All In Good Time - A Time Travel Beatles Fanfiction

Track 36 - Help! I Need Somebody!

Mal Evans had driven Lainey to Paul's dark, empty flat so she could collect the few possessions she traveled with and stuff them into her backpack. She held back tears all the way to the train station, then made her way to the phone box near Abbey Road, stunned and unhappy with the way her Christmas week with Paul had ended.

The thrill of seeing the Beatles live in concert was fading, and Lainey was left feeling like she'd been ambushed.

So much felt wrong about the way Paul had said goodbye to her. She hadn't even known they were saying goodbye until moments before he ran onstage. And he'd basically given her an ultimatum. He said he didn't want the Fleet Street press to find out about her unless she was willing to stay with him permanently in his world. In other words, time to fish or cut bait.

The first sign of trouble in Paradise had been the way Paul had stormed out of the room when she told him her grandmother wanted her to wait until he stopped touring in 1966 to make any permanent decision. Then, without any other discussion on the subject, the last words he'd said to her in London were "Talk to your family about moving here. Do what you need to do."

As if time traveling to 1964 and building a life there was as simple as moving across town. He'd said this as he was dashing out of the dressing room to take the stage, so there was no chance for Lainey to do anything but gape at him. He was manipulating her, trying to control her, and it made her want to perversely do just the opposite of what he wanted.

She arrived back in 2012 irritated with Paul and confused about her future. But it was Christmas week, and she had no choice but to push her relationship worries to the back of her mind and concentrate on enjoying the holidays in London with her family.

After a week in London with her brother Matt and their mom, Grandma Marie had a Christmas surprise for Lainey: two train tickets from London to Paris and two nights at a hotel near the Triangle D'Or. It was the best possible location to visit a majority of design headquarters and flagship stores. It was the holiday of her dreams.

They spent their first day in Paris in the art museums, the second day they visited monuments and enjoyed the sparkling holiday fairy light displays, and on their final morning Grandma Marie took a floral arrangement class at the hotel while Lainey set out to explore the high fashion couture houses in the Champs-Elysees district.

The stores themselves were beautifully designed, as much a part of the attraction as the clothing. Made of marble and silver, exuding luxury, some with entire floors devoted to shoes, or evening gowns. Lainey pictured herself living in a tiny postage stamp sized apartment, learning her way around the city, exploring the winding, whimsical streets on foot, spending her weekends window shopping and trolling the stunning art museums, immersing herself in thousands of years of history, art and architecture. An internship in Paris would be the dream of a lifetime.

She waited for an hour to take a tour at the headquarters of Christian Dior, inside an 18th-century mansion with a winding staircase lined with black-and-white photographs of stars wearing Dior designs.

An embroidered strapless dress that Nicole Kidman wore to the Cannes Film Festival was displayed in an alcove, and the princess gown that Jennifer Lawrence tripped in when she won the Oscar for Best Actress last year was featured on another staircase.

To Lainey's delight she was allowed to handle several garments and examine the fine lace and trim, custom embroideries, and hand stitching. A tour guide turned a Baby Dior christening gown inside out to show the extensive handiwork that is rarely seen. "Dior wanted the inside to be as beautiful as the outside," the guide explained.

In another area, workers painstakingly embroidered circles for a sequined evening gown. The guide said it would take 600 hours to embroider the circles in a single dress.