Chapter Twenty-Three

Just as my eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark room, I felt Paul moving around next to me--and he gave me a swift and very painful kick in the shin with his foot!

"Yeeow!" I shouted, scaring the living daylights out of him. He sat up in bed so fast I thought he was going to shoot through the ceiling!

"What?! What is it?" he shouted, reaching for the lamp switch and flipping it on, flooding the room in bright light.

"Noth-ing!" I shouted, burying my face in my pillow to shelter my eyes from the light. "You kicked the crap out of my leg, so I shouted!"

"I kicked you?" he asked groggily. "Well, I'm sorry…jeez…from the way you screamed I thought someone had broken into the house and was attacking us or something."

"No…just shut the light off and go back to bed," I muttered, settling back into bed as he shut off the lamp. "And stay on your side! If I get kicked again…"

"Mmmm," he murmured, already back in sleep mode. Not even five minutes passed before I could tell he was asleep again, breathing softly against his pillow.

Unfortunately, I didn't have such an easy time falling back to sleep. I tossed and turned for about ten more minutes, then decided to get up and do something since I wasn't going to sleep anyway. I slowly crept out of the room and closed the door softly behind me as not to wake Paul again, then paced down the stairs to the living room.

The partygoers had left a disaster on the coffee table near the television, as I noticed after switching on the lamp in the corner of the room. You couldn't see the bottom of the tin ashtray, which was covered in cigarette butts, and there was a whole sheaf of papers spread out across the table.

"Nice disaster, guys," I said to myself, pushing the ashtray aside so I would have some space to prop up my slippered feet. Glancing at the papers, I saw that one of them had John's handwriting on it. It was more of that Strawberry Fields song he'd been tinkering with during the past couple of days. It took me a minute to decipher what he had written; I ended up reading it very softly to myself to figure it out.

"'Living is easy with eyes closed, Misunderstanding all you see--It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out, It doesn't matter much to me…' …hmm," I murmured, setting the paper back onto the table where I'd found it. "That's John all right…"

Many of the other papers were rough-drafts of the song, with the majority of the lines scribbled over in black ink. Hmm, I thought, resting my chin in my hand and drumming my fingers against my cheek as I picked up one of the papers with my other hand. Would John miss one of these drafts…no, better not, Laurie…god forbid you snatch the wrong thing and deprive the world of a new Beatles song…

I set it back on the table, then noticed that there was a small stack of photos at the opposite end of the table. Ooh! Ringo must have gotten the film developed! I thought, dropping to my knees and taking hold of the stack.

Much to my surprise, some of the photos were very nice! There were only twelve pictures in the stack, most of them being snapshots of various people goofing around at the parties over the past couple of weeks, but some of them were absolutely exquisite! He'd managed to capture either a really nice sunrise or a really nice sunset from one of the hotel balconies during the tour.

Near the bottom of the stack was that pictures he'd taken of Paul and me. There were two of them that he'd snapped while Paul was hiding behind the Life magazine, and then there was the last one where Paul and I had smiled nicely for the picture. Damn--that was probably the nicest picture of me that I'd seen in a long time--besides the fact that it was photographic proof that I knew the Beatles! I would have to ask Ringo about keeping that picture; after all, he had the negatives and could make more copies of it if he wanted to.

I yawned, putting the pictures back onto the table. Hmm…nothing on TV…what can I do? I thought. I could always write to Cheryl…yeah, I kind of owed her a letter at that point…

I found a blank sheet of paper on the table and borrowed John's pen. Using John's writing folder as a hard surface, I curled up on the couch beneath the lamplight and began writing until I was exhausted, then I went back up to bed.

Dear Cheryl,

I'm writing from sunny California right now. Actually, it's starlit California at the moment--it's 3 a.m. right now, and I can't sleep.

Guess who I got to meet the other day??? David Crosby! He came to visit all of us in this huge house we're staying in in the Hollywood Hills--we even shot a game of pool with him. J And that night I got to meet Brian and Carl Wilson--yes, two of the Beach Boys! If we were back in high school, I think we would've killed for a chance to meet them, huh? They both seemed very nice; I didn't spend too much time with them--I think I spent more time with Derek Taylor's two kids, to tell you the truth. Oh, Derek is a former press officer of the Beatles; he lives in LA now with his family. Anyway, I got to hear Paul sing to Derek's daughter Shelley--he sang "Five Little Monkeys" to her before she went to sleep! It was so adorable!

I should be coming home sometime on Tuesday; the Fabs' last show is in San Francisco tomorrow night (Monday). Hell, you'll probably see me before you even get this letter, but I'll mail it anyway--I know I've slacked off on writing to you during this whole tour thing…but can you blame me with all that's going on around me? I'll tell you every little thing about the trip when I get home, I promise!

See you very very soon!
Love,
Laurie

Breakfast that morning was a rather silent affair, since three of the four Beatles were probably nursing slight hangovers from partying the night before. As we enjoyed a proper Sunday breakfast--eggs, pancakes, sausage, toast, orange juice--around one o'clock in the afternoon I flipped through the pages of the newspaper that Brian had been reading before he'd left the table.

