And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 84: Let's Talk About The Birds And The Bells

    Two weeks from then, just two weeks since my birthday (I was so old now!).

    Sometimes I still think about her, about that night that I had gone out to trace every face on that beautiful polaroid and looked up to see her outside. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like some sort of test on my twentieth birthday. I could feel myself stretching, bones elongating, the distance between feelings in my brain shortening until I could understand them better, hair growing so much longer than it had a year ago when I met John, down to mid-back, unlike so much of the bobbed hair the girls here had. My muscle movements, hands reaching instinctively toward his hand to hold instead of holding the fabric inside my jacket pocket.

    Kathleen.

    In the end I chose to forgive and forget. I chose to forgive her but also forget her. It was too soon, we were too close and yet not close at all.

    John understood. He was oddly quiet about the whole thing to the point where I became concerned and then his opinions quickly sprung back to life about Kathleen. "We don't have to think about it any more," I told him quietly, holding his hand over the table. "It's over.

    He didn't say anything, just looked across the table at me with a thoughtful look in his eyes. I knew he was thinking about Mrs. Rogers, her mother, and her many boyfriends throughout Kathleen's childhood. Kathleen had requested me to keep quiet about it, and the fact that she told me made me less hostile toward her.

    But John was a part of me now. He deserved to know.

    "Tell me about the autumn," he finally said, changing the subject, and smiled a soft smile across at me. "Pretty bird. Colors like your eyes."

    "You mean like right now?" I asked.

    "No, like... like... in the future." The way John said future made it seem like he was chewing on the word. He gave me a glance under his fringe, which was growing out, and reached out next to me to rest his hand on mine. "What's Chiswick like at this time of year? What would you be doing? I want to know."

    I thought a minute and reached out to take my cup of iced tea with my free hand. He leaned across my path and obscured the glass, and I tilted it back farther into his mouth with a chuckle.

    "Cora!"

    "You deserved that."

    "I bought you the drink."

    I took a sip. "Chiswick in the early autumn. Quite nice. I think people still try and squeeze what little there is of the summer out, but not as much as in America, probably. You know we're a lot more temperate than America, like New York City, for example."

    He leaned his head on my shoulder. "I like when you say we."

    "We are from the same continent."

    "Yes, but from different times." Again, the way he said it, like he said future. "I know it shouldn't matter, but..." he trailed off and fiddled with his shoelace a bit before answering. "I feel like..."

    "The book brought me here for a reason," I attempted to justify, but his doubts were bringing up doubts of my own. Ever since Michael had left (he hadn't returned since our big argument and then John and my finale in Strawberry Fields) (blush) my mind had been free of any sort of conscience about this whole thing, how the Beatles belonged not only to me but to the whole world. "I'm supposed to be here with you."

    "Yes." He sounded certain. There was a pause.

    "Dad used to take us apple picking when I was little," I changed the subject. "Back when things were good. We'd have a good time. Oftentimes June would come with us, sometimes her dad too, but he was really busy. Mum wouldn't want to go out, but dad got her to. Back then I used to feel sorry for June because her parents were divorced and she just spent time with her dad, but then the things happened with my parents, you know like I told you, and here we are. But apple picking was fun. I like the green ones the best."