Chapter Six

The next morning I awoke to the sound of the telephone ringing practically right in my ear; I was laying on the edge of my bed with my head up against my nightstand. Seeing that it was already half past eleven, I figured that it might be my father calling from work or something, so I should answer it if my mother was busy or out shopping. I picked up the phone and barely managed to say, “Hello?”

“Laurie?” I heard Paul’s voice say. What a joyous sound to hear so early in the morning! I squeezed the satiny top of my blanket so tight that my knuckles turned white.

“Oh!” I said, sitting up right away. “Yes, it’s me, Paul! I just woke up when the phone rang... how are you?”

He sighed. “All right, I suppose... none of us got very much sleep last night; nerves, you know.”

“I’ll bet, after that press conference yesterday,” I said, immediately recalling what had happened the day before. “How is John?”

“All right. We’re all just hoping that things calm down after this,” he said before taking a bite of something crunchy; they must have been in the middle of breakfast. “Um... I want to apologize for what happened yesterday.”

“Apologize for what?”

“The way we took off so fast in the morning before you even woke up,” he explained. I could hear the sound of spoons clinking against glass bowls in the background; the others must have been nearby as well eating their breakfast. “We figured you were tired from the night before and we wanted to let you rest. But, honestly, Laurie, if we didn’t get back to the hotel early as we possibly could, we never would’ve been able to get inside during the afternoon; the entire place was swarming with people.”

“No, no, no; it’s okay. I understand!” I said. “Really, it’s no big deal, Paul. Besides, I get to see you guys tonight and for the next few weeks, too... right?”

He gave a little muffled laugh. “I suppose so, luv,” he said before crunching on something again. I had to hold the phone away from my ear for a moment; it was a little too loud for me.

“What are you eating?” I said. “You’re crunching right in my ear.”

“Oh... cornflakes,” he said, dropping the spoon back into the bowl with a clank. “I’m sorry, luv; I’m dead starving and I couldn’t wait.”

I pulled my knees up against my chest and rested my chin on them. “That’s okay. So... Claire mentioned that I’m supposed to meet you guys before the show tonight.”

“Yeah; that’s what I called to explain. There’s been a bit of a change made to the plans,” he said. “We have to do the afternoon show at the theater, you know, so we’re just going to be around there all day. Claire is going to the afternoon show, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah; we took a good look at the tickets last night before I went to bed and I noticed that hers was for the afternoon show.”

“Right... well, Brian is going to send a car to your house instead of having a car meet you near the theater, and it’ll take you to the show.”

“You mean, like, a limo?” I said, my jaw dropping. “All for myself?”

“That’s right,” he laughed. “And you will be bringing your cases with, of course,” he reminded me. “We’re heading for Detroit tomorrow morning after a stop back at the hotel following the show.”

“All right; I’ll make sure I’m all set by this afternoon,” I said. “Boy, Cheryl and Anna are going to be pretty pissed off when they hear where I’m going. I don’t care if they’ve got seats close to the stage for the show tonight; they’re going to be jealous that I’m going with on the tour!”

“Aye, well, we don’t have room for the entire chapter of the Pine Lake Beatles Fan Club to come with,” he laughed. “Hey, how’s your mum and dad taking the news?”

I sighed. “Okay, I guess. My dad pretty much gave me an hour-long lecture last night saying, ‘Remember who you are, Laurie; if you end up staying at any of Mr. V’s hotels in other cities, I don’t want to hear any bad stories.’ My mother, on the other hand, seems pretty freaked out; I don’t think she, um, trusts you guys, exactly.”

“Bloody hell... and I figured we’d assured her that we’re as harmless as kittens,” he said rather deviously. I could just see the smart-ass smirk on his face, even though he was quite a few miles away!

“James Paul McCartney!” I laughed. “How dare you pull the wool over my mother’s eyes! The nerve of you!”

“Don’t play innocent with me, Laurie,” he laughed. “As if you’ve never done it in your entire life!”

“Moi? Never!”

“I can remember a certain occasion last January when you followed us outside into the garden after dinner,” he said, lowering his voice, “and, well, you haven’t said a word about that, now, have you?”