"Hmmm," I murmured thoughtfully, reading the title of one of the main articles.

"What's up?" Paul asked, drowning his stack of pancakes in a lake of maple syrup.

"Martin Luther King Jr. was going to march in Cicero today, but he called it off," I remarked, skimming the article.

"Cicero?" Paul repeated.

"Yes…oh, sorry," I laughed, realizing that he had no idea where Cicero was! "Cicero is a west-side suburb of Chicago…pretty much all-white…so that might have caused a problem there…but it says here that the Chicago city council adopted a plan to improve public housing, so the march was called off."

A few minutes later I read another small article and burst out laughing. "Oh lord!" I giggled. "Wait until my mother hears this!"

"What?" said Ringo, looking as I folded the newspaper in half and pointed to the small article.

"It says here that Apple Jacks cereal is made of fifty-five percent sugar!" I laughed. "No wonder Claire acts the way she does! She eats that rocket fuel for breakfast every morning!"

Ringo and Paul laughed along with me. "That explains a lot!" Ringo commented.

I finished looking through the rest of the paper, then folded it into quarters like Brian had left it and set it on the edge of the table next to me. "So…what are we doing today?"

"Well, we're leaving here at five-thirty," Neil said, finishing the last sip of coffee in his cup. "The show starts at eight, which means they'll be on at around nine-thirty…and we're having some more people over tonight as well…but not too many."

I sighed with relief. I could handle a small party if need be, just not a large one with roomsful of people and barrelsful of liquor and drugs. After all the goings-on I'd seen over the past few weeks, any college parties I'd ever attend in the future would surely pale in comparison!

"Did you find everything you were shopping for yesterday, Laurie?" Neil asked as he got up from the table.

"Yes, yes, I did," I said. "I found some really nice things for my family and…uh, my friends, to take home with me."

"Hey, did you ever find your ring?" he questioned.

I beamed, extending my right hand so he could see that the blue-stoned ring was snugly on my ring finger. "Paul found it for me," I said, folding my hands together. "It was stuck behind the dresser."

Neil stared at my hands for a moment, then looked over at Paul and shook his head. Paul frowned straight back at him. "What?"

"Nothing at all," Neil snorted, stifling a laugh as he leaving the dining room. "Forget it…"

"Bah," Paul muttered, snatching up the newspaper and threatening to fire it in Neil's direction. "Well, Laurie, m'dear, what would you say to a swim in the pool?"

"I'd love it," I said, buttering one last piece of toast for my meal. "This might be our last chance for it, right?"

"Probably," Paul nodded, leaning back in his chair. "We have to fly to San Francisco tomorrow rather early in the day."

After I finished my toast, I followed Paul upstairs to our room to change into our swimsuits. "One last show," I said for about the zillionth time. "And then you're going home…ya gonna miss me?"

I batted my eyelashes at him, staring up at him with an overdone simper on my face, and he made a disgusted face in jest. "You? Gerron!"

"Well, I won't miss you, then, either," I replied, kicking off my shoes and sitting on the edge of the bed. "Mr. 'Well-I'm-Sorry-if-I-Kick-In-My-Sleep'…you're worse than Claire is!"

"Why in God's name did you ever share a bed with Claire?" Paul said from behind the closed bathroom door.

"We were camping in our backyard in this little tent my dad bought her for her birthday when she was five years old, and he let us sleep in the yard in it one night just for fun, like we were camping," I explained as I changed quickly into my swimsuit. "Seriously, I had bumps and bruises on me the next morning from Claire flailing her arms and legs around in her sleep."

"Some fun," Paul remarked, emerging from the bathroom. "The Kid from Hell…"

"No…well, maybe when she was little, but she's okay now. She's turned out halfway normal…not like the little gnome I was sure she'd turn into someday."

"Ah, yes, the lovely princess and her gnomeish sister…wasn't that a fairy tale?" he joked, tossing a towel at me from the bathroom.

"Very funny, Mr. Comedian…let's get outside and not waste anymore of this sunshine."

We bounded down the stairs at lightning speed, nearly knocking Ringo over as he was walking upstairs to his room. "Sounds like a herd of elephants," he commented, grabbing the rail to keep from falling over.

"Oh!" I gasped, turning back around. "Before I forget, I wanted to ask you… could I keep that picture of Paul and me that you took with your camera? I saw it last night when I was sitting down here, and--"

"Consider it yours, Laurie," he smiled before turning and continuing upstairs.

Paul held the sliding door open for me as we walked outside. "When were you sitting down here?" he frowned.

"Well, I couldn't sleep after you kicked the crap out of me, so I came down here and wrote a letter to Cheryl," I said. "I'd like to mail it sometime today so she has a slim chance of receiving it before I get home."

"Ha--fat chance at that," he said. "You'll be home for about a week before she'll get it."

"I know, I know…but stranger things have happened," I remarked. "I got a letter once from my pen pal in Spain three days after she sent it…it was a class project thing during Spanish 1 freshman year at Danford."

