Growing Up Beside You [John Lennon/Beatles Fanfiction]

15. Nice dress, by the way

"Looking dead good, Sweetheart!"

A car horn double honked behind Celia. It was the third time she'd been honked at within the past ten minutes from arsehole drivers who were entertained by the sight of her. She felt stupid enough as it is sprinting down Penny Lane in her Sunday best. Correction, sweaty Sunday best.

Girlish giggles came from inside the car, and before Celia could stop herself, she flipped her middle finger up at the yellow Ford Anglia as it drove past her. In the passenger seat, a teenage girl with tight blonde curls lay her head against the open window laughing. She looked familiar, but the car sped off before Celia could get a proper look at her face. Not that she had time for that anyway.

Celia looked at her watch. 4:03 pm. Shit. She was almost twenty minutes late. They would probably be on the bus by now. Please, God, let them have waited. Celia wiped away the salty beads of sweat rolling down her cheeks and picked up her pace, despite the stitch in her hip, which was beginning to feel like little daggers stabbing her all at once. Hell, if she could sit through a ninety-minute sermon about why children are miracles from God, while two kids were in the middle of having an agonisingly loud tantrum, then she could make it through anything.

***

Diana stood with her hand on her hip, tapping her foot against the pavement. Blowing a bubble of chewing gum from her mouth, she looked over at James slouching against the bus pole, arms folded with one foot crossed against the other. He glanced down at his watch and mouthed something to Diana with a frown on his face. She responded with a hard nod. They were pissed off, to say the least, but there they were. Standing on the corner of Calton avenue like they said they'd be.

Celia called out to them from across the road, waving her hand enthusiastically as if she were flagging down a new york cabby like in those films. They both looked up at the same time as Celia ran towards them. She started apologising profusely in between her panting breaths, and it's only now that she'd stopped running that she heard the thudding of her heart against her chest. Her feet were killing her too. Mary Jane's weren't exactly the best shoes for sprinting down the pavements of Liverpool.

"Jesus, Celia! Why are you all wet?" Diana asked, scrunching her face up at the sight of the sweat coating Celia's forehead and cheeks.

"Oh you know, caught in a rainstorm and all. Why'd you think, Di?" Celia tutted and wiped her cheek with the shoulder of her cardigan.

"What, you ran all the way here from Church?" James asked, his eyes wide with astonishment.

Celia nodded. "The next bus wasn't for ages, it was quicker to run, and I was worried you'd leave."

"You didn't have to worry," he smiled reassuringly. "I knew you'd be here eventually."

It was then that she realised how awful she must've looked in front of him.- Red-faced and soaked in sweat. Her blonde hair was damp and clung to the side of her roasting cheeks, which gave her some odd-looking sideburns — what a bloody catch.

"Yeah well now we're gonna be late," Diana sighed. "Nice dress, by the way, Ce."

She judged Celia's billowy dress with a small, playful side smirk. "Very 1952."

Celia pulled a face at Diana. "I didn't mean to dress like this," she bitterly confessed, wrapping her mint-green cardigan across her body.

The church service ran over, and she didn't have a chance to go home and change. She hadn't planned on wearing a dress at all, she rarely wore them and when she did it was usually only for special occasions. It was meant to be a joke, but the joke was obviously on her because she was the one now wearing it. Right before leaving for church, her mother forced her to go straight back upstairs and change. Apparently, a pair of denim capris and a blouse wasn't "acceptable attire to wear inside the house of God." For a laugh she'd come back down wearing her sister's old dated dress- it was floral with a full, billowy skirt and small puffy sleeves. She'd also swapped her flatties for a pair of Mary-Janes that she hadn't worn since her uncle's wedding two years ago. Her mother, who was dated herself, was rather fond of her daughters "new" look and before Celia had a chance to tell her mother she'd never be seen dead walking the streets of Liverpool in it, she was dragged quickly out of the house in what Celia considered to be the most ridiculous outfit.