Here and Gone
Just in case there are people outside of the We!Beatles that want to read this...
The stage is dark except for the spot light on center stage. We stand in the middle of the light, bathing in its warm and the comfort of each other’s arms. I am standing on a small wooden block to make up for our height difference. My eyes are level with his; they are deep pools of green starring back at me. I wrap my arms around his neck then kiss the tip of his nose and he smiles that gorgeous smile that melts my heart. If I were to die at this very moment I would die a happy woman just being in his arms.
Slowly but surely the light starts to grow dim and I start to notice a ringing in my ears. Eventually the stage is so dark and the ringing is so loud that the only thing that I can focus on is the feeling of his arms around my waist until I no longer have even that.
***
I wake to the sound of my telephone ringing. I sit up from my curled position on my couch and grab the receiver while trying to shake the images of my dream away.
“Hello?”
“Are you asleep?” It is my best friend Jenn. She sounds almost offended that I would be sleeping at this time.
“I must have dozed off…”
“Well get up and get dressed. We are going to a dinner party.”
“I don’t know Jenn…”
“Kim, this is very important. You will never forgive yourself if you don’t go to this party. Some very important people are going to be there.”
“Oh yeah? Like who?”
“It’s a surprise. Just get dressed. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
“Alright. See you in a bit.”
Jenn has always been able to talk me in to doing things that I don’t want to do. She has persuasion down to an art.
As I started to put my hair up in rollers I wondered about where we were going, what I was going to wear, and who these supposed “very important people” are. But as I started fixing my make up my mind inevitably drifted back to the dream I had been having.
It had been so long since I last dreamt of him. This may even be the first in almost a year. I had thought that he was a thing of the past, that I had moved on. I mean, it’s been five years…
I can still remember the first time he touched me. Back then he was always coming in to the coffee shop while I was working. He would sit and drink tea while writing in a notebook and dinking around on the piano in the corner. Our first kiss was sitting at that piano. He ws showing me a song he was working on, pressing my fingers down on the right keys to make the most beautiful music. I looked into his eyes, his face was so close to mine that I could feel his breath on my face and I couldn’t help but melt in to his arms.
Then it ended so abruptly. He said it was because of his move to London, that the distance just wouldn’t work. Come to find out later he had a girlfriend in London, an actress. He said he would keep in touch but he never did.
I was saved from my painful trip down memory lane by Jenn knocking on the door to my flat. “Come on, come on, come on! Are you ready? Let’s go!” Jenn was hopping up and down when I answered the door.
“Alright, geez. Just let me get my purse.”
While I was lost in my thoughts I had finished getting dressed so I was ready when jenn got there. I had picked my black cocktail dress: simple, classic. My lonf brown hair was down and curled and I was wearing my favorite shade of pink lipstick. Black boots com[pleted the outfit.
As I got in to her car, I couldn’t help but notice Jenn’s camera equipment in the back seat. “Where are we going that we are going to need your camera?”
“Oh, you’ll see.” She said with a huge smile.
“So you really aren’t going to tell me where we are going or who’s going to be there?”
“Nope. It’s a surprise!”
After driving for a few minutes the buildings outside the car turned from flats to houses and from houses to really nice houses. We even had to drive past Buckingham Palace to get to where we were going. As Jenn pulled up to the curb I started to feel a nervous twinge in my stomach just from being in such a posh neighborhood. I mean, we were right behind Buckingham Palace for goodness sakes. Jenn got out and grabbed her camera gear so fast that I hardly had time to realize what she was doing.
“This is it?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yep. Let’s go.”
Jenn led the way to a gorgeous four story house on the corner of Chapel street and Groom Place. The lights from the inside shown through the black iron accented windows and seemed to make the place glow. As she reached for the knocker on the door it opened on its own to a ginger haired man in a suit.
“Where have you been? I was beginning to think that you weren’t going to make it. I was this close to calling Emily and giving this story to her!” He screamed at Jenn. Though he was yelling, it looked to be more out of nerves then of anger.
“Oh ye of little faith,” Jenn answered him with a teasing smile. “They aren’t even here yet, are they?”
“Well, no… But they aught to be any minute now!”
“That gives me plenty of time to set up.” Jenn pushed past him in to the house. The man gave me a frustrated look before gesturing for me to follow her in to the house.
“Ladies first.”
