"You're in!"
Laughter, pats on the back, a toast from a bottle of champagne that Brian miraculously produced from somewhere in the confines of his desk. "We did it!" Paul yelled. "Cora, you brilliant bird—"
"We're gonna be fuckin' famous—"
"John," Brian reminded gently.
"—bloody famous, Bri!" John downed his drink with one hand and with the other squeezed my shoulder, his hand making its way down my arm and into my hand, squeezing it tightly. I myself couldn't stop smiling. I could't even hold my drink properly, Paul gently took it from my hand and placed it on the table. I took a look at him, cherub baby face, toothy smile, light blue dress shirt under his leather jacket. His engagement ring winked merrily at me as he poured himself another glass.
"All right, all right," Brian said. "We've got to discuss what exactly it is you must do for me now. It shouldn't be too hard. Just put those manners into play you hopefully leaned as children in grade school."
George in my ear: "Mum'll be so proud."
"Just give Brian her recipe for bubble and squeak," I told him back laughingly. "No need for manners."
The room held an air of excitement, and we all actually stopped chattering and gathered round Brian. "Now boys—and Cora—we'll all have you fitted for suits."
"Me too?" I asked.
"Well, no, you'll probably have a different outfit." Brian kept talking but I noticed the champagne bottle, it was glistening on the outside, the merry gold label looking wet and shiny. "We'll have a look in the catalogues to see what you get."
"So Cora gets a new on trend outfit while we wear suits?" Pete asked with a look of disappointment on his face, but I glanced back at the champagne bottle, which was definitely dripping and overflowing at a steady rate until the puddle on Brian's desk expanded to the floor.
My hand reached for John's. "Love? Do you see that?"
"Listen to teacher," he hummed and stroked my hand with the base of his thumb. The champagne dusted the floor a sparkly gold color, but it was rising and rising, the desk legs and file cabinet slowly being engulfed by the drink.
"We have to go," I said. "Does anyone see this?"
George frowned. "See what, love?"
"The... the champagne..." I glanced down and it was at my knees, golden and glistening. I reached down and scooped up its bubbly texture. I could feel it seeping through the fabric of my coat, through my stockings. "Brian?" I asked, but the liquid was up to my neck. "Does anyone see what's happening?"
"Let's discuss the details, love, and then we'll go out to lunch," John said, calm, and then I was under water. I tried to stay calm, reaching for John's hand, but it all went dark, and all I could hear was Brian's animated voice, speaking about the loss of swearing the boys were going to have to implement.
***
It took me a few minutes to realize I wasn't breathing, until I gave a deep gasp and tried to place myself. There was air. There was glorious air.
Shaky breath, shaky breath, shaky breath.
Dark place, soft place, not NEMS or under John's salmon bedspread in Mendips, but I was lying in bed, and where was I? The air smelled different, no more gold unbreathable liquid, but the sheets I was under felt familiar. I tried to move my legs and with a gentle jerk my left leg escaped the duvet and felt the air outside it.
I was still in my dress, the—
My hand made a grab for the fabric I donned myself with that morning and came up with cotton. A cotton t-shirt. My cotton t-shirt, the one I slept in the night—
Sharp breath in, something jabbed my inside like a knife, like the pocketknife John used to hit the taxicab driver in the leg, and now it felt like the driver had gone back with me and was stabbing me from within.
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh oh oh, oh no, no—
Was I still breathing? Come on, take another breath. Give me a sign, I wanna believe, that's a Britney Spears song, but she doesn't exist yet, and I can't possibly bring her up in front of the boys, but ha! That's not an issue for me. I'm well versed at avoiding talking about the future.
My hand felt empty.
"John," I said, testing out the reaction of the new air on my tongue. "You there, love?"
Something thick and dense rose up in me, waves of... panic? "I love you," I tried, then spoke a little louder. "I love you, silly. Come here. Where did you go?"
Empty. A shell.
My mouth snapped shut, locked like a mousetrap. I tried to move my arm, to feel to want the green olive coat I still had on, or my purse, but I couldn't move my arm.
No, you didn't leave him, you didn't leave him all alone by himself, you MONSTER—, you ABSOLUTE FOOL—HE WAS SO ALONE—
What had happened?
I... I had done it. I stuck my hand where it didn't belong, between the folds of the slightly yellowed pages of the boys in picture, my love sprinkled throughout the book. And then he was gone. But he could be taken back, right? I had mementos. I had proof that we had been together. But where the hell was my olive green coat and my purse?
