“How long until you think you’ll be done?” she asked
The repairman lifted his head “Oh I’m nearly finished, about five minutes or so and you’ll be able to call anyone you like”
Gabrielle beamed at him “Thanks, that’s great”
** * * * * * *
The Beatles had a manager. And boy, did this Brian Epstein chap have some ideas for them.
“He wants us to wear suits” George whined to Shaz, his new confidant. As much as he loved John and Paul, they were not the same as Gabrielle for having long lengthy chats. You needed a girl who didn’t feel romantic about you to do that. Luckily he’d known Shaz for ages and she was a good enough substitute for now.
Shaz sniffed violently and clutched her handkerchief to her noes, blowing and causing a fuss. “Well” she said nasally “Does he know what he’s doing?”
“Yes” George sighed, he was playing with a packet of fags but didn’t want to light one since Shaz’s parents didn’t allow them to smoke in the house. He leaned his head back against the sofa and sighed heavily. “And he knows some people in London. Christ, I can’t even believe it. How did Gabs meet him?”
“Oh at the Cavern, he talked to Linda, remember, Arthur’s bird for a while there and she introduced Brian to Gabby”
George nodded “Well-“ he was cut off by a great sneeze that erupted from Shaz “Bless you”
“Ta” she wheezed
“I don’t know” he sighed “I feel like we’re selling out somehow, you know?”
“Well the leathers are getting a bit naff I think” she shrugged
“Maybe” George nodded “It isn’t like we can go on Top of The Pops in Leather”
“Yeah” she agreed
“And it isn’t like we’d be doing anything less then making another sacrifice to get to the top”
“Yeah”
“And… well, the suits aren’t really that bad, you know. French and all that. We could be fab in them”
“Yeah”
George grinned and patted Shaz on the leg “Ta for listening to me ramble like a soft git and all that”
“I don’t mind” she sniffed “I’ll be stuck in the house thinking about Gabby and Cyn in New York- I’d rather be stuck talking to you”
“Fuck, I have less of a bloody life then you” George frowned “All I do is whine lately”
“So get over her”
“I don’t want to, it’s so annoying. I miss her” George leaned his head on Shaz’s leg “I miiiiiiiiiiiiss heeeeeer”
“So write a song”
“I can’t” He moaned dejectedly
“Why not”
“I’m terrible. John and Paul are getting really good at it and I’ve not bothered to keep up with them and I tried writing a bit of lyrics but they were just fucking awful and besides that if I did write something I can’t just make up how I’m feeling like they can. And if I use Gabby as my muse then Paul will say I’m copying him. And it’s just so fucked up. I should just not bother to write songs”
“Oh go on an whine a bit more, why don’t you” she snuffled
George continued as if he hadn’t heard her “I’m so bloody useless Shaz. And no one loves me and I’ve got no bird and I haven’t had a shag in weeks”
“Ugh!” Shaz groaned “IS this all you and Gabby talk about? Do you just whine at each other about how horrible your lives are. Christ on a bike, that’s depressing.”
“I don’t whine at her” George whined
“No?”
“No”
“George” Shaz sighed, she blew her noes “I want you to go home. Sit in your room and ponder why you care so much about Gabby. I think you are either using her to get around having a serious girlfriend and will just skip from shag to shag with Gabby as your emotional rock. Or, you have some weird attachment to her that is mostly just in your mind. Sort it out. Come back and tell me why you love her so much. Don’t come back till I can get some sense out of you.”
“Wow, that was really deep, Shaz”
“George! Go home!”
** * * * * * **
Gabrielle bit her lip as she dialed the number. The moving people from the furniture store were causing noise as they tried to get the far to large wardrobe into the fifth story apartment with an out of service elevator. Art was bringing his friends over at eight and Montana was coming at nine with Mike and Megan (who were dating, actually) They promised to bring pot (the code name for marijuana) and Drynamil.
The phone was ringing what time was it in England? Five hours a head… Five, six, seven, eight, nine… about ten. Her father never answered the phone anymore, he hadn’t been when she was still in Liverpool anyway, she Gabby decided to call the Harrison household.