“Thank you,” I told him as I stepped over the threshold. As soon as I entered the house I stopped dead in my tracks. I just stood there with my mouth open in awe. The foyer held a beautiful staircase up to the other floors, a crystal chandelier and delicate white tiles on the floor. There was another man in a suit standing by a closet that offered to take my coat. The ginger haired man closed the front door behind him and walked past me to the double French doors that lead to the next room. I assumed that that was where the party was. Jenn poked her head through the doors to see where I was.
“Come’ed.” she called, excitedly motioning me towards the next room.
The living room was full of people with notebooks and cameras munching on the food that was provided on long tables in the center of the room. A fireplace with an antique clock on the mantle was the focal point of the room just off to the right. There was an anticipation hanging in the air. It was obvious that all these people were waiting for something big to happen.
Jenn dropped her bag in a corner and started unpacking her camera. I took that as an opportunity to walk about and partake in the amazing looking food that everybody was eating. I walked up to the food table and gazed at all of the salads, fruits, and cheeses. There ws even a ham at one end of the table. I grabbed a small china plate from the stack and began to pile it with strawberries when someone in the foyer started to shout.
“They’re here! They’re here!”
The atmosphere of the room changed in the blink of an eye. Everybody jumped up and rushed toward the front door, cameras in hand. I slowly started toward the back edge of the crowd with my plate, so curious of who was causing all of this commotion. I leaned against the door frame of the French doors and stared at what I could see of the front door.
Suddenly the door opened and the flash bulbs started. I could only see the tops of heads as about six men walked through the door but it was the sound of their voices and their names being called by the crowd that sent a cold chill down my spine. I knew these voices.
“John!”
“George! Over here!”
I heard these voices almost every day coming from my record player or the radio. I knew ever word of every song they sang. I had every album. They were the voices belonging to the Beatles.
“Ringo!”
The air caught in my chest as the crowd called to them to pose for pictures and they laughed and greeting the people they knew by name.
“John!”
“Oy, Paul! Look over here!”
The sound of Paul’s laugh broke the trance of Beatlemania I was in. Suddenly my stomach sank as the plate in my hand slipped from my fingers and shattered on the tile floor. Only a few people heard the sound and turned to glare at me but my mind was elsewhere. My dream from earlier was the only thing that I could think of as I realized that the owner of those green eyes was standing not more than six meters away from me. For the first time in five years I was standing in the same room as Paul McCartney; the love of my life.
“Just one more shot at the door step boys,” a man called from the front of the crowd and the last wave of the flashbulbs started. As the crowd started to move towards me I realized that people were migrating towards the living room for the party to start and I knew I had to move. I turned around and ran through the living room to the first door I saw which happened to be the bathroom. I closed the door behind me and slid down the door to sit on the ground.
“What am I going to do?” I asked myself out loud. I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t see him, it would hurt too much. I had been trying so hard to forget about him, talking to him would undo all of that. “I just have to leave,” I told myself. “I just have to tell Jenn I am sick and take the bus home.” I took a deep breath and pulled myself to my feet. I looked in the mirror over the sink at the panicked look on my face and tried to calm myself. Finally after just breathing for a minute I fixed my hair and turned to the door. “You can do this.” I reached for the handle and opened the door.
The living room was full of people now. There were groupings of people talking in corners, people eating and people writing in notebooks. There was a lady with a tray of champagne glasses and a man handing out cigarettes. The room no longer smelled of food but rather of cigarettes and sweat. I saw John Lennon and George Harrison at the food table surrounded by reporters. There was a large group in the center of the room. I assumed it was around another Beatle but I couldn’t tell which one and Paul was nowhere to be seen. I saw Jenn on the outskirts of the large group in the center and decided this was the best opportunity that I was going to get. I fought through the crowd towards her and she saw me as I got close.
“What happened to you? Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I really don’t feel well; I think I am going to go…”
“What? Kim, you do realize that the Beatles are here, right?”
“Yeah, and that’s great, but I just don’t-“
“The Beatles, Kim! I thought you would be excited about this.”
“I am. It’s really great but I just have to get out of here.” I tried to step past her towards the door but she grabbed my arm to turn me back towards her.
“What is the matter with you?”
“I just have to-“
“Kimie?”
