Marisol's flight arrived on time in Key West but her luggage was nowhere to be found. She waited by the baggage carousel for twenty minutes before finding an airline agent and filling out the lost luggage form, giving her grandfather's Key West address. With that accomplished, she waited behind a fence on the tarmac for Paul's chartered plane to land.
Paul had called from Canada earlier that morning. Hurricane Dora was churning up the East Coast, straight for their intended destination of Jacksonville. Key West was suggested as an alternate place to hunker down for the three days between concerts.
"That's perfect!" Marisol couldn't believe their luck. "We can stay at my Papa's place. All four of you, and Neil and Mal! And Brian if he wants to."
"Eppy never stays with us anymore. Not since the time in New York when he was photographed with a male escort and blackmailed and Capitol Records had to bail him out."
"All righty then. That was so much more information than I needed to know about Brian."
Brian himself called her thirty minutes later to get more information so that he could arrange for a twenty-four-hour guard by the front gate of the Hemingway home in Key West. With any luck, it would take the media and fans some time to figure out where the Beatles were hiding out until their show in Jacksonville.
As it was, no fans were waiting when their plane touched down in Key West. Only Marisol watched the Beatles descend the airstrips and race for two limousines. A bus waited nearby for the support bands and the rest of the entourage who were headed to a motel on the beach.
Over the noise of the idling engines, Marisol yelled for Paul, then Neil. Paul spotted her just before he was shoved into a limousine. He shouted at Neil and pointed to where Marisol was standing behind a fence next to a police officer.
Neil pulled her across the tarmac to the limousine behind Paul's. "Where are your bags?" he shouted.
"Your guess is as good as mine!"
Neil opened the door to the second limousine for Marisol and ran ahead to climb in next to the Beatles' driver.
"'Ello, pretty bird." Derek Taylor, the Beatles' new publicist, was sitting across from her and grinning in a slightly inebriated way.
"Hello." Marisol smiled back at him. "Good flight?"
"Bumpy as shite."
Both limousines came to a sudden stop. Marisol's door was thrown open, and Paul was outside. He pulled her to her feet. "You're coming with me, Beauty."
When they were in his limousine, Paul pulled her onto his lap. "Nice to see you," he said to her cleavage. "It's been a day. Mind if I bury my face in you?"
"No sex in the limo, you animals," John Lennon growled.
"Where to, dear?" Neil called from the front seat.
Marisol gave him directions and relaxed in Paul's arms. She was being driven to her Papa's house in a luxury limousine on Paul's lap, surrounded by tired but witty Beatles. There were worse ways to end a grueling day of travel.
While Mal and Neil unloaded luggage, Marisol dashed inside the mansion to make sure the guest rooms were ready and to chat with the faithful caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Sosa. Outside again, a trail of discarded clothing led her to the sounds of splashing and laughter. All four Beatles had stripped down to their briefs and were enjoying the enormous swimming pool. Marisol flipped on the pool lights with a big grin.
Papa had installed underwater bulbs for night swimming, and each bulb was so bright the pool seemed like it must be visible from Mars.
A loud cheer went up. With the lights on it looked like the Beatles were swimming around in a sea of green fire.
Marisol made her way past the hedge of gardenias blooming at the water's edge and laughed at the scene. The Beatles looked like luminous frogs.
Paul was floating on his back, grinning up at her. "Get in here, right now, Mari. This is livin'."
"I don't have a suit. Everything was in my checked luggage."
"This isn't a cozzie sort of pool, Mari."
She hesitated only a moment before stepping out of her sandals, stripping down to her bra and panties, and diving into the warm water. Paul swam over, shielding her from everyone else's eyes.
"Hello, Beauty. I've been waiting forever for you."
Sweet Mrs. Sosa soon appeared with an armload of towels. She returned moments later with a tray of glasses, Pepsi bottles, and two bottles of Scotch, which garnered whistles and shouts of approval from all the lads.
When they tired of swimming, they wrapped themselves in towels and collected their clothes. Marisol led the way into the house. She ducked into a bathroom to change out of her wet undergarments and into her sundress. When she came out, Paul was dressed in a pair of oh-so-tight grey jeans and no shirt. All she wanted to do was stare at him, but six pairs of eyes were staring back at her, waiting for her to play hostess. So she led them on a tour of the house, assigning bedrooms and pointing out the bathrooms and sitting room and finally the kitchen.
Marisol signaled for Paul to stay behind as the others wandered off to explore the wine cellar below the kitchen. Grabbing a set of keys from a drawer, she nodded at the back door. "Follow me, handsome."
