Dear Sean

Sixteen

It was our least professional movie yet. We’d picked out actors from directories at random, choosing people whose names seemed interesting. Paul’s idea was to have a bus, with all sorts of people milling around, having adventures.

“This is bloody ridiculous,” I said, looking down at part of the flowery “wizard” costume, a floppy hat between my hands.

“Don’t let McCartney hear you say that,” Ringo said, casting an anxious look towards the one and only, who was deep in conversation with George. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but George looked more and more irritated by the minute.

Finally, Harrison stomped away from Paul, coming to where we were standing. George took one look at my bewildered expression and the costume between my hands, and understood what was going on. “Paul is bloody insufferable,” he griped. “I don’t know how you can stand to be with him.”

I froze, and I suppose George saw me looking like a deer caught in the headlights, and read into my expression. He exchanged a nervous look with Ringo.

“Oh, is something going on between the two of you? I’m so sorry,” Ringo said, always the sensitive one, that arse.

I hated the pitying looks they were giving me. Everything was going on, everything was wrong between us, but in a way we were still together, repeating the same patterns as before.

Paul joined our group, sparing me the need to answer to what they’d said. But George wasn’t satisfied that easily. As soon as Paul had neared us, he asked him: “Is something wrong?”

Paul knitted his eyebrows together. “Well, we’ve just found out there’s a roadblock ahead, so we’re stuck here for a while, which sets back our schedules half a day, and I’ve yet to find us a hotel on the way that’ll take us, and if that weren’t enough, I can’t find a box of props that I’m sure I saw this morning,” he said, listing problems with an increasingly anxious tone as he went on.

“No, I meant with John,” George said, frowning slightly.

Paul looked at me, and I raised my hands, palms out, like I was surrendering to his hawklike glare.

“You two never hold hands anymore,” Ringo said.

“Well—well—we’re not exactly advertising anything,” Paul said.

“We don’t want to get chucked in jail,” I said, feeling it was my duty to back up Paul’s explanation, but deep down I felt like I was lying to the other two.

“Mr. McCartney?” one of the roadies we’d hired came up to him. “We’ve found the props.”

“Oh, good,” Paul said, letting the man lead him away. “We can move those to the back of the bus…”

Ringo patted me on the back as he too went somewhere else, and I wasn’t sure whether to feel patronized or miserable.