His all too familiar voice pierced through the drone of the crowd like something sharp through tissue paper. All noise around me seemed to stop dead in its tracks and all I could hear was the pounding of my own heartbeat. My stomach instantly filled with butterflies as I turned to look upon the face that I had desired to look at for so long. My eyes fell on to the gorgeous green eyes that belonged to the man that had captured my heart so long ago. I had to refrain myself from leaping in to his arms, from reaching out and taking what it was that I wanted. I clenched my fist in an attempt to drain some of the tension from my body. Finally, when I couldn’t take it any longer, I opened my mouth to speak.
‘Hi Paul,’ I said with the most self-assured smile I could muster. The memories of all our past meetings sped through my mind like a tape on fast forward. Every word that we had ever spoken to each other- the flirting, the compliments, and fights, the pain of when he told me that we couldn’t be together- each and every word pounded on my brain like an impatient neighbour. My whole body tingled from the memory of even the faintest touch of his body to mine. He smiled and my heart melted in to a puddle of mixed emotion. I had forgotten how easy it was for him to do that to me.
I watched him as he looked me over, taking in all of the changes in my appearance. We hadn’t seen each other in over five years, and a lot had changed since then. He looked thinner. Thinner even then the most recent pictures I had seen in fan mags. I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and attempted to appear as confident as possible. An uncomfortable sigh escaped my throat as I smiled an equally uncomfortable smile.
Suddenly, the world switched gears into slow motion as I watched him step forward and wrap one arm around my waist, pulling me in to a hug. I didn’t know what to do at first. The air was sucked out of my lungs as I tried to figure out what was happening. I was in shock for about a second before I began to hug him back. I stepped up on to my tiptoes so that I could get closer to him. I loved the way that my fragile body fit so perfectly in to his arms. My hand found his as we pulled out of the hug, and his fingers wrapped around mine.
We both looked at each other with a smile, and then down at our hands. We both stepped back, an awkward laugh from the both of us as we quickly found something else to do with our hands. He clenched a fist as I played with the ring on my finger.
‘You look…great,’ he said as a change of subject.
‘Thanks, so do you,’ I choked out.
‘How have been?’ he asked
‘Alright.’ I didn’t really know what else to say.
We both stood there, looking at the other, waiting for the other to say something. I could hear the noise of the crowd again and it was starting to pound away on my eardrums. There was such an uncomfortable silence between the two of us that my ears were picking up on even the tiniest sound from my atmosphere. Paul looked over his shoulder and then turned back to me. His face was so hard to read, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I took a deep breath and readied myself for what he was about to say.
‘Well, I should probably go. It was really nice seeing you again,’ he said, taking a step back.
My already melted heart sank into my stomach. I didn’t want him to leave but I knew that there was nothing that I could do to stop him. ‘Yeah, you too,’ I answered, trying my hardest to cover my disappointment.
He bowed his head in good bye as he turned around to leave. I looked at the ground. It was too painful to watch him walk away, not knowing when I would see him again, if ever. I could feel Jenn looking at me in disbelief, waiting for an explanation but I didn’t care. I watched the floor start to blur as my eyes filled with tears. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as an effort to stop myself from crying.
‘Kimie!’
I looked up to see that Paul was walking towards me, stepping out from behind a member of the crowd. My spirits lifted so quickly that my head started to rush. The butterflies were back and my heart reformed and skipped a beat or two. I couldn’t breathe. My hands started to shake so I put them behind my back to shield them from view.
‘What are you doing later tonight?’ Paul asked, looking at his feet. He glanced up at me, waiting for me to answer.
‘Nothing that I know of…why?’ I asked, hoping that he was doing what I thought that he was.
‘Maybe we should get together…and talk?’
It took everything that I had not to jump for joy. He wanted to talk to me. He wanted to see me. I could feel my cheeks getting warm; I knew that they were starting to turn pink. My body was shaking so much from the excitement that my knees began to buckle under.
‘Sure, that sounds great,’ I said as calmly as possible.
“There is a pub around the corner, The Horse and Groom. Meet me there at 10?” His face was blank; I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“Yes, of course.” I stumbled on my words a bit. I hoped that he didn’t notice.
“See you then,” he said as he turned to leave again. This time he looked back over his shoulder at me with a smile before disappearing in to the crowd.
“Bye Paul,” I said in a whisper, but he was already gone. I just stared at the floor where he had just been standing in awe and disbelief. Suddenly the feeling of Jenn pulling on my arm pulled me back to reality.
