The Night Before

Chapter 53

20 September 1969

ADALINE'S POV

After the excitement of the picnic yesterday, today was another day back at the studio. I had decided to join Paul in hopes that things would go a bit better on his end. Jim and Angie had stayed in town and decided to take the kids out for the day. They had picked them up right after breakfast so that the two of us could get ourselves ready to go.

"Paul?" I came down into the studio. "You down here?"

"I'm here, love!" He grabbed some papers off his desk. "Sorry. You ready to go?"

"I am."

"Fab." He took my hand and went back upstairs. He grabbed the keys, I grabbed my purse and we went out to the car.

"So, what are you going to be recording today?"

"We're going to Apple headquarters. We have to go to a meeting first before we go to record. Klein finally got the bloody contract figured out." He got into the car.

"He still makes me nervous...." I mumbled as I got in too.

"You and me both..."

"Hullo Addie. Look at you, Paul said you were expecting again." Ringo grinned, pulling me in for a hug. "Congrats."

"Thank you, Rings." I smiled. "I miss you, Mo and the kids. I was going through old photographs and found some of when we lived next door to each other."

"Oh, now those were the days. I miss those days..." He gave me a sad smile.

"I do too." I took his hand and smiled. "Now where's Georgie?"

"Off visiting his mum.It's just the three of us today. Well, it will be once John gets here."

"Who knows when that will be." Paul grumbled, earning a nod from Ringo.

A few minutes later John and Yoko came walking in, Allen Klein coming in behind them.

"Morning." Allen said as he pulled out the new contracts. "Here's the new negotiated copy. Now I know George isn't here. I have arrangements for him to come in and sign once he gets back."

"Well, I'm already good with signing it." John said as he grabbed the pen and signed.

Ringo flipped through the contract before he went and signed too. Paul took his time looking over it, occasionally giving me small glances. Eventually he signed too and for once John actually seemed pleased.

"So now we'll head down to the studio?" Ringo asked.

"Yeah. So I was thinking, I think we should go back to little gigs – I really think we're a great little band. We should find our basic roots, and then who knows what will happen? We may want to fold after that, or we may really think we've still got it."

"I can't really see us doing big shows again. And who knows how little gigs would even work out." Ringo said.

"Oh, come on, we could give it a try. It's not like we won't have trouble getting a gig somewhere or even a crowd." He was so enthusiastic. I knew he wanted to try every option to keep this band together. "We could even go unannounced if need be. We could go in disguise!"

John then looked him in the eye and shook his head. "Well, I think you're daft. I wasn't going to tell you 'til we signed the Capitol deal, but I'm leaving the group!"

Everyone went pale. John was leaving? With how things had been going we all had a feeling something like this would happen, but I never expected it this soon.