"Anywhere." Smiling, he reached for her hand.
They followed a moonlit, grassy path to a steep flight of iron stairs that led to her grandfather's writing studio.
Paul wandered around the room, touching her grandfather's hunting trophies, the Spanish antiques, the set of ancient swords hanging over one of many bookcases. He stood in front of Joan Miro's painting, The Farm, depicting a Spanish farmhouse and farmyard.
"That's my grandmother's painting, by the way," Marisol said, frowning as she stood beside Paul, the two of them staring up at it. "He bought it for her as a birthday present. Then he borrowed it after the divorce and never returned it."
Paul gave a little smile and moved on, stopping in front of the black Royal typewriter sitting on a small Indian rug on a high chest. He tested one of the keys. "This is where he wrote all those books?"
She nodded. "Some of them. After the two plane crashes his back was never the same. It hurt him to sit for long periods, so he had to stand up to work. I remember coming up here and seeing him hunched over it, pecking away. I'd watch him until that witch he married would chase me away, telling me to be a good girl and go out and play."
Paul slipped his hand under her hair, his fingers resting against her neck. She leaned into him, loving the solid feel of him.
"He was in a lot of pain?"
Marisol looked around the room, a heavy sigh escaping. "Yeah. His back. And his stomach was never the same after he came down with dysentery in Africa, and he was depressed. Always depressed. And then he had a medical procedure done that my father believes made him unable to write anymore. And that was it for him. No reason to stay around."
"Genius is sorrow's child," Paul said quietly.
He pulled a sheet of paper from a stack on top of the dresser and rolled it into the typewriter. He pecked at the keys for a few minutes, then rolled the paper out, holding it in front of him. Marisol read over his shoulder.
Mary Soul by J.P. McCartney
Once upon a time there was a lonely boy in love with a beautiful girl. He captured her heart and lassoed her horses and spirited her away to his castle in England where they LOVED happily ever after. The End
"How did they get across the big pond?" Marisol asked.
"She flew them across. Obviously."
She nodded. "Obviously. This has bestseller written All. Over. It."
She folded the page and slid it inside a copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls and placed it on the bookshelf.
Back in the kitchen, she left the keys in the drawer without turning on the lights. Moonlight slid through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting the room in a silvery glow. She heard footsteps, and Paul slid his arms around her from behind and pulled her to his chest.
Her skin tingled under his touch. He gathered her hair and held it aside, his touch sending a shiver down her arms. He gently pulled the strap of her sundress over her shoulder and brushed his lips over the curve of her neck. Marisol tilted her head to the side, giving him room to kiss his way to her ear. She bit her lip as his breath tickled her ear. There was nothing she wanted more than to be close to him. All the uncertainty, all the waiting, it all faded away when she was in his arms again, his soft lips on her heated skin.
She turned and placed her hands on him, feeling the solid muscle under his bare chest. She pressed her body against his and smiled when she felt his muscles tense.
His hands trailed down her hips and cupped her ass, and in a swift movement he lifted her onto the counter.
Marisol wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him closer, her hands framing his face, bringing his mouth to hers. His tongue parted her lips and she groaned into his mouth. He slid his hands up her legs, his fingers pausing just underneath the hem of her dress.
Then he pulled away, breaking the kiss. "We need to talk."
Marisol panted, blinking at him. "We do?"
"Umm hmm. I've been thinking a lot about us lately."
The warmth of his hands sliding between her thighs sent quivers through her. She tried to concentrate on what he thought was so important to talk about right this minute.
"We can't go on like this, only seeing each other every few months. It's madness. I care for you a lot, and I think you feel the same. Do you?"
"Yes, of course..." She leaned in and nibbled at his ear. It was maddening to be this close to him after a month of waiting. He smelled so damn good. Like pool water and salt and Paul.
"I'm sick of living alone in that shitty flat. George and Pattie are getting a place together and Ringo is with Mo.." He leaned back, searching her gaze. "I need to know if you're ready to take the next step."
"The next...step?"
"I want you to move in with me."
"In London."
"Obviously."
She sighed, her thoughts spinning. Were they really going to have this conversation right now, when they could be rolling around in bed? "Um..."
He heaved a breath. "I don't understand why you're hesitating. We're happy when we're together. We don't even bicker. We're compatible, we fuck like rabbits, what is it you're so worried about?"
Marisol let her head fall against his shoulder. "I just...I don't want you to support me. If we waited until I turn twenty-one, then I would have an inheritance and I—"
His body tensed, his voice rising. "There is no bloody way I can go another two years like this."