“And when exactly were you planning on telling me that you know… Paul McCartney?” She whispered his name as if saying it out loud would break the spell.
Then at that moment, all of the strength in my body left me and my knees collapsed. The only thing that kept me from hitting the ground was Jenn. She pulled me back up and held tight until I could support myself again.
“I need some air,” I said as I turned toward the front door. I pushed past the people in the crowd with Jenn right on my hells. As I entered the foyer the man in the suit saw us coming and he opened the door.
The cool air of the outside hit me like a ton of bricks. My whole body tingled from the temperature change. I sat down on the front step and pressed my forehead against the cool iron of the gate that surrounded the stoop. Jenn stood in front of me on the side walk, one hand on her hip looking very irritated.
“So tell me again the story of how you know Paul McCartney because it all sort of foxes me.” She sounded even more irritated then she looked.
“Would you quit calling him that? Paul McCartney,” I said mimicking her. “You make him sound like some sort of bloody idol.”
“Well excuse me for not being on a first name basis with the Beatles!”
“I’m not on a first name basis with them. I only know Paul. I’ve never even met the others,” I explained.
“Oh well, that explains everything!” She said, throwing her hands above her head.
“Why are you so angry?”
“Because I didn’t know Kim! Because you never told me that you knew a member of our favorite band. How is it, that in the three years that we have known each other, after all of the conversations that we have had about them, that you never told me?”
“Please stop yelling…” I let out a sigh as I rubbed my temples. I really didn’t want to go in to this. “It isn’t something that I talk about, alright? It was a really long time ago and I’ve tried really hard to put it behind me because, to tell you the truth it really hurts and I… I don’t like talking about it.”
As my eyes welled up with tears I watched her whole energy shift. The tension in her body released and she let out a sigh. She sat down next to me and wrapped her arm around my waist.
“I am sorry duck, I didn’t mean to pry.”
We just sat there for a minute or two, me drying my eyes and her comforting me. But finally her curiosity got the better of her and she just had to ask.
“So did you two shag?”
“Jenn!” I was glad to have her back to normal.
“I know, I’m sorry. But what do you think he wants to talk to you about?”
I hadn’t even thought of that yet. What was he going to say? What was I going to say?
“I have no idea. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.”
Peace and Love,
Macca
The stage is dark except for the spot light on center stage. We stand in the middle of the light, bathing in its warm and the comfort of each other’s arms. I am standing on a small wooden block to make up for our height difference. My eyes are level with his; they are deep pools of green starring back at me. I wrap my arms around his neck then kiss the tip of his nose and he smiles that gorgeous smile that melts my heart. If I were to die at this very moment I would die a happy woman just being in his arms.
Slowly but surely the light starts to grow dim and I start to notice a ringing in my ears. Eventually the stage is so dark and the ringing is so loud that the only thing that I can focus on is the feeling of his arms around my waist until I no longer have even that.
***
I wake to the sound of my telephone ringing. I sit up from my curled position on my couch and grab the receiver while trying to shake the images of my dream away.
“Hello?”
“Are you asleep?” It is my best friend Jenn. She sounds almost offended that I would be sleeping at this time.
“I must have dozed off…”
“Well get up and get dressed. We are going to a dinner party.”
“I don’t know Jenn…”
“Kim, this is very important. You will never forgive yourself if you don’t go to this party. Some very important people are going to be there.”
“Oh yeah? Like who?”
“It’s a surprise. Just get dressed. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
“Alright. See you in a bit.”
Jenn has always been able to talk me in to doing things that I don’t want to do. She has persuasion down to an art.
As I started to put my hair up in rollers I wondered about where we were going, what I was going to wear, and who these supposed “very important people” are. But as I started fixing my make up my mind inevitably drifted back to the dream I had been having.
It had been so long since I last dreamt of him. This may even be the first in almost a year. I had thought that he was a thing of the past, that I had moved on. I mean, it’s been five years…
I can still remember the first time he touched me. Back then he was always coming in to the coffee shop while I was working. He would sit and drink tea while writing in a notebook and dinking around on the piano in the corner. Our first kiss was sitting at that piano. He ws showing me a song he was working on, pressing my fingers down on the right keys to make the most beautiful music. I looked into his eyes, his face was so close to mine that I could feel his breath on my face and I couldn’t help but melt in to his arms.
