This time my heart didn't race. It stopped. Once again, I let out a little cry, and I slumped to the ground. The last thing that I saw was Paul's foot as I fell across the door.
Someone picked me up. Paul. Through slit eyes I saw his trademark golden bracelet dangling around his wrist. Voices, worried. Water running. Cloth on my forehead. The hand had rings....many. I opened my eyes. There was Ringo's worried face above mine, clear blue eyes probing and inquiring.
"Better?" he asked, and Paul came over and put his hand on my shoulder.
I closed my eyes again and fell back down into oblivion.
Voices, again. In the distance,
"DAMN you, Macca, she was awake!" Laughter. "What'd ya do to her?"
"I'm sorry!" came Paul's voice. Five men in hysterics brought me back to full consciousness.
"Okay, this time stay away, Paul!" said Neil Aspinall.
"All right, all right, sorry!" Paul put up his hands and pretended to shield himself from the laughter dancing in Neil's eyes.
"You all right, luv?" asked Mr. Aspinall.
"Yeah, sorry..." I struggled to sit up, and found myself on a couch in the middle of a predominantly empty room, next to an open door in which I could hear notes being plinked on a piano. I suspected that it was the actual studio in which my father was tuning.
"Oh, dad," I exclaimed, "where is he?"
"'S all right," said George, who had come up behind the others, "he's just fixing our piano."
"That's right!" came my father's voice, "what'd you do to it? It sounds like shit!"
This time, I laughed with the others and swung my legs up so that I was sitting in the middle of the couch in a normal state of mind...as normal as I could be.
"Okay," I looked at Mr. Aspinall, (I still couldn't face Paul or John without dropping,) "now that I've fully embarrassed myself, I'm so sorry to have caused you trouble..."
"Aw, not at all!" cried out George from behind Paul, who gave him a Look, "in fact, when you were lying on the couch, Paulie here said that he'd like to- Ahhhhhhh!" Paul slapped him with a pillow until he yelled for mercy.
"Well, thank you anyway," I said to them, and I peered into the studio room where my father was carefully tapping his tuning fork on his knee, and then leaning closer to the piano to hear the sound of an E-flat.
"Hmmm." I said, and walked quietly into the room. The Beatles followed behind me and stood, arms crossed, looking slightly uncomfortable at what my father was doing. I couldn't figure out why, but John explained in his own way.
"Ya know," he whispered into my ear, "I haven't figured out how people do that." Still feeling the tingle of his breath on my neck, I had to concentrate hard to answer. And so I shrugged.
"Good ear and patience." I finally said to him, smiling, and he rolled his eyes.
"Oh, is that all?" he asked me mockingly. I shoved him and he pinched my rear. I squawked indignantly. My father turned around. I could see that he was getting annoyed, and so did Mr. Aspinall, who suggested that we leave him in the studio since he needed quiet, and take a trip.
"We can GO somewhere?" asked Paul incredulously. It was obviously an in-joke.
"Oh, shut up McCartney." Said Neil menacingly. As the Beatles donned their fake hats and moustaches and I my coat, Neil opened the door carefully and looked out before ushering us into his limousine. I sat in the back with Paul and George; John and Ringo sat up front. It was a good thing too. Two handsome Beatles were all that I could handle.
Paul got out a camera from a pouch on the seat in front of him, and George commenced fiddling with a button on his jacket.
"Jesus," I finally laughed, "YOU'RE the Beatles, not me, I'M the one who's supposed to be nervous. George looked up and smiled with his famous lop-sided grin; Paul nuggied my hair.
"Who says I'm nervous?"
"You are." I said flatly. I wasn't the most subtle person in the world, and it was quite obvious to me that Paul was at a loss for wordsd.
"Yes, all right, then," said Paul, smiling, "you've got me pinned."
"Ha." I said, smiling back, and I somehow brought up enough courage to muss his hair forward into what was the correct Beatle haircut. Paul looked at me, obviously surprised.
"What was that for?"
"This is how it's supposed to be," I said laughing, and George did too.
"Shut yer gob, Georgie," said Paul warningly, "it'll be your hair next."
All of a sudden I felt my fingers twitching. Touching Paul's hair had awoken some nerves, a kind that I had never experienced before, and I found myself struggling to keep myself from touching him again. God! I thought to myself, How does anyone concentrate around this mind? He's like a sexual magnet!
Paul seemed to read my thoughts and turned around thoughtfully. He smield when he was me blush and confirmed the prospect of his telepathy.
*"You are impossible," I hissed at him. He laughed happily. George did too, but his face afterwards took on a slightly more sober look.
"Paulie, why is it always you who gets the bird?" I smiled sweetly up at him, for revenge towards Paul and also because he too was extremely appealing, and was also, after, a Beatle.
"Mr. Harrison," I asked him politely, "would you like to go out to dinner tonight?" George's face lit up like a child's does on Christmas. Paul shoved on the arm.
"Geroff it, girl!" he chided me, "'tis wicked you are!" I smiled in return.
"You haven't seen anything yet." Well, he hadn't and I proved him wrong. That night I took George out to dinner, (or he took me,) and Paul went with my best friend, Yvonne Francis. She was an incredibly kind, smart and beautiful blond-haired girl, and my father and Neil had agreed to let her come...she didn't know who she was going with, however, until the moment Paul walked out of the door to the studio. I think that she almost died.
But after the first few tiny moments of insecurity she was laughing and smiling as malways, and Paul looked beamingly happy by her side. And I, for my part, was glad to be with George, who, like a kid on his first date, blushed and stuttered for the first few minutes. It took quite a while to put him at ease.
No one recognized George or Paul, (their moustaches were incredibly realistic, and hats concealed their eyes,) and so the night ran by pleasantly. Though George was inexperienced at dating, he was experienced with kissing. I found this out as we stopped our car on the way back from dinner, and Paul and Yvonne got out to take a walk. George stayed with me, and he got out the car, opened my door, and helped me out. As soon as I was up, he pulled me close to him and bent down. My head swooned as soon as his lips touched mine. He wrapped his arms around my body and the resulting feeling of security allowed me to drop my weight forward onto his chest. Only my two wobbly legs held me up. After a few moments of innocent love, he gently tipped my head back as his tongue slipped into my mouth, slowly circled mine, and moved it to the side of my mouth with his. It was the first French kiss that I had ever had. He moaned with pleasure and his hands traveled across my body. I tasted him as he was tasting me, and, though it may have felt good, it also felt wrong. After a moment or two, realization of the situation hit me: I cried out softly in surprise and carefully pulled away I wasn't used to this on the first date. George looked at me, smiling at first confusedly, but then benevolently, and he repeated what he had said the first time that I saw him.
"'S all right."