"Ssh. I know." She pressed her palms against his skin, soothing him. "I'll talk to my parents when I get home."
"Promise?" Paul asked, tilting his head so their eyes met.
"Promise."
He moved in, nibbling on her lower lip, his body relaxing under her hands.
"Right then. My bedroom or yours?"
"Yours. The Sosas turn in early so..."
"I'll leave a light on for you."
In her bedroom, Marisol took a quick shower and dressed in her only sundress. There was a new toothbrush and toothpaste in the bathroom and a half-empty bottle of shampoo. First thing tomorrow she'd go to one of the little boutiques in town and buy a couple of sundresses and a bathing suit and definitely some underwear and maybe some mascara. What else was she forgetting? It hit her then. She emptied her purse on the bed, frantically pawing through it, shocked to realize her birth control pills were in her missing suitcase, which was probably spinning around on a luggage carousel in Des Moines.
Paul opened his bedroom door with wet hair and a towel in his hand. When he saw Marisol, his face split in a wide grin. He looked past her, checking the hallway in both directions, and pulled her into the room, kicking the door shut behind him.
He held a finger to his lips. When he kissed her, he was smiling so hard that their teeth clashed.
"Paul," she said, pulling away. "My birth control pills are in my lost luggage."
She watched his smile falter as he processed this information, and then it was back, brighter than ever. "You won't get pregnant from missing a couple of days of pills. Besides, that wouldn't be so bad, would it? We could get married, and then you'd have to move to England, and I'd have you and a whole farmyard full of animals."
"And a baby," Marisol added.
"And a baby."
"We need to use a condom."
"Whatever you want, love." He lowered his head and captured her mouth with his.
Her arms wrapped around him, feeling the soft dampness of his skin, running over the hard edges of his back, shoulder blades, his strong neck. His hair was still wet from the shower and she spread her fingers through it. The sensation that flooded through her was how right this felt. Their lips, the contours of their hands, the way his knees fitted between hers when they fell onto the bed. Whichever way they stood or lay or rolled, it just felt right.
When she heard Mrs. Sosa stirring around in the kitchen the next morning, Marisol was back in her own bedroom. She threw on the housecoat she'd borrowed from the housekeeper, belted it around her waist, and went to help with breakfast. It would take a lot of eggs and sausage and potatoes to fill these six Northern lads. Mrs. Sosa had coffee brewing and was already at work peeling potatoes.
When everything was ready, the sound of Scouse accents and male laughter led Marisol to the pool. She smelled an unmistakable fragrant aroma from yards away. There they were, all four Beatles with Mal and Neil on the far side of the pool, sitting with their feet in the water and passing a blunt back and forth. Six sets of eyes looked up at her.
Marisol eyed them back with her hands on her hips. "Let me get this straight. The lot of you smoke marijuana for breakfast now?"
Paul giggled. "Technically not for breakfast, Mari, because we still eat breakfast. It's more like before breakfast."
"I'm fookin' starving, me," George said. "What have you got to eat?"
Marisol shot a glance through the huge banyan tree between the pool and the high brick walls, where a police officer was posted to guard against intrusion by fans. One could only hope the breeze was blowing the scent of pot away from the front gates.
"So when did you start smoking the weed?" she asked Paul when he'd helped himself to a second plate full of eggs and sausage and Mrs. Sosa's homemade biscuits and gravy.
"In New York. It's so relaxing. Have you tried it?"
She rolled her eyes. "Of course I tried it. I'm in college, aren't I?"
"What did you think?" Paul reached for two more biscuits.
"I tried it one night with Donna and we ate everything in her refrigerator. Then we ate everything in her cupboards. I figured I should stop while I could still fit in my clothes."
Paul gestured to her with a biscuit. "Looks like you have some room to spare."
Marisol cinched the belt of Mrs. Sosa's house dress. "I have to find something to wear today."
There were shopping trips into town with Neil and short bicycle rides to the lighthouse, six blocks away. They discovered if they went out one at a time with Neil or Mal, no one paid much attention to them at all. It was when the four of them were out together they drew crowds. So far, no one seemed to expect to find the biggest band in the world hiding out in the Hemingway home in Key West.
Back in her room, Marisol changed into her new yellow bikini and a white and yellow polka dot cover-up. She spent thirty minutes on the phone with a series of Pan Am agents, the last of whom assured her they were hot on the trail of her missing suitcase.
