And I Love Her

John Meets Thelma

John awoke earlier than ever before the next morning. His eyes were heavy with sleep, but he just couldn’t bring himself to lie back down and sleep longer. He pulled himself out of bed and dragged his feet along the carpet to the closet that sat open on the other side of the room. He pulled out his usual clothes and quickly got ready. He was already out the door by the time his aunt Mimi had made it down the stairs.

The air felt somewhere between warm and cool that morning, it felt nice and John was sure that it would account for an equally nice day as well. He drew forth his carton of cigarettes and paused to light one, the flame flickering from the lighter caught onto the end of the cigarette. He finally came to a stop in front of Stu’s flat, just a short distance from their favorite pub, Ye Cracke. Knocking heavily on the door, he stamped out his cigarette on the porch.

“Oi! It’s 7:30, Lennon, what’re you doing up?” A tired bed-headed Stu answered the door. He leaned against the door frame, his white pajama shirt riding up ever so slightly.

“Who is it?” A voice called from the back of the flat, John recognized it as George’s and turned to Stu.

“It’s just Lennon” Stu called back to the voice that had come from the kitchen area of the house.

“George lives here?” John questioned taking a drag off of a freshly lit cigarette and blowing the white smoke out through his mouth.

“Nah. He just crashed here last night after rehearsal was over. We didn’t get done till nearly 10:30. Speaking of rehearsal, what got into you yesterday, the day before you were fine and then one day at College and suddenly you’ve changed. What happened to you Lennon?” Stu finished crossing his arms in front of him as he stepped outside, and closed the door.

“Just some bird in a lettering class that I had.” John sighed as he thought of Cynthia and her dark sparkling eyes and dirty blonde hair. The way that she hunched over her paper to write, or doodle, and the way her letters connected so effortlessly and beautifully the day before when she and John had been passing a note in class.

“John Lennon doesn’t get that way over one bird,” Stu chuckled but quickly stopped when he saw the look on John’s face and realized that he was being serious.

“You-Oh-You were serious? It’s over some bird?” He quickly corrected the error of his ways as John threw the cigarette on the ground.

“Yeah, name’s Cynthia and damn, she is gorgeous.” John sighed adding extra emphasis to the fact that Cynthia was indeed a gorgeous bird.

“Alright, well, I better go get ready, it’s nearly 8:00, and I need to make sure that George gets home to change before he goes to school today” Stu said reaching for the door handle and then shouldering his way into the small entry space.

“Bye Stu” John waved as he stepped off the landing and crossed the grass to the road. The gravel on the road crunched unusually loud for this time of the morning.

A door slammed behind him, and John moved over to the shoulder of the road to let a car pass him by, but when he heard only the sound of crunching gravel and no car, he turned back to see who he was being followed by. He was met by a bird with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She smiled when John made eye contact with her and sped up to catch him.

“Hi, I’m Thelma” She greeted warmly, her eyes sparkled, but John couldn’t shake the fact that they didn’t sparkle in the same way that his Cynthia’s eyes sparkled. His Cynthia, His Cynthia.

“John, do you want me to um carry those for you?” John said gesturing to the books that were weighing down the sticks the girl had for arms. He smiled and roughly ran his fingers through his hair, pulling out the Teddy Boy front he had adopted all through high school.

“Sure” She smiled and handed him the three books she was carrying. Their arms brushed and John felt nothing, but obviously she did, her cheeks flushed bright red and she giggled lightly. John shifted so that  the weight was evenly distributed on his arms.

“I’ve never seen you around before, and I’m sure I would remember if I had. What school do you go to?” John asked with a slight wink in her direction. He laughed along with her when she let out a light giggle and cleared her throat.

“I go to the Liverpool College of Art.” She replied once she had regained her composure and smoothed her skirt down against her long thin legs.

“Oh, really? I do too.” John said with a smile as the two turned onto the campus. He spotted Cynthia at once, her glasses pushed up on her nose. Her head was thrown back as she laughed at something one of her friends said. When she had caught him looking at her, she flushed a deep shade of crimson and stood up, walking in the other direction.

“Ugh Cynthia Powell” Thelma muttered from beside John. She lifted one hand of thin fingers out in front of her and pretended to examine the polish that had so carefully been applied. Her blue eyes rolled, and she tilted her head back which made her hair fall further down her back.

“You know Cynthia?” John asked as he stopped right where he was, watching as Thelma sauntered past him before she turned on her heel and faced him.  She took her books from him before she started to speak.

“Of course I know her. Everyone knows Ms. Cynthia Perfect Powell. Ms. I-have-never-sworn-in-my-life. Ms. Pure. Take your pick John. She’s one of them, the people who ride the train from Blackpool every day. Middle to Upper class. No room in their life for people like us.” Thelma replied before she rolled her Caribbean Blue Eyes again.

“She seems decent” John said shoving his guitar-calloused hands into his pockets. He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly through his mouth. He knew that he liked Cynthia, she was sweet, so nice, but she came from an upper-class family, and the two of them ran with different social circles. Ones that would never meet, ever.

“Yeah, she is. But She’s one of them, our social circles would never be caught dead mixing” Thelma sighed. Her hand tightened around the books that John had given back as she scooted closer to him.

“I should probably go to class” John mumbled drawing forth his third cigarette of the morning, and lighting it. He never smoked more than two a morning, and two was only when he was stressed. He knew that he would have to do something about his thing for Cynthia.