He nodded, closing the door and tossing his towel onto one of the deck chairs. "Last one in gets to walk home!" he shouted, running for the pool and leaping in, splashing practically the whole pool area with water.

"Well, I'd better get my walkin' shoes on," I remarked, standing at the edge of the pool after he'd surfaced and shook the water out of his ears. "I have a few thousand miles to cover before school starts."

He smiled, floating on his back in the center of the pool. "Are you coming in or aren't you?" he said after a moment of me standing there and staring.

"I'll take the normal way in, thank you," I said, stepping down the ladder into the water. "At least it feels warmer than it did last night when you jumped in like a total dope and froze yourself to death."

I pushed off the bottom of the pool and floated on my back next to Paul, screwing my eyelids shut tightly to keep the painfully bright sun out of my eyes. "I should've worn my sunglasses," I said, barely able to hear myself speak because of the water building up inside my ears as I floated along. This surely beat the crowded Pine Lake pool, which I was sure would be crowded to the max if the weather was as warm in Chicago as it was here on the West Coast. Claire would surely be there; I wondered if my mother or father would have driven her there…oh, wait; it was Sunday--my dad would be home and he would drive her.

"At least I'm not getting kicked in here or anything," I said, putting my feet back onto the bottom of the pool and making a face at Paul. He responded with a few flicks of his fingers, sending droplets of water sailing towards me. "No, really…if I was at home, I'd be at the Pine Lake pool fighting the crowds and getting sunburned while waiting in line for the big slide into the pool."

John and Ringo joined us in the pool after about twenty minutes and started a major water fight between the three of them, so I got out of the pool and stretched out on one of the wooden lounge chairs. Ah, yes--one last day of sunbathing here, I thought. I think I've tanned more out here on vacation than I have all summer in Pine Lake.

Around four-thirty Ringo poked his head out the door and announced to us that dinner was on the table. I was already well dried-off, but the other three had to towel themselves off before coming into the house, and even then they left footprints on the carpeting on their way to eat.

Our lunch for the day consisted of ham sandwiches, potato chips, Coke, and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. As usual, those lads ate about three sandwiches apiece, plus generous helpings of the other goodies, whereas I had trouble finishing one sandwich and a little bit of everything else on the table. As soon as I was done, I went upstairs to take a quick shower and change into a nice outfit for our trip into town for the show, eventually selecting the lime-green skirt and sleeveless top that I'd worn to that infamous party where that girl had thrown herself at Paul--god, did I still want to rip her hair out, even at this point!

Which got me thinking again…what in God's name would I do if Paul asked me to marry him? At least, that's what I thought was on his mind…maybe I was completely mistaken! As I teased the back of my hair a little to give it some puff, I dismissed my earlier suspicions after a little more thought. Why would he go and do something as off-the-wall as that? Did he actually realize that I would still have a year of college left? And how on earth would I explain that to my parents? Claire would be heartbroken and insanely jealous! And just silly, stupid little things like how I would be able to handle moving to another country and finding a teaching job there were just enough to make my head spin, let alone the fact that I would be marrying a Beatle and would be resigning myself to a life of public scrutiny, just as the other three Beatle wives had done…perhaps not intentionally, but still…

"He can't be serious," I scoffed softly, tossing my comb back into the vanity case. "He'd be crazy to do something like that."

"Like what?"

I spun around to see Paul standing in the doorway.

"Er, nothing," I said, sure that my face had gone pale with surprise. "I was, uh, just thinking about, um, what might happen on Peyton Place this season…"

He raised an eyebrow skeptically. "O-kay…I never knew you were into that program…"

"Oh, yeah," I remarked, desperate to change the topic. (For the record, I think I'd watched about two episodes of Peyton Place at that point in my life! I think I'd seen the movie from the late '50s more often than the TV shows!)

"Are you done in the bath?" he asked, digging through his suitcase for his shampoo and bathrobe.

I nodded. "Go on in," I said, closing my vanity case and locking it. "I'm through."

Wishful thinking, I thought. Laurie, Laurie, Laurie, how are you ever going to survive without him at your side from now on?

Right at six o'clock the four guys, Neil, and myself piled into one of the limos waiting outside the house, ready for our trip into town. I had stuffed Cheryl's letter into my purse; all I had to do was address the envelope and drop it in the first mailbox we passed by after the show was over--I didn't want to disrupt the driving schedule just to get out of the car and mail a stupid letter while on the way to Dodger Stadium.

We practically sailed down the hill in the barge of a limousine we were sitting in. I slipped my shoes off and rested my feet on Paul's legs; he was sitting right in front of me in the backwards-carsick seat.

"If there's one thing I'm going to miss, it's this whole limo thing we have going here," I laughed as Paul tried shoving my feet away. "And here I was looking forward to getting my own set of wheels for my next birthday."

"You're getting your own car?" George asked.

I nodded, adjusting my sunglasses as the car made a turn into the blazing late afternoon sunlight. "Yep…I want a bright red Corvette with air conditioning and heat so I don't have to freeze when I drive in the winter."