The boys were all lounging by the pool. George strummed a guitar, and Ringo accompanied him by tapping on the arms of his lounge chair.
John looked up from his book. "'I've been expecting you, Mr. Bond,' said James Bond's mother after giving birth."
Marisol smiled. "How's the book?"
"Quite good. We've slogged our way through all the Bond books this tour. That means it's time to go home."
"My brain is thinking so much faster than I am right now," Paul said with bloodshot eyes and a dazed expression. "I need to write everything down. But I keep forgetting to write it down."
Marisol drew her brows together, examining him like he was one of her grandfather's sea specimens in a glass jar. "Are you sure about this..." She waved her hand in front of her face so she could breathe, "...this smoking all day?"
"Oh, yeah. I have a lot less problems with weed than when I get hammered with whisky."
"Well...maybe you could try not doing either one?"
John took the blunt from Paul and sucked in the smoke, holding it in a moment before blowing it out. "I claim the Hemingway defense, we all do."
"I can't wait to hear this one."
"As an artist and a writer, I'm a very sensitive fellow. But I am also a man, and real men don't give in to their sensitivities and cry like a bloody girl. Ergo I drink, and I smoke hash. How else can I face the existential horror of it all and still work?"
"That's the Hemingway defense?"
John nodded solemnly.
"It's brilliant." Marisol scooped her hair up with one hand, fanning her neck with the other. In her lost suitcase was a ponytail holder. The humidity down here had to be 100% right now.
"Mari, baby, you need to relax," Paul said, reaching for her hand. "Come here and smoke with me."
Paul was right about that. She did need to relax. She was 3,000 miles from home, no clothes, no birth control pills, no school books, no makeup, no...
"Give me that." Marisol held the smoke in her lungs as long as she could before she dissolved in a fit of coughing. "I don't want to cry like a bloody girl either."
She swept a half dozen empty Fritos packets off the foot of Paul's lounge chair and sat down between his legs.
"I think of it like an Indian peace pipe," Paul explained. "A few tokes and I don't want to hurt anyone."
"I still want to hurt the Pan Am employee who lost my luggage."
"Have another go," Paul advised.
Not being a smoker, Marisol didn't really enjoy the whole idea of inhaling. But watching the others get giggly together made her want to join in. Paul seemed more relaxed this afternoon than she'd ever seen him. When she thought about how many people wanted something from him, the ridiculous expectations he had for himself and the band, and how he was constantly on exhibition and being judged by the press and the entire country and now the world, she understood why they all needed to escape.
"Do you feel anything?" Paul asked.
"I'm not sure." She giggled. "I feel relaxed though."
"Good girl," Paul said, and Marisol thought that was hilarious. They laughed together. "I don't want to hurt anyone either," she admitted, her eyes widening in surprise.
"Have you ever noticed everything is funny as hell when it's not happening to you?" Ringo said, smiling through a haze of smoke.
"Makes me see things more clearly," Paul said, examining the blunt in his fingers. "I'm more creative now. I just can't remember to write shit down."
"We're all trying to stop drinking so bleeding much," George said. "Tisn't healthy."
If Marisol thought the Beatles were funny before, when they were high they were a four-part harmony comedy act. They finished each other's sentences and got each other's humor so thoroughly. She felt like she was at a tennis match, her eyes darting back and forth, trying to follow their conversation.
"I got Maureen lingerie for her birthday. 80 quid," Ringo said.
"80 quid? I'd have better luck in the bedroom if I just handed Cyn 80 quid," John said.
"Seems pretty effective," George said. "It would work on me. I go to the bedroom and you give me 80 quid, I'd do a lot of things I wouldn't normally do."
Paul giggled. "You peel off eight bills...how you feeling? Erm... open-minded, I'd say."
"Eh, I got Cyn lingerie once," John said. "I came home, she was wearing it, but she'd gotten cold so she was wearing a flannel robe over it."
Ringo groaned. "There's nothing that cancels out a sexy nightie faster than having to peel off a layer of your grandmother to get to it."
"Pattie and I were having sex one night and she says 'make love to me!' and I'm like...hmm? Do you mean, after we finish whatever it is we're doing right now?" George said.
John laughed. "Not now, we're doing something else. And, hate to break it to ya, but it's almost over, so...we don't have a lot of time to switch into new stuff."
"Eh, and makin' love sounds like you need to put on a suit and wear deodorant," Ringo added.
"She said 'make love to me.' I just left it in and stared at her real hard," George said. "Is that it? I dunno, I'm just taking a shot in the dark."