“Hello?” Came the bright and cheery voice of Louise.
“Hi Mrs. Harrison”
“Gabby! Darling, Luv! OH my girl how are you! How is New York! How are you!?” back in Liverpool, Louise stopped wiping the kitchen counter and pulled the phone close to her head as if she could touch Gabby through the receiver this way.
“Hi Mrs. Harrison” Gabby giggled at the overjoyed mother.
“Oh, luv, how are you?”
“I’m great, I’m fantastic really… oh I’m having so much fun”
“Luv, I’m glad to hear it. You really deserve this. Now, is John’s Cynthia all right?”
“Yes, she’s lovely. She’s got a whole new wardrobe and I’m sending her back with present for everyone”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that”
“I know, but it’ll be nice. Er… so how’s George?”
“Uh, Miserable. He won’t stop sulking” Gabrielle felt her heart sink “It’s like when you went to boarding school the first time. But, I assume he’ll get over it soon enough. They have a new manager you know, the Beatles, Mr. Brian Epstein. Owns NEMS. Very posh bloke. I’ll let George tell you all about that though.”
“Is he there now?”
“Oh, darling I’m sorry he’s not. He’s just gone over to Shaz’s for a bit of a chat. I think he’s being a bit dramatic about the whole thing though. You can talk on the telephone now. Will you be coming back for Christmas?”
“I think so”
“Great! We’ll all be thrilled to see you. So how’s your flat?”
“It’s great!” Gabrielle laughed “And huge and beautiful and Cyn’s been a regular housewife around here making sure it stays clean.”
“Luv why don’t you give me your number so I can have George ring you when you he gets in. Don’t want to be running up your bill now, do we?”
“Oh of course, yeah” Gabrielle gave her the long telephone number and then said her good-byes, promising to have George call when he got in if I wasn’t to late.
With a new cheerfulness that seemed almost scary. The new bit of furniture was set in and the handymen all scattered off. Gabrielle and Cyn sat in the family room and attempted to go through Gabby’s course catalogue but couldn’t seem to focus on anything productive.
“Are you going to take a language?”
“No, I don’t know. Maybe I should get a third one just for an elective” Gabby sighed, and sipped her thoughtfully as she examined the language section of the catalogue. “They do things so oddly over here. Imagine, not having to take an elective” she mused
“Weird Americans” Cyn agreed.
“I could take a very weird language. You know. Just to be silly”
“Like what?”
Gabrielle giggled “Well, there’s Punjabi.”
“Why on god’s bloody green earth would you ever need that”
Gabby shrugged “May look good on a resume some day”
“You could take Mongolian” Cyn giggled
“Oh, shut up, I don’t even know where Mongolia is, you student, you”
“Its north of China” Cyn sniffed in a mock posh way “ Thank you very much. So you know where people speak Punjabi, then?”
“India” Gabby rolled her eyes “Why would I ever go there?”
“Who knows” Cyn shrugged “Maybe-‘ she was cut off my the doorbell ringing. It caught them by surprise and the girls looked around in a panic, having never heard the doorbell before.
“Was that the…”
“Oh god” Gabrielle busted up laughing “Christ, it’s the bloody doorbell Cyn. I thought the Germans were coming for us, it was an air raid or sommat”
Cyn rolled about with laughter on the couch, laughing so hard she could barely breath.
Gabrielle threw the front door open. Montana Zedral stood there, wearing Jeans, a man’s white shirt with what looked like no bra on underneath, strings and strings of beads around her neck and up her wrists, brown leather sandals on her feet, and round sunglasses on her make up less face. The Beatnik invasion.
“Hiya!” she laughed “Wow, you didn’t tell me this place was a mansion. I saw Art D’Lugoff in the mansion, man, wow. Thanks for letting me stay with you”
Gabrielle urged her into the house
“No problem. Do you want to pick a bedroom?”