Then it ended so abruptly. He said it was because of his move to London, that the distance just wouldn’t work. Come to find out later he had a girlfriend in London, an actress. He said he would keep in touch but he never did.
I was saved from my painful trip down memory lane by Jenn knocking on the door to my flat. “Come on, come on, come on! Are you ready? Let’s go!” Jenn was hopping up and down when I answered the door.
“Alright, geez. Just let me get my purse.”
While I was lost in my thoughts I had finished getting dressed so I was ready when jenn got there. I had picked my black cocktail dress: simple, classic. My lonf brown hair was down and curled and I was wearing my favorite shade of pink lipstick. Black boots com[pleted the outfit.
As I got in to her car, I couldn’t help but notice Jenn’s camera equipment in the back seat. “Where are we going that we are going to need your camera?”
“Oh, you’ll see.” She said with a huge smile.
“So you really aren’t going to tell me where we are going or who’s going to be there?”
“Nope. It’s a surprise!”
After driving for a few minutes the buildings outside the car turned from flats to houses and from houses to really nice houses. We even had to drive past Buckingham Palace to get to where we were going. As Jenn pulled up to the curb I started to feel a nervous twinge in my stomach just from being in such a posh neighborhood. I mean, we were right behind Buckingham Palace for goodness sakes. Jenn got out and grabbed her camera gear so fast that I hardly had time to realize what she was doing.
“This is it?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yep. Let’s go.”
Jenn led the way to a gorgeous four story house on the corner of Chapel street and Groom Place. The lights from the inside shown through the black iron accented windows and seemed to make the place glow. As she reached for the knocker on the door it opened on its own to a ginger haired man in a suit.
“Where have you been? I was beginning to think that you weren’t going to make it. I was this close to calling Emily and giving this story to her!” He screamed at Jenn. Though he was yelling, it looked to be more out of nerves then of anger.
“Oh ye of little faith,” Jenn answered him with a teasing smile. “They aren’t even here yet, are they?”
“Well, no… But they aught to be any minute now!”
“That gives me plenty of time to set up.” Jenn pushed past him in to the house. The man gave me a frustrated look before gesturing for me to follow her in to the house.
“Ladies first.”
“Thank you,” I told him as I stepped over the threshold. As soon as I entered the house I stopped dead in my tracks. I just stood there with my mouth open in awe. The foyer held a beautiful staircase up to the other floors, a crystal chandelier and delicate white tiles on the floor. There was another man in a suit standing by a closet that offered to take my coat. The ginger haired man closed the front door behind him and walked past me to the double French doors that lead to the next room. I assumed that that was where the party was. Jenn poked her head through the doors to see where I was.
“Come’ed.” she called, excitedly motioning me towards the next room.
The living room was full of people with notebooks and cameras munching on the food that was provided on long tables in the center of the room. A fireplace with an antique clock on the mantle was the focal point of the room just off to the right. There was an anticipation hanging in the air. It was obvious that all these people were waiting for something big to happen.
Jenn dropped her bag in a corner and started unpacking her camera. I took that as an opportunity to walk about and partake in the amazing looking food that everybody was eating. I walked up to the food table and gazed at all of the salads, fruits, and cheeses. There ws even a ham at one end of the table. I grabbed a small china plate from the stack and began to pile it with strawberries when someone in the foyer started to shout.
“They’re here! They’re here!”
The atmosphere of the room changed in the blink of an eye. Everybody jumped up and rushed toward the front door, cameras in hand. I slowly started toward the back edge of the crowd with my plate, so curious of who was causing all of this commotion. I leaned against the door frame of the French doors and stared at what I could see of the front door.
Suddenly the door opened and the flash bulbs started. I could only see the tops of heads as about six men walked through the door but it was the sound of their voices and their names being called by the crowd that sent a cold chill down my spine. I knew these voices.
“John!”
“George! Over here!”
I heard these voices almost every day coming from my record player or the radio. I knew ever word of every song they sang. I had every album. They were the voices belonging to the Beatles.
“Ringo!”
The air caught in my chest as the crowd called to them to pose for pictures and they laughed and greeting the people they knew by name.
“John!”
“Oy, Paul! Look over here!”
The sound of Paul’s laugh broke the trance of Beatlemania I was in. Suddenly my stomach sank as the plate in my hand slipped from my fingers and shattered on the tile floor. Only a few people heard the sound and turned to glare at me but my mind was elsewhere. My dream from earlier was the only thing that I could think of as I realized that the owner of those green eyes was standing not more than six meters away from me. For the first time in five years I was standing in the same room as Paul McCartney; the love of my life.
