And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 65: You're All Too Much: The Bad

"The supervisor will meet with you shortly, miss. Please have a seat."

    I walked back towards the wooden bench where Danny was sitting. "So how did it go?" he asked, looking cautiously up at me.

    "All right, thanks for asking," I told him. "I think I'm qualified enough." I leaned back against the hard wood of the bench. The room outside was bustling; I wasn't surprised, it was a Saturday afternoon and I saw many with their packages and parcels ready to be delivered. Inside it was quieter, just me and Danny and a lad working at a desk outside the supervisor's office.

    "Funny, I did this exact same thing with my last job," I sighed. "Applying to be a secretary."

    Danny looked thoughtful. "And what happened with that?"

    "Well, we left for Hamburg for the second time, and then I had to quit. Manager had to hire someone else to work with Kathleen." I said her name quietly and I said the K hard, like a cat ridding itself of a hairball. I grew suddenly quiet and Danny asked, "Are you okay?"

    "I'm fine," I responded and offered a small smile, glancing towards the working lad at the desk but he didn't meet my gaze. Danny sat quietly beside me, deep in thought. I hate John, my brain offered. I hate him I hate him I hate him.

    I couldn't really place the emotions going through my mind. All I knew was that I was supposed to hate him. I embraced the block of ice inside my chest and set my jaw, determined to survive, determined to succeed. I would go out and get a job again. As soon as my mind grabbed the concept I was happy, glad to have something to work for.

    After I let Danny inside the washroom a few hours ago, we sat on the floor for a while and he had asked are you all right, do you want to talk about it but after what he and I had gone through it seemed ironic. "What would make you feel better?" he asked quietly and I smiled harshly. "A job," I had responded, and then given a great belly laugh as if Danny had told a tremendous joke.

    And so here I was again, wearing something vaguely professional that I had pulled from my closet, sitting cross-legged in another office, a post office. This one had concrete instead of a carpeting, a young lad who had spots and was chewing licorice instead of—well, another secretary. I didn't care. The lad could take her place any day.

    She would ring and ring and I had avoided all the calls. John would ring and ring and I had avoided his calls as well; George would answer the phone and I would hear him say, "She can't talk now, she doesn't want to." The Harrisons had sensed something happened; George probably told them that John and I were going through a rough patch. John didn't care that he was using up their phone. John didn't care about making distance calls to the Harrison's every day, although I'm sure Mimi did. That act of doing so much for me made me think, oh, why do you love to make me feel so special and then leave me?

    My eyes followed a crack on the floor to the other end of the wall.

    "Cora?" the young lad suddenly asked, looking up, his chewing halting. He had hair combed forwards over his forehead and was wearing a black overcoat. Danny nudged me; I snapped to attention. "Supervisor'll see ye now." I stood and walked inside, seeing a tall man with spectacles and graying hair. Even though he looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here, I remembered to smile and laugh, bringing the sunshine into the small inner office. He was impressed with me. I was impressed with me. I was hired.

***

    A few moons into Hamburg the little men stumbled upon a bass guitar player, titled Cora who had dropped out of the great sky. Upon thanking the flaming pie man for sending her their way she became a part of the Beatles, because Stuart found he could draw better than play.