And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 49: I Feel Very Unintentionally Awkward (Dot, Dot, Dot)

"I'm sorry," I said softly, surprised at his quickly crumbling demeanor.

"Sometimes it's so hard," he said in response. I touched his shoulder and pulled him in for a hug, feeling frustration radiate off of his t shirt. "God I wish she liked you," he said, confirming my thoughts that were already there, whispering in my ear. "I don't see why she can't. I love you. Mimi'll like you if I like you, that was my logic. Oh if it only were that simple."

My annoyance with Mimi diminished as I saw John's frustration at bringing home friends, girlfriends, musicians, all bar none meeting Mimi's standards. It was hard to find someone who would meet her standards. After all, I began to understand, taking John away from Julia and Alf and raising him herself would make her very protective, ready to deflect the next stone of capable parenting thrown their way. Chin up, eyes dry. And John had rebelled in his own way, dressing in his Teddy Boy style, smoking cigs, skipping school, and of course, the Beatles.

I leaned up to kiss him. "Everything is going to be just fine," I said with conviction, looking at his face.

"You look like you're concentrating really hard," he laughed, and tugged gently on a strand of my hair. "Yes, Cora, if I'm with you, everything is going to be just fine."

I stiffed a little, not enough for him to notice, because his statement didn't line up correctly. Hell, I wasn't even supposed to be here. For the first time in a while I felt like an alien, a feeling familiar only relating back to Germany, where my doubts quickly descended into nothingness as the Beatles took over my life.

I brushed the feeling aside. "Come on." I took his hand and smirked back at him. "The boys will be wondering where you've gotten off to."

***

A lot of my time at the Casbah was spent watching the boys play. Of course, in the 1960s, this was the musician's girlfriend's duty, to stand and cheer and gaze in admiration at their boyfriends no matter how good or bad they might have been.

Luckily for John I didn't have to pretend. They were good. They were so good I couldn't take my eyes off of them, and I had been with them, what, five months? I jostled my way to the front and people saw me and moved, knowing I was with the band. As I made my way up to the front, John saw me and made a silly face.

"He's so sweet," commented someone next to me.

I glanced over to my right at a girl in a tight miniskirt and blonde hair in a high bun. She too was gazing at the musicians and from my view, I couldn't tell who she was looking at.

"Yeah, John is really sweet," I said carefully. The girl looked nervous for a second but I saw an excited smile pop onto her face. Her demeanor was no unlike Ivy, the girl I had met a few weeks ago, who for some reason stuck in my mind, so excited to see a female pop star. She introduced herself: "I'm Dot, Paul's girlfriend."

I hadn't actually met Dot Rhone before the tonight. "Oh. Oh! I'm Cora, John's girlfriend!" I said, suddenly happier for some reason, sticking out my hand. She reached out and we shook briefly among the crowded, sweaty bodies in front of the stage. "Cora. It's so good to meet you!"

"Yes—it's really nice to meet another girlfriend of a band member," she sighed, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. The strand swayed a little in the way that bleached hair often does, following its neighbor hairs, but also each individual hair with a life of its own. "It's nice, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I smiled.

At that moment, Paul called out, "The next one is for my girlfriend, Dot Rhone, my very own Peggy Sue!" And before I knew it, she was squealing and John extended a hand to me, as I climbed on stage I was thinking, didn't he just say Dot? The strap of Paul's bass went over his head and the instrument was handed to me. George's voice was a rough whisper in my ear: "Bass part. He wants to show his bloody arse off."