I giggled, stretching my legs out again. “All right; you caught me red-handed! I confess; I’ve been a terrible daughter! I should be taken into the backyard and shot!”

Paul was laughing pretty hard on the other end of the line as well. “Oh, of course; that was our whole plan!” he replied, calming down. “But, honestly, luv, the car will be at your house at--eh, Brian, what time?”

I heard Brian say something short in the background, barely audible, then Paul clarified, “The car for Laurie... oh, all right. Laurie, luv, it’ll be at your house at six.”

“Six?” I repeated. “But the show is at seven o’clock; isn’t that--”

“Yes, but we don’t go on until eight-thirty or so,” he explained. “We’ve got a bunch of opening acts, luv; we’re not the whole show this time.”

“Oh, that’s right,” I said, slapping my forehead. “I forgot! Claire will just love that; she’s got the patience level of a two-year-old.”

“Wonderful,” he said. “Look, is your mum around? Brian wants to speak with her one more time.”

“Sure; let me go find her,” I said. I buried the receiver in my pillows, opened my bedroom door, and screamed “Mom!” at the top of my lungs, just in case she was downstairs in the kitchen or something.

Just then I caught sight of my mother arriving at the top of the stairs. I took a step back into my room; I never could’ve guessed that she was that close by! I’d probably deafened her!

“Good lord; what’s going on?” she said, rubbing her right ear.

“Brian Epstein is on the phone; I guess he wants to talk to you,” I explained.

“And that’s what you were yelling for?” she said incredulously, stepping towards her bedroom to go pick up the phone in her room. “I thought an atomic bomb had been dropped or something from the way you were screaming!”

“I’m sorry; I just don’t want to keep them waiting on the phone too long,” I said, closing my bedroom door. I crept back over to my bed and held the receiver to my ear silently.

“Hello?” I heard my mother say.

“Good morning, Mrs. Donaldson,” Brian said.

“Good morning... could you hold on for just one second?” she said. I heard the click of her wedding ring against the mouthpiece of her phone, then heard her shout from the other room, “Lauren Ashley, you can hang up the phone now, young lady!”

Damn, I thought, replacing the receiver with a frown. How in the world can she tell that I’m listening in on the phone? It’s some sort of radar that mothers have; they just know...

I showered and got dressed (which took me about an hour--I had to look good for my evening out!) and made my bed, the last time I would have to do that chore for a few weeks. That was another thing I was looking forward to: room service and maid service! I was going to be absolutely spoiled for the rest of the month. Cleaning up my dorm room every day was going to feel even more arduous after that sort of treatment!

My mother came into my room just after I was fluffing up my pillows to make the bed look nice and neat, just like I usually did on Sunday mornings when I would be away at school for the following five days. “What’s up?” I asked.

“You’re flying to Detroit very, very early tomorrow morning, from what they told me,” she said. “You’re going to stay overnight at the Astor Towers instead of coming back here; Mr. Epstein is going to arrange it so that you have your own room.”

I sighed a tiny sigh. Of course he is... now that you talked to him and put silly ideas into his head! I thought. What’s the point of me going with if I’m not even going to see the Beatles during the whole damn tour except when they’re on stage... and there’s no chance of them paying attention to me with ninety-thousand other screaming girls surrounding them at every show!

“All right... what else?” I said, figuring that there was more.

“He also told me the ground rules,” she said, switching to her ‘you’d better listen or else’ tone of voice. “He doesn’t want any trouble from the press--you know how they’re looking for anything to write a sensational story about--so you’re going to have to play it very low-key during the whole tour. That means you can’t spend every living, breathing moment at their sides; people are going to start to talk if you do that.”

“Of course,” I said. “I know that... hey, I had to pretend that I was Neil Aspinall’s sister when we ran into a few fans after the concert last year or there would’ve been some very nasty rumors going around town.”

“Right; well... and you know what your father and I expect of you as well,” she said.

“I know, I know,” I said, directing myself back towards my telephone. “I can behave myself just fine... Now, I really have to call Cheryl and Anna and explain to them why I won’t be with them at the concert tonight.”

