other side of her, kicks her in the ankle.

'Give it a rest, Cat,' she says, though slightly gritted teeth.

Cat's face falls.

'Minnie! That was uncalled for!' I admonish her, feeling like I'm trying to control three unruly toddlers.

'She's getting on my nerves,' Minnie grouses.

'Say you're sorry,' I tell her.

'Sorry,' Cat trills. I look back at her, she's grinning like an idiot again now.

'I didn't mean you,' I say.

'Two minutes, girls,' a runner with a clipboard says, squeezing past, and Cat squeals.

'What's got into you?' I ask her, laughing.

'Nothing, nothing,' she says, giggling too. 'Just... I'm just a bit excited.'

There's no time to continue this as we're ushered onto the stage.

The show goes well, or at least, as planned. There aren't any terrible mistakes, no one misses a cue, even Cat manages to pull herself together well enough to sing note perfect.

The closing number is one of Ricky's old hits. He doesn't normally play his old ones very often, but for some reason he's insisted on this one for the last performance of the run. It's been changed around a bit, creating a backing part for us to 'Shoop Shoop' and 'La La' our way through, which wasn't there originally. The four of us stand stage left. The rest of the band are stage right. Ricky's in the middle, of course, playing guitar as he sings.