“Sure, man. Most important room of the house you know” Montana giggled “Er, I was just wondering. You English girls all aren’t prudes are you”
“Gabby’s not anyway!” Cyn yelled from the living room.
“Hi Cynthia” Montana laughed waving at her.
“No, I’m not a prude” gabby laughed “Cyn doesn’t know half of what I get up to anyway” They shared a giggle. Gabrielle gave her the guided tour and Montana made lurid jokes all the way through. Oh, they would get on well, Gabby could tell.
After getting Montana settled n a room the three girls adjourned back in the living room with a box of pictures that had been found sitting in one of the empty rooms (“bloody moving men”)
Gabrielle dumped the pictures out on the floor and cleared her throat “Ok, I took most of these” She said, grabbing a stack and shuffling through them. “Cyn, have you seen this?”
She passed a black and white shot of John and Paul sitting on George on the top bunk of one of the beds in the crowded little Hamburg room.
“I don’t think so”
“Right, those two are John and Paul,” Gabby said point them out to Montana “And they’re sitting on George. He’s my best mate and plays lead guitar”
“John’s my boyfriend”
“That’s a lot of hair they’ve got there” Montana nodded
“Aye, it was cut that way by” she flicked through a few more pictures until she came to the ones she and Astrid had taken while fooling around one day. Self portraits with a mirror. Self-portraits of each other. There was one with Astrid holing the camera up taking a picture of Gabby while Gabby took a pictures of her. One of Astrid cracking up as Gabby said something in German that struck her as funny. And one of Stu running into the room and hugging Astrid violently to ham it up for the Camera. At least a roll of film was wasted on Astrid and Stu hugging and snogging and being loving and daft with each other.
“He’s quite pretty” Montana pointed out of Stu
Cyn and Gabby groaned in agreence
“Oh aye, he is very, very pretty” Cyn agreed
“Your best friend is a guy” Montana laughed holding a new stack of pictures, an odd expression crossed her face, she held up some pictures of George decked out in leather. The pictures they took in an alley way in Hamburg while kidding about “Are you sure you’re just friends”
“They are” Cyn laughed “Because while both are very attractive in their own ways, it seems that neither wants to get in the pants of the other”
“Oh dear,” Montana laughed “That’s terrible! A perfectly handsome boy such as this” She held up one of George taken while Gabby was looking up at him, the light from the streetlights and flickering neon signs cast shadows across his high cheekbones. His eyes were bright and alert and looking away while he laughed, a cigarette dangling from his lips. If you had a uterus you too would admit that George looked sexy as all hell. The next few demonstrated the amazing power of leather pants on George.
Gabby snorted “Well the point of taking these was to make him look like… that”
“Sexy?”
“George isn’t sexy” she rolled her eyes “He’s immature. Stu is sexy. Notice the difference” She held up A picture of Stu next to the George one
Montana peered at both of them constructivly “I’d choose George” she said “And he is sexy. If he isn’t sexy in real life then that means you did your job right as the photographer”
“Ta” Gabby beamed
“I think he’s sexy in real life” Cyn said
“Oh god, how could you Cyn?” Gaby whined “After he followed you around and all that”
“That was before Hamburg” Cyn rolled her eyes “He was cute and then he was sexy. He plays lead guitar for God’s sake, it’s some kind of rule”
“All right” Montana picked up a stack of George pictures and flicked through them “Sexy, Sexy, Sexy, oooh… sleepy and sexy, Sexy, Sexy, smart… oh I really go for the glasses, you know, sexy, sexy…. God, shirtless, so sexy…”
Gabrielle made an aggravated sound and shuffled through her pictures till she found the one of Him sitting on a German beach, looking dejected and ruffled as five minutes earlier he’d had his shorts stolen by John who paraded about with them on his head before giving them back to an enraged George. He then sulked for the rest of the day.
“Ahh, look he’s pouting” Montana cooed. “When do I get to meet this sexy George boy, I’d like to defile him”
Cyn busted up laughing while Gabrielle looked hopeless at convincing her new housemate that George was, in fact, not at all sexy.