"Pun intended," Paul said.
"I don't know what it means to 'make love,' either," John said. "Pretty sure it means you don't try to put your finger in her ass."
"Oh my god, stop!" Marisol dropped her head into her hands, shaking with laughter. They were hilarious, but it was incredibly awkward hearing all of them talk about having sex with their significant others when she was the only female here. She wondered how much more Paul would be saying if she weren't sitting right here beside him.
Paul continued as if she hadn't spoken. "That's not making love. That's making boundaries...but it's still important. If you're gonna be in a successful relationship, you have to know what sort of business she runs back there." Paul ticked off the possibilities on his fingers. "All are welcome? None are welcome? You can play on the porch but you can't come in?"
John nodded. "That's a popular one. Some girls treat it like a restaurant that lets you smoke on the patio. Can we smoke inside? NO, YOU MAY NOT!"
Paul laughed. "How 'bout the patio? Aye, that's open all night long."
Marisol managed to stop laughing long enough to ask, "Is this gender-specific? How about your patio?"
"Not my patio!" John said, in an uptight Southern American sort of voice. "I'm a Christian!"
"I allow it," George said. "I used to not allow it. I used to be against it. I used to not allow smoking on the patio. Until one day a girl smoked on my patio."
"That changed everything, dint it?" Paul asked.
"She stuck her hand back there before I knew what was going on," George said. "I was like, 'hey, what are you...ahhhhh...all right...well I guess I'm into that now..." He waited until everyone had stopped laughing. "That day changed my life. And made my showers five minutes longer."
Ringo nodded in understanding. "When you might have company, you clean it like you're sellin' it."
Marisol laughed so hard at them her sides were aching. Sitting beside the pool with them was like a thirty-minute abdominal workout. Swimming not required.
When they weren't smoking weed or lounging by the pool pouring bags of Fritos into their mouths, they played cards and Monopoly and sang along with George, who constantly had a guitar in his hands.
In the late afternoon while the others napped, Paul and Marisol cuddled on the love seat in the sitting room under a ceiling fan and watched Fidel Castro ranting on the black and white television. They held hands and talked about the Summer and where they wanted to go together when the tour ended.
Later that night they had dinner as a group at Sloppy Joe's. George invited the pretty blonde singer Jackie DeShannon to join them.
Marisol had placed a call to the proprietor, who ushered them to a back room where he used to seat her grandfather. A round of mojitos appeared in seconds, followed by a plate of bacon-wrapped smoked scallops.
Ringo admired the enormous sailfish adorning the wall beside their table. "My Papa caught it," Marisol said proudly. "119 pounds."
Paul whistled. "That's a lot of stones."
The Beatles told war stories, moaning about lousy sound systems and crappy merchandise, loud hotel rooms, and terrifying airplane flights.
They shared highlights of their world tour and especially the nutty, ecstatic fans. Their flight to Hong Kong had to make several fueling stops. Paul tried to buy a few souvenirs at the airport in Karachi, Pakistan, but even at 2 a.m. shrieking fans appeared out of nowhere and he was forced back on the plane. "Who'd have imagined we'd be famous in Karachi?" he mused.
Paul said it was cold when they landed in Sydney in the pouring rain, but there were still thousands of fans there to greet them. The Beatles were paraded around in an open-topped milk truck and by the time they reached the hotel they were soaked to the skin.
"This soaking wet woman ran up to the back of the truck yelling, 'Catch him, Paul!' and heaved a six-year-old mentally handicapped child at me. I was drenched and not too steady in the truck and I barely caught the lad and he was terrified. The woman yelled, 'May God bless you!' I shouted, 'He's lovely! Great! You take him now!"
Paul scratched his jaw, an amazed smile on his face at the memory. "The woman ran after the truck until the driver saw her and slowed. She took her child, kissed him, and started weeping. 'He's better! Oh, he's better!'"
At least 200,000 fans lined the streets to greet them in Adelaide, Australia. Ringo recalled at one stop a crippled man threw his crutches away and shouted, "I can walk! I can walk!" And then he just fell over. "That's going to be stuck in my head for always," Ringo said.
The jelly baby throwing habit was out of control in Australia. "We're really fed up," George complained.
"I kept stopping the show and asking the crowds to stop chucking the damn things, but they just screamed and threw even more," Paul said.
"It's ridiculous," John said. "They even throw gift-wrapped packages. We haven't a chance to get out of the way."
"It's all right for you lot," Ringo said. "You can jump aside and dodge them, but I'm stuck at the drums and can't move, and they all seem to hit me."
