Things We Said Today

Chapter 6

"I know what you did..." Paul smiled as he walked Katia home. 

"About what?" Katia asked innocently. 

"You know about what." He chuckled.  "This..." Paul lifted the bass case. "...you and all the others played me tonight."

"But you're so good at playing the bass!" Katia countered. "C'mon..you have to admit, the band sounded so much better with you playing it."

Paul didn't respond, but by his smile, Katia knew he agreed.  

As Katia was about to go into her house, Paul pulled her back and gave her a sweet kiss on the cheek. 

"Thanks for doing what you did tonight."

"I didn't do anything...it was all you.  Besides, now that you play bass, you can change the image of bass players all around the world...no more fat kid behind the band." Katia teased. 

"Are you ever going to let me live that comment down?" 

"Probably not. Good night, Paul." 

"Goodnight Kat."

***

"So now that Paul is our bass player, we're hoping to get some gigs soon. Hopefully Allan will get them fast, I'm starting to get restless." John said as he strummed on his guitar.  

He had stopped by that morning to thank Katia for all her help last night in getting Paul to become the new bass player of the group. 

"So you guys will be going to Hamburg again?"

"As soon as George turns 18, we'll be on our way. Till then we'll start playing at Litherland Town Hall."

"That's quite a ways from here, no?"

"Yeah, we've not played there before."

"I'm sure it'll be great."

"Aside from coming to thank you, I also stopped by to see if you'd like to come to tomorrow's performance?"

"Absolutely!" Katia smiled. "Thanks for the invite."

"Of course! I can stop by Paul's house before heading home and let him know so he can come pick you up."

"That'll be great! Thanks!  Looking forward to seeing you guys play."

The next night, Paul stopped by to pick up Katia.  As they rode the bus down to the venue, Paul showed Kat how he had switched the strings and made it a left-handed bass.

"Impressive, but more impressive was how you managed to play it as a right-handed bass."

"Ha!  I've had plenty of practice growing up. I've always had to change the strings on all of my guitars."

Katia and Paul met George, Cynthia, John and Pete outside the hall.  There was quite the crowd.  Everyone started laughing as John pointed out the posters outside the hall. 

"Direct from Hamburg!  You guys are German now?" Katia laughed. 

"Ya." Paul said trying to imitate a German accent. 

Cynthia and Katia stayed at the entrance of the club, while the band was taken in from a back door that lead to the stage.  Katia looked around and noticed the sea of girls that had shown up.  In fact, nearly 3/4 of the audience was female.  Paul started off the set with ' Long Tall Sally' and the audience went into a frenzy of excitement, pressing against the stage.  Cynthia and Katia got slammed against the wall by girls that were running to get closer to the stage.  It was crazy.   The band performed for about an hour before another band got on stage.  As they walked off stage, a group of about twenty girls went up to them asking for an autograph.  The boys were all smiles and gladly obliged.  A pretty brunette approached John and suddenly planted a kiss on him.  Katia gasped and immediately turned to Cynthia who was starting to make her way over to her.