July 7th
They were made of a cluster of fake diamonds, with little dangling pearls, hanging from wires encrusted with more gems. The earrings were fashionable, Paul supposed, though he didn’t really follow these trends.
He moved them this way and that in his palm, suddenly very interested in the way they caught the light of the afternoon sun. If he was honest with himself, he only had the vaguest recollection of what Judy looked like. Blonde, maybe. Brown eyes?
Paul decided he could always ask George. In terms of relationship advice, he was just about useless, but he was a good listener. Paul had found himself pouring everything out to the lad, one year younger no less, in the past year.
And this was how he repaid Harrison—forgetting about him completely. Paul closed his eyes briefly in shame. Well, the Judy story could be good for a laugh. He pocketed the earrings again, and stood up, seeing Penny Lane winding lazily closer.
A few minutes later he was hopping off the bus.
“So,” someone said from behind him, and Paul turned to see George, leaning against the bus shelter, his arms crossed. His hair, still in its odd turbanlike shape, had grown a little, a few strands flopping down out of his quiff.
Paul fumbled in his pocket for a minute, grinning sheepishly. He finally found one of the small objects and dangled it in front of George, a triumphant smile on his face.
* * *
“So, you have no idea who she is,” George summed up. Paul nodded vigorously through a huge mouthful of chips.
“I mean, she seemed fit over the phone—“
George uncovered a pointy tooth in one of his rare smiles. “How can you know that?”
Paul shrugged for an answer.
“’Sides,” George continued. “She might be some—some criminal for all you know.”
Paul collapsed in laughter, choking on his mouthful. George reddened slightly. For all the time he’d known Paul, he could never forget he was younger, and that popular Paul should never have been talking to him in the first place. He could never quite accept that sometimes Paul wasn’t laughing at him, but with him.
“A criminal? Her?” he asked, small tears gathering in his eyes. “What, like she reverse stole her own earrings by giving them to me?”
“Do you even know her surname?”
“Probably Smith or Jones or something,” Paul said dismissively.
“Hm.”
“Alright, how about I’ll go out with her for an evening; then I’ll go home and I’ll call you. That if is she hasn’t murdered me, that criminal.”
Paul was unable to keep a straight face, and he burst into laughter at his own joke, his face crumpling, and his arms clutching at his stomach.
When Paul had composed himself, he took another chip.
“You’ll never guess where I was the other day,” Paul said, leaning forward in anticipation.
George mentally added that Paul had never tried to guess where he himself was the other day, and that if he did the answer would be sitting by the phone, waiting for that call.
“Where?”
“Woolton.”
“So?” George asked. He wasn’t seeing the punch line, but Paul’s entire face was lit up in giddy anticipation, just bursting to tell.
“The Woolton fete.”
“Alright…” George said. Paul and he had agreed that Woolton was about the most boring place ever, and that nothing happened there except for that fair for little children.
“And-I-saw-John-Lennon-and-we-played-together-and-he-wants-me-to-be-in-his-band,” Paul said all in a rush.
Oh.
“Wow,” George said weakly, trying for a smile, but Paul plowed on, spouting an incoherent mess about Ivan and a church and banjo strings.
This was the moment he’d been dreading. He knew that it was impossible for them to be friends, already Paul was violating his biological imperative to be liked by others by associating with George, and now he’d found a friend who was older, cooler, and overall better. George didn’t stand a chance, and he felt that realization boil deep inside him.
“Tomorrow is the first rehearsal,” Paul said.
“Is it,” George said.
Paul noticed his friend’s mind seemed to be elsewhere.
* * *
Paul couldn’t remember exactly where in Penny Lane they were supposed to meet, so he hovered around the shelter, craning his neck to see anyone that could be Judy.
Blonde or not blonde?
He entertained the question to avoid getting too nervous. Dates always made him a little worried, but a date with a stranger in Penny Lane was totally new for him. One hand stayed in his left pocket, fiddling with the earrings in there that jangled whenever he took a step.
He suddenly felt a pressure on his shoulder, and turned around widly, wondering who was touching him. Paul’s entire composure relaxed when he saw a young girl.
“Paul,” she said, displaying a toothy grin with two crooked front teeth.
Her hair was a very light red, almost blond.
“Judy,” he said, praying it was she. He was rewarded with another grin, and he took another few seconds to notice the way she was dressed. A patterned sky-blue dress, and hair artfully curled and pinned back. Her eyes were a pretty hazel.
He fumbled with his left hand, offering an apologetic smile, before producing the earrings. “Here,” he said, for lack of a better preamble, and he placed them inside her hand.
She smiled again and Paul started to get unsettled at how happy everything made her. He remembered George and for a moment started to wonder if she wasn’t a bit…off.
But she had a pretty face that made him want to trust her, and she offered to go have a drink, and he said yes as if it was instinct.
* * *
“What do you do in life?”
Paul thought, and his mind spun for an impressive answer. What could he say? I go to school. I lie around at home. I can eat impressive amounts of treacle tart.
“I’m in a band. John Lennon’s band,” he specified for good measure.
She giggled, again flashing her teeth. “I’ve heard of him.”
Everyone had, really. He was someone you were aware of, but never knew personally. John Lennon was just a presence.
Their conversation died down and Paul desperately searched his brain for something to ask, or something to say, but Judy was already speaking up.
“How’s Mike?”
Paul was caught off guard. “How do you know my brother’s name?” he asked harshly.
Judy’s smile faltered, maybe at the bluntness of his question. “Oh… I think you mentioned him at the pub.”
Right, the night at the pub that Paul didn’t remember at all. He didn’t want to broach that dangerous topic, so he smiled slightly.
“What about you? What do you do?”
“Oh, I love to write. I’d love to be a journalist one day, for a fashion magazine, maybe…”
* * *
Two hours later he was home, praying his father wouldn’t be awake to tell him off for staying out so late. Paul turned the key with painstaking care, so there wouldn’t be a sound, and opened the door. His footsteps padded along as he tried to head upstairs to his room, before he saw someone in the sitting room. His father was there, a newspaper wide open, staring straight at him.
Paul blinked, and saw that it wasn’t Jim at all—it was Mike. The scene struck him as so absurd that he forgot to be quiet. “Mike?”
“Don’t shout! Da’s gone to bed,” Mike said in a loud whisper.
“What are you reading that newspaper for?” Paul asked, looking at his brother with suspicion written all over his face.
Mike reddened slightly and shrugged.
“What are you, fifty?” Paul insisted.
“’M reading the weather reports,” Mike mumbled.
A quick peal of laughter escaped Paul. Mike shot him a sour look. “Go on, before I tell Da how you’ve been out late.”
“Alright, alright,” Paul said, not before shooting one last amused glance at Mike.