John told a story about a twenty-year-old Liverpool lad who climbed the drainpipes in total darkness outside their Sydney hotel to the eighth floor and tapped on his window to say hello. "I knew before he opened his mouth where he was from because I knew nobody else would be climbing up eight floors. I gave him a drink because he deserved one and took him round to see the others."
The story of the Liverpool lad somehow reminded Paul how angry he was about the deejay in L.A. who had given out all of their Liverpool home addresses on the air. He was so angry he was reverting to his Scouse accent.
"What's he gone and done that for? Now our parents have thousands of letters and parcels that we're never gonna see, like, we don't even live there no more. What 'ave our parents done? Nothin', and they have hundreds of strangers showin' oop."
Ringo talked about the time in New York when a policeman mistook him for a fan and prevented him from dashing inside the hotel with the others. His shirt was ripped and his St. Christopher medal torn from his neck before the officer realized his mistake and pushed Ringo inside to safety.
Paul swirled the ice in his mojito, looking thoughtful. "Once on the European tour, we tried to go to a club. I ended up surrounded by 200 drunk Scandinavian girls, it was hell."
Marisol patted his knee. "You poor, poor thing."
They enjoyed another round of drinks and a seafood dinner before a young couple appeared at their table asking for autographs.
"Appreciate you not telling anyone you spotted us here for another day or so," Paul said, giving them a wink as he returned the paper and pen.
"Right," John said. "I'd say it's a matter of hours before our fans catch up with us. Legions of them are likely barreling down the Overseas Highway at this very moment."
"Better make the best of it then," Paul said, pulling Marisol onto the dance floor. Ringo and Jackie also ventured onto the floor. They danced to a rollicking live bluegrass band for three songs before they felt the excited press of the crowd closing in. Mal stepped up and cleared a path to the door.
"Neil! Settle the bill, would you?" Paul called over his shoulder as Mal pulled them out the door.
On Thursday they hired a 38-foot fishing yacht and took turns steering it out into the gulf. Paul pointed at the purplish-black belt of water only a few hundred yards offshore. "Why is it purple?"
"It's the Gulf Stream," Marisol told him. "The tide has pushed it in close. The plankton makes it look purple."
After a leisurely cruise, they anchored the boat in a cove and swam in the bath-like waters while Mal tended the boat. The beach was as soft and white as pancake mix. John surprised them all by turning cartwheels in the sand. They climbed an old watchtower and took pictures of each other clowning around.
Back on board, they poured Castilian wine they'd poached from the cellar into tumblers filled with chopped ice. Mrs. Sosa had sent them off with a shrimp and cucumber salad and custard pudding. They toasted each other while they sang along with early Elvis, whose voice was scratching from the portable phonograph propped on a shelf in the cockpit next to the wheel.
After lunch they napped on the boat, drifting into dreams, stretched out on the long cushions lining the sides of the yacht.
On the way back to the island they saw the sea turn black with porpoises. Marisol tried to take pictures with the Kodak, then put the camera down and watched worriedly when Paul and John shed their T-shirts and leaped into the water in hopes the wild creatures would swim up to them. Marisol held her breath until they were both safely back in the boat.
Mal steered them into the early evening sun, while they sat in the back of the boat protected by the long shade of the cockpit.
Fans had started to gather at the gate, although no one could imagine how they pinpointed where the Beatles were staying. A second police officer was now stationed outside. The Beatles signed autographs for a dozen fans on the other side of the high walls. Paul pressed a finger to his lips. "Keep it down, loves. This is a quiet neighborhood and we don't want to go getting ourselves evicted, now do we?" The girls squealed at him in response as he dodged away through the palm trees to the house.
After a light dinner and more of Papa's Spanish wine, Paul and Marisol cuddled in a hammock strung between two palm trees. Paul lay with his eyes closed, his head tilted back and to the side like a bird to catch the last of the afternoon sun. Marisol coiled one leg around him, listening to the rhythm of his breathing. The air was fragrant with gardenia blossoms, and the air was now cooled by a brisk breeze, the result of Hurricane Dora whirling away up the East Coast.
It had been an idyllic day, which made it even harder to come to terms with the fact that tomorrow Paul would be flying north to continue the tour, and Marisol would be on her way to California to have the discussion she'd promised Paul she would have with her parents. No way in hell was that going to end well, Marisol thought, but she quickly shoved that negative line of thinking away. They still had tonight and the simple bliss of falling asleep in each other's arms under a blanket of stars.