My breathing quickened in pace. Move your arm, I told myself, but I couldn't. I took a short breath in through my nostrils and closed my eyes, hoping to calm myself and regain some form of movement. I felt so alone, no one next to me in wherever this bed was, so unfamiliar in my own home.
Something moved outside my door. My door. I realized I was back in my room in Chiswick, in the bloody twenty-first century. "Cora?"
I hadn't heard that voice in so long. Her slightly accented voice, like a television show character I haven't heard since I was small.
I opened my mouth to call out to her, but nothing came out. I frowned, but my muscles wouldn't move. Why couldn't I move? Mother, please come in to me, I need someone here to take my mind away from it all. Better yet call John. He could fix this. But could he fix something I had totally ruined? Waves of panic, waves of panic, sprinkling through me, making me shudder and almost gag. But then the door opened and she came inside. "Cora?" She stood in the doorway for a few seconds and it was bloody terrifying betting on her coming nearer and saving me from the deep, black darkness that was taking over my body.
Please come check on me, please.
She stood and then turned to close the door.
I concentrated, and then from my lips out poured a scream—my scream—a sound I had never heard in my life. I only vaguely remember yelling frantically, her standing, worried over me, her gentle hands trying to calm me down but it was hard. "Cora, you'll have to go to the hospital if you don't calm down," she said, hands stroking my hair, transferring her calm energy into my body. "Tell me what's wrong."
It took a few minutes in the dark room but she managed to calm me down, enough so that the neighbors wouldn't call the police.
***
"Tell me a story," I said, my mouth a haze of my blanket.
"About when you were young?" Mum asked me. She pulled up a chair from my desk and sat it next to my bed, taking my hand. My bedside lamp was switched on; it cast a warm glow into the room. I fingered the material of my t-shirt. I did not have my olive coat on or my stockings, so it wasn't—
"Tell me," I said again, interrupting my thought flow.
"About you or me?" She asked me gently. Her dark hair, tied in a loose bun, thin face that almost looked like Martin's grandfather. Cream colored pajama top with blue gingham pajama bottoms. A red oversized sweater.
I hesitated and then said, "You, please."
She thought for a minute and then gazed around the room. "You know, when I was small, I wasn't like you. You're so artistic. I wanted to study optometry. My sister was, though. She really liked the Beatles, just like you."
My jaw set. My fist closed over the covers and I heard John's voice in my ear: "Want a surprise tonight, love? You'll have to wait and see."
"Anyways, my father didn't like what she did. Being Chinese immigrants, you know, they wanted us to do well. Pam would go down to Carnaby street and buy all those colorful clothing and whatnot. I was born too young, though. She was seventeen when I was born. When I was five, she moved out of the house to try and work in the music scene. But Cora, it was fine for her. But for me, my parents didn't want that. They were lucky I wanted to be an optometrist. Part of me, though, wonders what would have happened if I followed her path." She thought for a while. "Brian was the middle child, and he was the boy, so he got to do whatever he wanted."
"Do you regret being an optometrist?" I whispered.
She thought again, her fingers playing with the strands of my blanket. "No. I think things are meant to happen."
"But it's never too late," I pointed out. "It's never too late to try something new." My tongue felt dusty in my mouth. "Something you never knew you wanted. And then it surprises you." I turned from her. "It surprises you in so many bloody ways."
Her hand stopped moving on the blanket. "What? What are you saying, Cora?"
It was engulfing me. I could feel the wave rise again, that terror that it was over or worse, that it never happened at all. Because the posters on my wall were all back—Sgt. Pepper, Rubber Soul, Let it Be. My little Paul magazine article still on my desk. I needed something to calm me down, to tether me to safety and tell me that I had done the right thing, no matter how heart-wrenching it made me feel inside. And that I was there and that it happened.
"Mum, please give me John. The one by Cynthia Lennon."
She handed me the book on my desk and I opened it, but reading the first words—For ten years I shared my life with a man who was a huge figure in his lifetime, and who has become a legend since his death—made me break and the book was gently placed next to my bed, John in 1967 staring off toward my window. That photo, I could not trace it back to the man I spent months with. He was so different. I kept expecting him to rise up off of the book and age backward and crawled with me into bed and cuddle me into reassurance.
"Cora, let me in."
"What?" I asked, my voice breaking. "What are you saying?"
"Move over. Let me in." She climbed into bed with me, I heard a thump: her foot gently pushing the book under my bed. She put her arms around me and I stared wide eyed into the darkness, thinking about how the book under my bed was the correct one, but it was not the right one, the one that would take me back to him. It could never happen again. It was over.