“Just one more shot at the door step boys,” a man called from the front of the crowd and the last wave of the flashbulbs started. As the crowd started to move towards me I realized that people were migrating towards the living room for the party to start and I knew I had to move. I turned around and ran through the living room to the first door I saw which happened to be the bathroom. I closed the door behind me and slid down the door to sit on the ground.
“What am I going to do?” I asked myself out loud. I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t see him, it would hurt too much. I had been trying so hard to forget about him, talking to him would undo all of that. “I just have to leave,” I told myself. “I just have to tell Jenn I am sick and take the bus home.” I took a deep breath and pulled myself to my feet. I looked in the mirror over the sink at the panicked look on my face and tried to calm myself. Finally after just breathing for a minute I fixed my hair and turned to the door. “You can do this.” I reached for the handle and opened the door.
The living room was full of people now. There were groupings of people talking in corners, people eating and people writing in notebooks. There was a lady with a tray of champagne glasses and a man handing out cigarettes. The room no longer smelled of food but rather of cigarettes and sweat. I saw John Lennon and George Harrison at the food table surrounded by reporters. There was a large group in the center of the room. I assumed it was around another Beatle but I couldn’t tell which one and Paul was nowhere to be seen. I saw Jenn on the outskirts of the large group in the center and decided this was the best opportunity that I was going to get. I fought through the crowd towards her and she saw me as I got close.
“What happened to you? Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I really don’t feel well; I think I am going to go…”
“What? Kim, you do realize that the Beatles are here, right?”
“Yeah, and that’s great, but I just don’t-“
“The Beatles, Kim! I thought you would be excited about this.”
“I am. It’s really great but I just have to get out of here.” I tried to step past her towards the door but she grabbed my arm to turn me back towards her.
“What is the matter with you?”
“I just have to-“
“Kimie?”
His all too familiar voice pierced through the drone of the crowd like something sharp through tissue paper. All noise around me seemed to stop dead in its tracks and all I could hear was the pounding of my own heartbeat. My stomach instantly filled with butterflies as I turned to look upon the face that I had desired to look at for so long. My eyes fell on to the gorgeous green eyes that belonged to the man that had captured my heart so long ago. I had to refrain myself from leaping in to his arms, from reaching out and taking what it was that I wanted. I clenched my fist in an attempt to drain some of the tension from my body. Finally, when I couldn’t take it any longer, I opened my mouth to speak.
‘Hi Paul,’ I said with the most self-assured smile I could muster. The memories of all our past meetings sped through my mind like a tape on fast forward. Every word that we had ever spoken to each other- the flirting, the compliments, and fights, the pain of when he told me that we couldn’t be together- each and every word pounded on my brain like an impatient neighbour. My whole body tingled from the memory of even the faintest touch of his body to mine. He smiled and my heart melted in to a puddle of mixed emotion. I had forgotten how easy it was for him to do that to me.
I watched him as he looked me over, taking in all of the changes in my appearance. We hadn’t seen each other in over five years, and a lot had changed since then. He looked thinner. Thinner even then the most recent pictures I had seen in fan mags. I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and attempted to appear as confident as possible. An uncomfortable sigh escaped my throat as I smiled an equally uncomfortable smile.
Suddenly, the world switched gears into slow motion as I watched him step forward and wrap one arm around my waist, pulling me in to a hug. I didn’t know what to do at first. The air was sucked out of my lungs as I tried to figure out what was happening. I was in shock for about a second before I began to hug him back. I stepped up on to my tiptoes so that I could get closer to him. I loved the way that my fragile body fit so perfectly in to his arms. My hand found his as we pulled out of the hug, and his fingers wrapped around mine.
We both looked at each other with a smile, and then down at our hands. We both stepped back, an awkward laugh from the both of us as we quickly found something else to do with our hands. He clenched a fist as I played with the ring on my finger.
‘You look…great,’ he said as a change of subject.
‘Thanks, so do you,’ I choked out.
‘How have been?’ he asked
‘Alright.’ I didn’t really know what else to say.