Ringo made a face. "Little Miss Silver Spoon," he muttered, stifling a laugh.

"Now, hold it there," I said. "I helped my dad out at the Vanderbilt last summer for a month straight to earn some money for a down payment on it…I'm not getting it just handed to me, you know."

The ride to the stadium didn't take us very long, and luckily we weren't recognized by many people on the highway, since we had the windows wide open to let in the glorious air. I could see the huge stadium looming in front of us on the street…as well as a large group of hormone-charged teenagers surrounding the entire circumference of the building. I gulped.

"Exactly how do you propose that we'll get into the stadium without getting maimed or one or more vital body parts torn from us?" I asked Neil, who had turned around in the backward seat to survey the scene ahead of us.

"I'm one step ahead of you, Laurie," he said, pointing out the front window. "Look there."

I craned my neck to see over tall Paul's shoulders and saw another black limousine with tinted windows about a block ahead of us on the street. "Oh…ah-ha," I said, watching as that car rolled closer to the crowds.

Naturally, the moment all those teeners saw the limo approaching, they set off a mad frenzy of screaming and running for it. The driver slowed our car to a crawl as the diversion did its work--it drove past the side gate (where we would be dashing inside the stadium) and around the corner, the majority of the fans tagging after it in an ear-piercing din of noise. Our car sped up as soon as the driver saw the opportunity, and we drive right inside the gates past only a handful of ecstatic fans waving and managing to reach out and pound on the windows.

There was a chain-link fence that a group of security guards secured closed as soon as our bumper passed by it, safely ensconced in a service truck entrance to the stadium. We made our usual dash out of the car and down a dimly lit, smoky corridor to a tiny dressing room. The lads looked none too happy with their surroundings for the evening.

"Ick," George commented, a disgusted look on his face. "Worse than those rooms at the Indra Club…"

"Hmm?" I asked, tossing my purse onto one of the folding tables set up along the wall. "Is that in Liverpool?"

"No; Hamburg, luv," John replied, practically attacking the cart of Cokes that was waiting in the corner of the room. "I'm parched…anyway, the Indra was this strip club there, and that was one of our first gigs in town."

"Oh…oh," I said, turning to Paul and giving him a mock dirty look. "Well, Mister, I hope you didn't spend too much time there."

"Oh, him? He's the worst--the birds went barmy for him," John said, giving Paul a punch in his left shoulder.

"All right, John; let's not ruin our squeaky-clean images, now," Paul retorted, shaking his head. "God knows we're all angels, aren't we?"

John snorted. "If you say so…" he said in a mockingly sweet voice.

No sooner had the five of us opened a bottle of Coke apiece than Neil knocked on the door and said, "Press conference time, lads."

John rolled his eyes, fussing with his hair in the mirror on the wall. "Press conference time," he mimicked, pulling his suit coat back on. "I'm glad this is almost over with…"

The four of them filed out the door slowly--god, they really hated those damn things, didn't they?--and the room filled with deafening silence for a time as I sat there staring at the empty walls. I glanced over at the boys' instrument cases piled in the corner of the room and noticed that someone had left a transistor radio on top of the stack.

"Ooh!" I squeaked, walking over there and flipping the dial on. It was tuned to a pop station, and the Gerry and the Pacemakers song "It's Gonna Be Alright" was just starting. That song was probably one of my favorite non-Beatles songs of all time, and to kill the absolutely stifling boredom of waiting and waiting, I started dancing around the room like a lunatic and singing in my terrible singing voice.

"It's gonna be alright, al-right-al-right, it's gonna be al-ri-i-i-ght," I sang, singing into the Coke bottle like a microphone. "When you look at me, in your eyes I can see, the love that grows each day, that's why I got-ta say…it's gon-na be all right, all right-all right, it's gonna be al-ri-i-i-ght…"

I giggled as I swung my hair back and forth until it was a moppy mess on my head and my headband was nearly falling over my forehead. The song ended, and after the deejay's brief station identification, "Do the Freddie" by Freddie and the Dreamers came on. Must be a British Invasion double play, I thought as I jumped around and actually started doing that stupid Freddie dance that had never really gone over that well as a dance craze in my neck of the woods, as well as interspersing my own unique/borderline awful dance steps.

"Kick your-feet-up, swing your arms up too, move your head-both-ways like you see-me-do…do the Freddie," I sang. Not bad exercise, I thought. I could stand to do this a few times every day and lose a few pounds--

I was right in the middle of my, uh, energetic performance when the dressing room door opened, unbeknownst to me, and Paul and John stared at me from behind like I'd gone nuts. I spun around as I heard Paul burst into laughter behind me.

"She's gone bananas, Paul!" John shouted, running up and grabbing one of my arms. "Get the strait jacket and the tranquilizers straight away!"

"Aye, she has!" Paul said, taking hold of my other arm as I burst into embarrassed laughter. Each one of them took hold of one of my wrists and crossed my arms in front of me like I was indeed straitjacketed. "This confinement has driven her into a psychotic frenzy…what do you say, Doctor Lennon?"

