And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 76: I Come Bearing Gifts

    She still looked nervous. I didn't blame her, after what happened throughout the years, and I slipped a hand into hers. She nodded at him.

    "Hey Cora! You're missing this absolutely ridiculous looking band!"

    "Silly. That's Queen. They're bloody talented," Donna remarked as my father sent me to sit down with everyone else, marveling at their hairstyles. I heard my father's laugh all the way from the kitchen at the remark about the ridiculousness of Queen.

    "Is this like MTV?" I asked, feeling breathless with elation at what happened in the kitchen. Everything might be all right. June nodded. "It's like a time machine. Stuff from the past and all that." I turned my head to look at Charlotte, who had previously dismissed the channel. Her eyes were glued to the screen. Behind me, the music changed: a repeating F major piano chord. A switch in my brain turned on: I recognized this tune. I turned my head around and came face to face with someone who I hadn't seen for so, so long, a man with brown hair and large doe eyes wearing a purple velvet blazer. He was staring into my soul, but I didn't mind. In fact, I wanted it.

    "Didn't your dad used to play this stuff for you when you were small?" June remarked in slight interest at my expression, sipping from a Ribena bottle as Paul's melodious voice rose and fell in time with the song. I vaguely nodded. My father had played these tunes for me. The Beatles, mixed in with the Stones and a bit of Dylan, but back then my interest was just as muted as the interest in June's question. "So why the sudden interest now?"

    I didn't answer her. I was too busy staring at a Paul's large brown eyes, gazing at the camera, gazing at me as he told me to take a sad song and make it better.All I could see was the telly, our rather small telly but by the na na na part the scene had encompassed the whole room, bringing me into that studio into that very day where the Beatles were singing and right then and there the Beatles and the audience were as one. And then Hey Judewas over but I didn't want it to be over and then Michael Jackson was on, some disco beats in the background. I blinked, willing Paul to come back, but he was gone.    

    "Are you all right, mate?" June asked, leaning back against the couch from her position on the floor. "Your mouth is hanging open."

***

     Can one be in a perpetual state of happiness? I know that the answer is no, that there will always be something to bring you down from your high. But that's the thing. Without lows, you will never experience highs. I thought about that. I thought about a couple years ago at my birthday party where I had first really discovered the Beatles, and then embarking on a journey to love them until who knew when. And I was satisfied with them, with knowing them that way, until I got to meet them.

    Bloody hell! I still couldn't get over it. It had to be some sort of a dream sequence, but I was going to enjoy it!, I thought as I breathed in the scent of Mimi's detergent on John's sheets mixed with the scent of John, lying there in John's arms, my legs wrapped around his, my head against his chest. An afternoon nap I had just awoken from. Yes. I was at a high. I remembered June's words from so long ago when I asked her why she had never been in a relationship. "I know enough that if you let someone that close to you, they'll hurt you in the end."

    But he couldn't hurt me. How could he? The man beside me, looking so soft in the afternoon light before our show tonight at the Cavern. Him hurt me? Impossible. I smiled, and as if on cue he opened his eyes and brought a finger up to my mouth to trace my smile. "Afternoon."

    I laughed softly and brought my face close to his. "Afternoon." His half closed eyes suddenly became open with mirth. "You wretch!" He cried as my tickling fingers made their way under his soft black cotton t-shirt and lightly grazed the warm skin below, causing him to bellow with laughter and try to pin me against the sheets to stop my fingers. This was my John, the John only I and a select few got to see, and I loved him.