“Oh, that’s right; I didn’t even think of that,” she said. “You’d better take care of that.”

I nodded, dialing Cheryl’s number. The phone rang three times, then Cheryl’s mother answered. I asked if Cheryl was home, but her mother said that she’d driven into Chicago earlier that morning and wouldn’t be back until later that afternoon.

“Oh... well, could you please tell her that I can’t make it to the concert tonight?” I said. “And if she gets home earlier than expected, please have her call me; it’s important.”

“Is somebody sick at home?” Mrs. Hawthorne asked, alarmed. That was always the first thing she asked if I told her to give Cheryl an important message!

“No, no, Mrs. Hawthorne; everything’s fine, really,” I said quickly. “It’s just that something else has come up and I can’t make it, that’s all.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to give her the message,” she said.

I held down the button on the phone after Mrs. Hawthorne hung up, then dialed Anna’s number. This time I was much more successful; Anna answered the phone. “Brocklehurst residence.”

“Hey, Anna,” I said, leaning back into my fluffy pillows.

“Hey yourself!” she said. “How’s it going? Are you as hyper about the show tonight as I am?”

“Well... that’s what I was calling about,” I began slowly, wrapping the phone cord around and around my thumb. “I just tried calling Cheryl, but she’s out for the day. Um... I--”

“Oh, Laurie! You’d better not be canceling on us!” she cried unhappily. “What happened? Is somebody sick or something? That’s the only reason I could think of that you would give up a seat that is so close to the Beatles you might be able to actually hear them!”

“Well, Anna, um, actually, what happened really isn’t a bad thing... at least to me it’s not. Um, well, you see... they were at my house again yesterday, and--”

“Who was at your house again yesterday? Don’t you dare tell me you mean them! Not them!”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, really hanging onto the cord now. The last thing I needed was to get Anna worked up into hysterics on the phone. “And they, uh, invited me with them on their tour.”

Dead silence on the other line. Oh my god; she passed dead away! I thought. I’ve done it now! The first girl ever to die from emotional shock... and over the phone, too! I’d be sent to jail until I was eighty!

“Anna? Anna? Are you there?” I said loudly. “Please talk--”

“I’m here,” she said quietly. “Oh my god, Laurie... you’re actually going to go with them on tour? For real?!”

“Yep.”

“I hate you!” she said, half-laughing and half-crying. “I just hate you to death! You have got to be the luckiest girl on the planet! Oh my god! Laurie! I don’t believe this!”

I laughed. “I can barely believe it myself, Ann,” I remarked. “I can’t even begin to imagine what will happen over the next few weeks... but it’s going to be so much fun! I mean, just think: I’ll be there, with the Beatles on tour, seeing them every single day for three whole weeks! And going to all those concerts and hearing them play... oh my god, it just gets better and better every time I think about it!”

Anna was in tears by that point; I could hear her sniffling on the other end of the line. “Laurie, I-I... I can’t help it; I’m completely green with envy,” she confessed. “Well... the least I can do for you is get you a going-away present or something.”

“Ann, you don’t have to do anything for me! I’m the one who should be buying you and Cheryl, like, diamond tiaras to make up for what’s going to happen!”

“Oh, no you’re not,” she laughed, sniffing; I think she’d stopped crying. “Hey, if Cheryl and I can’t go with you, we’re going to live vicariously through you! If you really want to make it up to me... hmm... oh, tell George to give me a wave during the show. It would mean the world to me.”

Anna then informed me that she’d be over in about an hour with a going-away present from both her and Cheryl (who she’d bill for the expenses later). We got off the phone after a few more minutes, and I went downstairs to dig up something for lunch.

I found Claire in the kitchen with my mother; she was practically shaking as she sipped a spoonful of soup from her meal spread out on the table. I patted her shoulder as I passed her by.

“Claire, my god, relax!” I laughed as I got a bowl from the cabinet and headed over to the stove to take the rest of the Campbell’s simmering in the pot. I couldn't blame the kid for being excited, though; hell, if I just thought about the concert scene from A Hard Day's Night, my heart started beating faster! “You’re going to be sick.”