"I say, looks like Beatle-itis to me," John said in a posh accent, looking down his nose at me superiorly.

"Ah, yes, that terrible chronic social disease," Paul replied, just as posh. "There's only one cure for this."

"And what's that?" I said, laughing still.

"We'll just have to quit touring," John said very matter-of-factly, "and eradicate this terrible disease from the population."

They must have seen the upset look on my face, because John quickly added, "Either that or she'll have to be dumped headfirst into the swimming pool when we get back to the house…one way's bound to work."

Neil, George, Ringo, and Brian entered the room just then. George shook his head and laughed at the sight of the three of us in a twisted pretzel of arms. "I don't even want to know," he said, waving the whole thing off with his hand.

"She's gone insane," Paul said, still holding fast to my arm. "We're just trying to protect the girl from any more harm."

"Laurie, you're in more danger with those two than without them," Ringo remarked, retrieving his bottle of Coke from the tabletop where he'd left it earlier. "I'd keep running for your life if you can."

After a little more time, I could hear the din of the fans gathering in the rows of seats around the baseball diamond. One of the stairways must have been right over our heads because for about twenty minutes it sounded like they were marching a herd of elephants up and down the concrete stairs. All those impatient fans were in a mad rush to see their idols, even though it would be a good wait through the opening acts until the Beatles finally took the stage.

When the four of them finally made their mad dash to the stage from the dugout, it seemed like all pandemonium broke loose inside the stands. The screaming seemed to get louder and louder the longer and longer the tour went on…or maybe my ears were just getting tired of the noise. Neil and I stood in the doorway of the dugout as they took the stage and began fiddling with their amplifiers on stage. Neil looked very tired that day, as if he'd been running with no sleep for about three days.

"Something wrong, Neil?" I asked, a little worried. Crap--maybe he'd come down with the same cold I'd had earlier in the tour.

Neil shook his head. "No…never mind," he said. "Just worn out."

"I know," I said, turning and looking behind me as I saw two teenage boys approaching us from behind in the corridor. "Neil?"

"Hmm?" he said, turning around and then spotting the boys. "Oh, hello; are you the two boys that the photographer said had the lawn passes?"

One of the boys nodded. "Yes…are you Mr. Aspinall?" he asked. "You're supposed to sign our tickets so we can go out on the field and watch the show."

Neil took the ballpoint pen the boy offered and quickly signed the two lawn passes for them. "I'll walk you out there…whatever you do, don't lose those tickets," he warned. "You'll never get back here if they get misplaced."

"Okay," the other boy said. I followed them as they walked for the stairs to the field.

Neil turned back to me. "Laurie, do you want to watch the show next to the stage with them?" he asked, reaching into his pocket for my backstage pass that I'd forgotten to hang around my neck earlier in the day.

My eyes lit up when I heard that! "Oh, I'd love to!" I gushed, taking the pass from him and following him and the others across the playing field in a brisk but relaxed pace.

I looked up at the thousands of fans as we passed by third base. Flashbulbs were popping everywhere like frantic lightning bolts, and the screams--my god, the screams…For once in my life I actually felt how the Beatles must have felt walking that path to their stage, each of them feeling like they were a tiny little guppy swimming at the bottom of a fishbowl of people. I felt so small, so insignificant. I thought that the immense walls of people on three sides of me would come crashing in on me at any moment and drown me in a sea of bodies before I reached the safe haven of the fenced-in perimeter of the stage area.

"Now, Laurie," Neil yelled over the cacophony of the spectators, "just go inside the tent at the back of the stage with the lads at the end of the show. There's a car there waiting so we can get out of here right afterwards, okay?"

I nodded, not wanting to waste my breath in trying to out-scream forty-five thousand fans packed into Dodger Stadium that night. The Beatles broke into "Rock and Roll Music" just as Neil let himself out of the fenced area and rushed back to the dugout. Since we were right on top of the loudspeakers, the two boys and I could hear every word and every twang of the guitars perfectly as the band played through their set list.

One of the boys leaned over during the guitar solo on "If I Needed Someone" and asked, "What's your name?"

"Huh?"

"What's your name?" he asked again, really enunciating his words as best he could so I could hear.

"Oh!…Laurie," I said. "And you?"

"Rodney…and that's Chris," he shouted back at me as an even louder crescendo of screams filled the air. "You from around here?"

"No," I said, pausing for a minute to think. Okay; why bother doing the tired old Laurie Aspinall routine? These kids obviously had to know someone pretty high up to get lawn passes to a Beatles concert, so I doubted they'd squeal about my identity and ruin any future chances to see the Beatles this close up.

"I'm from Chicago," I said, clapping as the song ended. "I've been traveling with them through the whole tour."

"Really? That's great!" Rodney replied, interested but not overly surprised. My hunch about him was right--he was enthused about seeing celebrities, but he must have been used to it or something. "Must be pretty interesting hanging out with the Beatles."

More interesting than anyone will ever know, I thought, smiling at him.

"Yes," I replied, "though it's been tiring."