We both stood there, looking at the other, waiting for the other to say something. I could hear the noise of the crowd again and it was starting to pound away on my eardrums. There was such an uncomfortable silence between the two of us that my ears were picking up on even the tiniest sound from my atmosphere. Paul looked over his shoulder and then turned back to me. His face was so hard to read, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I took a deep breath and readied myself for what he was about to say.
‘Well, I should probably go. It was really nice seeing you again,’ he said, taking a step back.
My already melted heart sank into my stomach. I didn’t want him to leave but I knew that there was nothing that I could do to stop him. ‘Yeah, you too,’ I answered, trying my hardest to cover my disappointment.
He bowed his head in good bye as he turned around to leave. I looked at the ground. It was too painful to watch him walk away, not knowing when I would see him again, if ever. I could feel Jenn looking at me in disbelief, waiting for an explanation but I didn’t care. I watched the floor start to blur as my eyes filled with tears. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as an effort to stop myself from crying.
‘Kimie!’
I looked up to see that Paul was walking towards me, stepping out from behind a member of the crowd. My spirits lifted so quickly that my head started to rush. The butterflies were back and my heart reformed and skipped a beat or two. I couldn’t breathe. My hands started to shake so I put them behind my back to shield them from view.
‘What are you doing later tonight?’ Paul asked, looking at his feet. He glanced up at me, waiting for me to answer.
‘Nothing that I know of…why?’ I asked, hoping that he was doing what I thought that he was.
‘Maybe we should get together…and talk?’
It took everything that I had not to jump for joy. He wanted to talk to me. He wanted to see me. I could feel my cheeks getting warm; I knew that they were starting to turn pink. My body was shaking so much from the excitement that my knees began to buckle under.
‘Sure, that sounds great,’ I said as calmly as possible.
“There is a pub around the corner, The Horse and Groom. Meet me there at 10?” His face was blank; I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“Yes, of course.” I stumbled on my words a bit. I hoped that he didn’t notice.
“See you then,” he said as he turned to leave again. This time he looked back over his shoulder at me with a smile before disappearing in to the crowd.
“Bye Paul,” I said in a whisper, but he was already gone. I just stared at the floor where he had just been standing in awe and disbelief. Suddenly the feeling of Jenn pulling on my arm pulled me back to reality.
“And when exactly were you planning on telling me that you know… Paul McCartney?” She whispered his name as if saying it out loud would break the spell.
Then at that moment, all of the strength in my body left me and my knees collapsed. The only thing that kept me from hitting the ground was Jenn. She pulled me back up and held tight until I could support myself again.
“I need some air,” I said as I turned toward the front door. I pushed past the people in the crowd with Jenn right on my hells. As I entered the foyer the man in the suit saw us coming and he opened the door.
The cool air of the outside hit me like a ton of bricks. My whole body tingled from the temperature change. I sat down on the front step and pressed my forehead against the cool iron of the gate that surrounded the stoop. Jenn stood in front of me on the side walk, one hand on her hip looking very irritated.
“So tell me again the story of how you know Paul McCartney because it all sort of foxes me.” She sounded even more irritated then she looked.
“Would you quit calling him that? Paul McCartney,” I said mimicking her. “You make him sound like some sort of bloody idol.”
“Well excuse me for not being on a first name basis with the Beatles!”
“I’m not on a first name basis with them. I only know Paul. I’ve never even met the others,” I explained.
“Oh well, that explains everything!” She said, throwing her hands above her head.
“Why are you so angry?”
“Because I didn’t know Kim! Because you never told me that you knew a member of our favorite band. How is it, that in the three years that we have known each other, after all of the conversations that we have had about them, that you never told me?”
“Please stop yelling…” I let out a sigh as I rubbed my temples. I really didn’t want to go in to this. “It isn’t something that I talk about, alright? It was a really long time ago and I’ve tried really hard to put it behind me because, to tell you the truth it really hurts and I… I don’t like talking about it.”
As my eyes welled up with tears I watched her whole energy shift. The tension in her body released and she let out a sigh. She sat down next to me and wrapped her arm around my waist.
“I am sorry duck, I didn’t mean to pry.”
We just sat there for a minute or two, me drying my eyes and her comforting me. But finally her curiosity got the better of her and she just had to ask.
“So did you two shag?”
“Jenn!” I was glad to have her back to normal.
“I know, I’m sorry. But what do you think he wants to talk to you about?”
I hadn’t even thought of that yet. What was he going to say? What was I going to say?
“I have no idea. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.”
Peace and Love,
Macca