And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 85: Back to the Future, Evaded

Life goes on.

I knew it did. You can stop moving, or even breathing for a while, but time will keep ticking and ticking and ticking and then you'll have to swim with the current.

Or you could try and stop it.

I had been thinking about this all night, finally managing to get to sleep at four, because we had a gig today. Knotty Ash Village Hall. Mona had booked it for us, as per usual, as she did with pretty much all our other gigs. But to hell with time! We all wound up sleeping around four in the morning anyways. But this particular night I wasn't screaming into a microphone, I wasn't using a pick to test how hard I could slap it against the thick strings of John's present to me, no, last night I was debating how I was going to break Paul and Dot up. I had to do it. He wasn't supposed to marry her. He was supposed to date Jane Asher and before that have his usual numerous nights with who knew who. But marriage, marriage was official. A little piece of paper made all the difference in the world.

I rolled over and kicked the sheets off of me, thinking you'll have to get up sooner or later, Cora. I grabbed a skirt and a blouse which were hanging off of the desk chair in my room. The yellow wallpaper glowed with the morning sunlight as I hurriedly brushed my hair in its grin, then bounded down the stairs to find Louise already making breakfast.

"Mail's here," Harry commented as he tossed the paper envelopes on the kitchen table next to George's poached egg. I took my seat opposite George after seeing Louise shoo me back into the dining room.

"Anything interesting?" Harold asked over the newspaper, raising his thick grey eyebrows.

"Well, looks like one of mum's relatives is getting married," Harry read out. At this, George and I locked eyes across the table and then resumed eating our breakfast.

"Isn't that nice," Louise said, coming into the room. "George, when will I get a lovely letter like that? Not too soon, I hope," she chuckled.

I kept my gaze fixed on the dining table and my eggs. Louise's comment had hit a little too close to home.

"Mum, Cora and I're going out to look at some guitar strings, then we've got that dinner gig," George told Louise, shoveling the last of his egg into his mouth and walking over to put his dish in the sink.

"All right dear. I'll have dinner waiting when you get home."

"Actually..." I turned towards Louise, thinking I should talk to Paul, about who knew what, I didn't know. "There's a band dinner tonight. Some things happened yesterday we need to talk about. Nothing bad, just... some decisions."

She gave me a confused look. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes." I took a shaky breath and tried not to show it.

The phone rang, and Louise moved into the hallway to grab it. "Cora, it's for you. From John."

***

"I certainly didn't expect that," George said and looked over the top of my head out of the front windows of the bus.

"Me... me either. I mean, I honestly didn't think Paul had it in him, if I'm being honest." I rubbed my nose, uncomfortable. "Nah, Geo, I didn't mean that. I just meant it was unexpected. Very, very unexpected. John nearly had conniptions by the look of him."

"It's funny," George said.

"What's funny, Harrison?" I asked. "Besides ye."

"That you, Ms. Future, who used to love Macca with from what I heard from you every inch of your being, was sitting there last night propose to another girl. Just a funny dynamic."