"I'll bet," he commented just as George strummed a few warm-up notes from "I Feel Fine" through the amp before they began that song. Paul walked up to the edge of the stage at that moment and looked down at us. His hair and face were already dripping with sweat; I could see the orangeish stage makeup staining the collar of his suit as it rolled down his neck.

"Laurie! What are you doing here?" he shouted. "Aren't you afraid of getting hurt out here? It's dangerous!"

I laughed. "Now how could I possibly feel unsafe behind only a tiny wire fence about four feet high?…I'll be fine, Paul!"

He smiled and waved off my comment, returning to the microphone to count off the beginning of the song for George and sing along on the choruses.

That evening was probably one of the single most enjoyable times I'd ever had in my life. The excitement of seeing the Beatles live and in person performing on stage was coupled with the close-up intimate feeling of watching--and hearing!--them on the television at home. For half an hour, I was just a fan of theirs again, not a close friend, and I just stood there and enjoyed the music among all the stage-crashers and general mayhem within the stadium walls.

After they took their bows following the final notes of "I'm Down," I made a beeline for the striped tent at the back of the stage. I was at the doorway before the four of them were down the stairs and off of the stage. Brian and Mal were waiting for us just inside the tent, along with an assembly of security officers and LA police.

"Hop in the car," he instructed the five of us as the boys unstrapped their guitars and handed them to Mal, who tossed them into the trunk of the limo just for safekeeping for the moment. He would put them into their proper cases once we were out of the stadium and away from the pandemonium.

I felt somewhat safer once we were inside the limousine and the doors were closed and locked. Ringo grabbed the newspaper that Brian had been reading and fanned himself with it fervently. "I'm soaked!" he remarked, unbuttoning the collar on his shirt. "Let's get back to the house…I'm ready to step straight into the pool."

"We'll be there in a jiffy," the driver said, starting the car and driving through the tent flaps that the security officers were holding open for us.

The police in the stands were holding back the throngs of weeping, hysterical fans particularly well as we drove across the edge of the playing field and through the exit for the riding lawnmowers and the bullpen car. I could see the streetlights at the end of the long corridor we would be out of in a few moments.

"I can't wait to get home, either," I said. "I should probably work on packing up all my gifts for my family instead of procrast--"

I was interrupted by the driver saying, "You have to be freakin' kidding me!" and slowing the car to a stop. Alarmed, the seven of us crammed into the back seats turned and looked through the front window of the car, and I saw exactly what the driver was concerned about. A large chain-link fence that was similar to the one that had been locked behind us when we'd entered the stadium was locked up in front of us. A row of squad cars and emergency vehicles had been parked in front of the gate to prevent concert crashers from getting in and making a break for it across the playing field.

"How are we going to get out?" I asked. Our situation seemed desperate.

"Why haven't they moved these cars yet?" Brian asked the driver. "I thought it was arranged for the security guards to start moving them when the lads took the stage."

"Your guess is as good as mine," the driver said. "As far as I knew, things were going as planned."

Brian was fuming. He got out of the car as the driver put the car in parking gear and rushed over to the two security guards standing on the opposite side of the fence.

"Some-bo-dy's gon-na get fi-red," I sang in a singsong voice, trying to get rid of the glum faces around me. "Some-bo-dy's gon-na get fi-red."

A moment later, Brian returned to the car and closed the door behind him. "I hate to tell you this, but we're also driving on four flat tires--someone must have tried sabotaging our escape plan. We're to go back to the tent and wait--they're going to drive the armored car to the tent for us and we'll try it from there."

Paul rubbed his face with his hands. "Go-o-o-d," he whined, slouching in his seat. "All I want to do is get home, that's all…I don't feel well after all that."

The driver reversed the car and returned to the striped tent, where, sure enough, the armor car was parked waiting for us. In a matter of moments, we had transferred ourselves from the plush seats of the limo to the hard metal benches inside the armored car. The guards slammed the door shut behind us and locked it. Let me tell you, if you ever want to know what jail must feel like, spend about five minutes in one of those things and you'll know!

We pulled out of the tent and I felt the car rolling across the field when the driver slammed on the brakes and nearly knocked all of us through the front panel of that back compartment. Even through the heavy panels of reinforced steel, I could hear dozens of fists pounding on the walls making a futile attempt to break through the car.

"There must be a mob out there!" Ringo said, trying to stand up and peer through the tiny little window above the driver's compartment. "Yep; I was right…the field is swarming with people. They must have broken through security…I don't think we'll be going anywhere for a while."

I looked over at Paul, who appeared to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. "No, no, no, no, no!" he shouted, pounding his fist against the wall. "Why can't they just let us out, for Chrisssakes? Haven't they had enough?"

He gave the wall a whack again before saying the f-word about a dozen times in various profane statements that I choose not to repeat here, ending with a loud, "Goddamn it! That's it! I am through with this! I can't do this anymore, I just can't!"

He buried his face in his hands, then jerked them away from his face as two angry tears rolled down his face. "I thought I could handle it just this one last time, but I can't…I just can't…I can't fucking do it…"

I reached across to hold his hand, but Ringo grabbed my arm and held it back. "Let him have his fit, luv," he said, looking quite upset himself. "We've all had ours over the past few weeks…he's the last of the bunch to come to terms with it."