She set her spoon down next to her bowl and dug her hands through the sides of her hair, resting her elbows on top of the table. “I’m sorry; I don’t know why I’m so nervous about going!” she said, halfway giggling. “I mean, it’s just a silly old concert where a bunch of people will be screaming at the top of their lungs; why am I so nervous?”

I reached into the silverware drawer next to my mother for a spoon; my mother was chopping celery at a breakneck rate, obviously getting her nervous tension out by hacking vegetables to death. And Claire wonders where she gets a nervous streak from! I thought sarcastically, hiding a smile. The poor kid wouldn’t be such a nervous wreck if Mom had let her go with me and my friends to the concert at Comiskey Park last summer; we all managed to come back in one piece--and quite sane as well, thank you very much!

Claire finished her lunch about three minutes before Mary Kay’s father was due at our house to pick her up and head on down to the Amphitheater for the afternoon concert. I followed her into the living room, where she plopped herself down on the couch and stared intently down southbound Cold Creek Street, watching for her ride. I leaned against the arm of the couch and watched with her.

“I don’t want to sound like Mom, Claire,” I said, “but, honest to god, be careful at the show! A bunch of people passed out at both of the shows I’ve seen so far.”

“I know that!” she said. “I’ll be careful. I won’t talk to strangers, I won’t throw myself onto the stage, and I won’t pass out, for god’s sake!”

“Okay, okay,” I replied, standing back from her. “Take it easy... so, is there anything you want me to bring you back from the tour?”

She gave me a discouraging smile and muttered, “John, maybe?”

I rolled my eyes. “Right... no, seriously. Is there anything you want?”

She shook her head. “Just to be where you’re going,” she said quietly. “You know that people would kill to be in your shoes, myself included.”

“I know,” I sighed, rubbing my forehead. “I’m half-so excited that I could just throw up and half-terrified out of my mind... it might get rough at the shows they’re doing in the South if John’s apology didn’t take wing with them down there.”

Claire nodded. “I hope everything will be okay,” she said, getting a smile on her face. “And you’d better come back in one piece so I can hear all the gossip about what happened, Lauren Ashley Donaldson!”

“Oh, naturally; I’m a survivor,” I said, standing straight up and putting my hands on my hips. Just then I caught sight of a car turning into the driveway. “Claire, Mary Kay’s here.”

Claire leaped up from the couch and sprinted for the door, running out of the house before my mother even knew what was happening. I walked over to the doorway to see Claire hopping into the car next to Mary Kay; Mr. Dawson was rolling down the passenger-side window. He said to me, “Tell your mother I’ll have her home around seven; Mrs. Dawson and I are going to treat the girls to dinner after the show is over.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. I’d just spotted Anna’s car turning into the driveway and slowing down behind the Dawson-mobile. “I’ll tell her... bye, Claire!”

“Bye!” Claire shouted, waving as the car pulled away and Anna’s car moved up. I waited in the doorway for Anna to get out of the car; she was carrying three gift-wrapped boxes with her.

“Jesus, Ann!” I exclaimed as she struggled to get them up the stairs without dropping them. “What, did you buy out all of Taylor’s Department Store?”

“No!” she said, holding the teetering stack of boxes as she made her way past me and aimed for the couch. “Just fifty dollars worth...”

“Fifty dollars?” I squeaked, locking the front door. “Anna, really, that’s way too much money to spend no occasion at all!”

“It is an occasion,” she said, smoothing down her long black hair after removing her Marlo Thomas/That Girl hat. “It’s a Bon Voyage party for you!”

I laughed. “Maybe I should ask my parents for this kind of treatment when I leave for school each weekend,” I remarked, sitting down next to her on the couch. “What on earth did you spend fifty dollars on, though?”

She grinned deviously. “Well, you’ll see; why don’t you open the boxes and see?”

I raised an eyebrow at her suspiciously as I took hold of the first box, a small one about the length of two bars of soap laid end-to-end. I opened it up to find a pair of rose-colored roundish wire-rimmed sunglasses, just like the ones the Beatles had worn in the “Paperback Writer” and “Rain” promotional films we’d seen on the Ed Sullivan show in June.