"Come to terms with what?" I asked, but no one answered me.

Paul wiped his face with his sleeve and sniffled. "Laurie, luv, you wouldn't happen to have any tissues in your purse, would you?"

"Oh, of course I do," I said, zipping open my bag and pulling out two Kleenex for him. "There's more if you need it."

He nodded, wiping his sniffling nose and pocketing the tissues. "It's over, Laurie…we haven't made it official yet, but it's over."

My stomach dropped to my feet. "What do you mean?"

"We're not going to tour anymore," he announced quite soberly, his reddened eyes looking exhausted.

"Oh, you're just saying that…so you had a bad night; you'll be fine after a night's rest," I said, patting his knee."

"No, Laurie; I mean it…and so do the others," he continued. "We just can't do this to ourselves anymore. We've cheated near death more times than we can count during the past few months on tour, not to mention the last few years since we hit it big here in the States. We sound like shit when we play, too; you just can't reproduce what we've done in the studio lately on stage."

I bit my lip. Oh my god…this just couldn't be happening! How could a rock band not tour? No one had ever quit touring and still remained a success! Sure, they were the Beatles…but were they really that different that they could pull it off? I was completely baffled at the prospect of the Beatles never returning to the U.S. again, never going on the Ed Sullivan show again…never coming to Pine Lake again to visit me.

"But, Paul--"

"We're tired, Laurie," John said, backing Paul up. "We've been doing this for longer than you've been in college…before you were barely in high school, for that matter…It's time for a break."

I burst into emotional tears. I'd never been prone to an outburst since I was about ten years old, but this certainly warranted my reaction! No! No! No! They just couldn't quit on me! I felt like they'd all just died in front of me. It was just as well if they did--I'd never see them again, would I?

After what seemed like an agonizing eternity, the car started moving again, and we drove back to the dugout area. The security guards and police had finally gotten things under control within the stadium, so we managed to jump out of the armored car and run back down the corridor to the dressing room without getting our hair ripped out by zealous fans. The whole thing seemed like a blur to me. I was in utter awe of what they'd all just told me. Somehow I felt as if life would never be the same again.

We sat in the dressing room for about an hour and a half while we waited for everything to calm down to a reasonable peace outside the safe confines of the dressing room. After about fifteen minutes, those two boys Rodney and Chris came to visit us. Man, they really must have known someone if they managed to get into the dressing room without being hassled!

"So, you found us again," I laughed as the Beatles signed autographs for them. "Very persistent, aren't you two?"

Rodney laughed. "Well, why not?"

We all had a nice chat while each of the Beatles went to wash up in the bathroom. Paul looked much better once he emerged from the bathroom; he'd washed his face and combed some water through his hair to cool himself off. However, I still knew that he wasn't about to change his mind about not touring, considering the other three would certainly come down hard on him if he went back on his decision.

At long, long last, we boarded the limo inside the stadium and managed to leave through the very gates that had barred our exit earlier. I sighed with welcome relief as we picked up speed along the streets. There weren't many fans left hanging around the stadium, thank goodness.

We had been driving for about fifteen minutes when the limo pulled to a stop at a little convenience store. "All ashore that's going ashore," he announced, putting the car in park.

I glanced around in confusion as everyone started getting out of the car. "What are we--"

"I need something to drink," Paul said. "I think I'm dehydrated."

I shrugged. Okay, sure, fine…I could go for an ice cream bar or something myself, to tell you the truth. I stepped out of the car and closed the door behind me, and then I spotted the mailbox about ten feet away from the parking lot.

"Oh!" I said, tugging Paul's jacket sleeve. "I'm going to run and drop Cheryl's letter in the mailbox while I'm here; I'll meet you in there in a minute."

He nodded, and I walked over to the blue box and opened the squeaky hinged door. I dropped Cheryl's letter in, really hoping that she might get it at home before I arrived home…but that was very wishful thinking!

While the others shopped for Coke and Wrigley's gum and cigarettes, I chose a Good Humor strawberry shortcake ice cream bar from the freezer (god, I love those things!) and paid for it with some change at the bottom of my purse. Peeling the waxy wrapper away from the ice cream, I stood outside the store and gobbled most of it down by the time the others emerged from the store.

The cool darkness enveloped us as we got out of the limo upon arriving at the house on Curson Terrace. I stretched my arms and legs as we all walked through the front door. "God…I'm ready to sleep," I remarked.

"Not just yet," John said. "There's some people coming over later on."

I sighed, glancing over at Paul, who still looked a little fatigued. "Paul?"

"Hmm?"

I walked closer to him, not wanting to shout everything across the room. "Do we have to stick around for this whole party?"

"I'm not going to stay at it long, Laurie…you've seen what kind of mood I'm in tonight," he whispered. "I'll come upstairs after a little while."

I shrugged. "Okay…don't wear yourself out, Paulie."

He nodded, then sort of snapped out of his dazed state as he realized I'd called him "Paulie."