“Ooh!” I squealed, trying them on. “Very cool! Thank you, Ann!”

“No trouble at all; I figured you’d need something to keep the sun out of your eyes while you’re enjoying all that sunshine in California,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Go on; open the next one.”

The next box was a small rectangular one that was about the same size as a cereal box. Tearing the rainbow paper away and lifting the lid, I found a full stationery kit, complete with pink writing paper edged with little embossed dark pink and green roses, matching note cards, large and small envelopes, three pens, and a whole sheet of stamps.

“Cheryl and I are going to expect some word from you during the trip,” she said as I stared happily at the gift. “So you’d better get some writing done, you English major, you. I even bought you a whole slew of stamps, so now you have no excuse not to tell us all about what’s going on with the fellas while they’re on the road!”

“Oh, thank you!” I said, re-covering the stationery with the tissue paper liner. “The set is just gorgeous, really... I detect a rose theme laced through these presents.”

“Indeed you’re right,” she said with a smile. “Okay; open the third one.”

The third box was the largest one, a regular clothes-box size. I lifted the lid and pushed aside the tissue paper--then snapped it back over it again and gasped in shock.

“Anna!” I gasped, slowly re-opening the box. Inside was the third present in the rose-themed array of gifts: a very sexy-looking rose-pink satin nightgown edged in black lace!

“Cheryl would want you to have something, eh, nice to wear for your Paulie while you’re locked away in those hotels with him,” she giggled, trying to keep her voice down so my mother wouldn’t hear the details of our conversation. “This was the most revealing thing I could find that didn’t just scream ‘cheap’ upon first glance.”

My jaw was still dropped. “An-na! Are you suggesting that I’m going to be chasing after Paul the whole trip?”

She nodded vehemently, her hair swaying back and forth. “You don’t mean to tell me that the thought didn’t cross your mind,” she whispered. “I mean, if George were still single and I was the one going with them... well... you can bet I’d be hitting on him like there was no tomorrow... and you know the same thing goes for Cheryl with Ringo!”

“And Claire with John,” I said quietly, sliding the box lid back onto the gift. “Jesus... I never really gave it much thought yet...” I started thinking about last January when Paul had crept into my room late at night and we’d gone at it for about two hours straight; the only reason we’d stopped short of going all the way was because he--not me-- was nervous about sleeping with the daughter of the guy who had been his host for the weekend! This time things were very different; without that parental presence, would he try it again? Would I have the nerve to tell him no? Would I even want to tell him no this time?

“I’d be willing to bet, Laurie, that you are no longer going to be a virgin when you get back from this trip,” Anna said, dead serious. “I mean it; I’d bet next semester’s tuition on it!”

“Anna, I’m not that cheap!” I said. “Give me some credit. I’m twenty-one years old; believe me, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to do it with that whole string of guys that I’ve dated since junior high school: Steven Whittier, Ed Miller, Chet Sanders--”

“Oh, god... that guy was a walking hormone!” Anna giggled, covering her mouth with her hands. “What a twerp! I’m so glad you dumped him after only a week! But this time we’re talking about Paul McCartney, the dreamiest guy on the face of the earth-- though I would differ in opinion with you on that fact, of course.”

“Naturally,” I said. “Listen; let me run these things upstairs before my mother sees them. I’ll be right back.”

I dashed upstairs quickly, opened up the big box, and shoved the nightgown into my suitcase with my other pajamas; my stationery set fit inside the bigger suitcase, and the sunglasses I just left next to my purse so I could try them out that evening. Now Anna had really scared me; I was afraid to think of what I really thought might happen between me and Paul during the trip. It was a very realistic possibility--if he still liked me as much as he did last year! And he wasn’t even dating Jane Asher anymore, either. The signs forecasting something serious happening between Paul and I couldn’t be overlooked at all... yet another thing I got to ponder and puzzle over before leaving for the show that evening, along with all the other things like the Jesus situation and the bad publicity situation. It was really going to be one hell of an evening as I faced the Beatles again as they started their journey across the country!

Continue to Chapter Seven

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