"I know, luv…thanks anyway," he laughed, hanging his suit coat on the hook behind the door. "I'm going to go shower really quick before everyone gets here…"

I retreated upstairs a few minutes later, just as the doorbell began ringing. Party or not, I had some packing to get done, so I clicked on the clock radio next to the bed to get some music and get to work. Besides all the gifts I'd purchased, I had a heap of clothes piled in the corner of the room that needed to be packed back in my case. My stockings were still hanging in the shower where I'd left them to dry the night before, so those needed to be packed away carefully to avoid snags. In between all those clothes, I securely wedged the little clipping of John's hair that I'd snatched for Claire, as well as the more fragile gifts I'd bought for everyone at home.

It really wasn't long before Paul knocked on the door, and I let him in. He looked completely exhausted as he fell face first onto the bed.

"Okay…I'm done for the night," he said. "You'll be lucky if you can wake me up before Thursday…I'm knackered."

I moved my suitcase off of the bed so he could have some more room to stretch out as I finished packing everything up. After a few moments, he turned his head and looked at me.

"Everything packed?"

"Mmm-hmm," I said. "It was easier than I thought it would be. I was sure I wouldn't be able to squeeze everything into the same suitcase again…How about you?"

"I'm just stuffing it all into a trash bag in the morning," he joked, leaning on one bent arm as he rolled onto his side. "D'ya think they'll give me problems at customs about searching it?"

I laughed. "I doubt it…How's the party downstairs?"

"Not bad…lots of dancing going on," he remarked, looking out the window. "God, look at those stars out there…lot of drinking, too, and I just don't have the stomach for it tonight."

"Oh…dancing?" I said. There hadn't been much dancing at the other Beatle parties during the tour!

"Yeah…why? You want to go down there for a while?"

I shook my head. "No…but I-I would've liked dancing with you, maybe, just once," I remarked, closing my suitcase and locking it.

"Oh, love," he said, "why didn't you say so?"

"I just did."

He sat up and swung his feet to the floor. "I promise you, the next slow song on the radio I'll dance with you up here…how about that?"

I looked at those big round eyes of his and grinned. "Well, you can be a romantic when you want to be, can't you, Sir Paul?"

"Sir Paul? Why, of course, Lady Lauren," he said, winking at my romantic moment picturing him as a knight in shining armor.

"Eeew!" I said, making a face. "If you ever call me Lauren again, I'll slap you!"

He laughed. "What in the world is so bad about Lauren?" he asked.

"Well, besides the fact that it's what my mother calls me when she's pissed off at me…and besides the fact that I was always 'Laurie' since kindergarten and this other little bitch in my grade for thirteen years was 'Lauren' Callinger…it just sounds so weird…Lauren, Lauren, Lauren…hear it? And after you stare at it for a while, it begins looking weird, too!"

Paul raised an eyebrow. "What are you on about?…You're the only person I know that must have sat there and said your name a thousand times until the word didn't even sound like a word anymore."

"Okay, okay…just let it drop," I said.

Just then a slow song came on the radio--"True Love Ways," an old Buddy Holly song that Peter and Gordon re-did sometime in '65. "Ooh! Ooh! You promised!" I said, grabbing him around his waist and clinging to him tightly.

"Okay, okay; I'll indulge you this one, you spoiled brat," he said, kissing my forehead as he wrapped his hands around my waist and held me close. He and I swayed back and forth hypnotically to the slow beat of the song.

"Some-times we'll sigh…some-times we'll cry…and you'll know why, just you and I, know tru-u-e love wa-a-ays…throughout the days, our true love ways, we'll bring us joy to share with those who really care…"

Paul sang the words softly to me as we danced, his warm breath gentle against my ears as he spoke. I closed my eyes, just taking it all in, this perfect moment after so much hectic goings-on over the past few hours.

"What a beautiful night," I breathed to him as he softly kissed my neck.

"You've made it a beautiful night, Laurie," he said, unbuttoning the first two buttons on my blouse and kissing that soft area at the bottom of my neck. His hands were already sliding up my back underneath my blouse, reaching for the hooks on my bra before I could even protest.

"In a hurry, Paul?" I said, running my hands through his hair as he undid all remaining hooks and buttons that held together any barrier on my upper half.

"The night is going to be too short for me, as usual, when I'm with you," he said before kissing me so deeply that my knees nearly collapsed underneath me. "I love you so…you're so beautiful…"

I was nearly ready to beg him to take me back to London with him forever by the time he finally let me fall asleep in his arms that night, hours after the party downstairs had ended and all had become silent except for my near-inaudible pleading for him to keep doing more with me. I knew that tomorrow I would cry buckets of tears over leaving him after all we'd shared together. How I would ever manage tearing myself away from him on Wednesday I just couldn't fathom. God, if he did propose to me, though, he'd have me ready and willing to walk to the nearest justice of the peace and make it official then and there. Thoughts of being married to him and living with him day in and day out now that he was done touring with the band filled my dreams as I finally drifted off into peaceful, restful sleep.

Continue to Chapter 24

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