Into My Life

Chapter 21

     "How long can you stay?" I asked him. We were still in bed, feeling mellow from the lovemaking but far from falling asleep.

     "I should go back right after the New Year." There was a moment of silence while I waited for the inevitable question. It came, asked softly, knowing the probable answer and yet hoping for something different.   "Will you come with me?"

     "I can't do that," I said.

     "Finish school in England."

     I shook my head. "It isn't just school. My parents. Us. We need to be sure . . ."

    "I am sure. I am sure I want you with me. I am sure I should never have let you leave. I am sure I love you. I am sure you love me. What else is there?"

     "Nothing," I said, surrendering without a protest. He was right about all that. I kissed him apologetically . "Nothing at all. But I still can't . . ."

      He made a comical, rueful face. "I know. But I had to try, din' I?"

     I laughed and relaxed back into his arms.

     "But you will come to England as soon as school is out?"

     "Yes!"

     "And during your Spring Holidays?"

     "Yes, but what happened to the Bahamas?"

     "Later. I want to take you to Liverpool to meet my family."

     "Family! Oh, geez. Christmas! I have to go to my parents!"

     This got a bemused look from Paul. "Am I invited?"

     "If you think you are ready for it. They are going to freak out!"

      We laughed about that, speculated on how they would take it and the conversation drifted to the months ahead when we would have to be apart. The album they had planned to start in the fall had only a few weeks worth of work done - barely begun especially since Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane were now slated for release as a single. Although everyone felt good about the project and had some songs sketched out, no one wanted to rush through this one, least of all Paul. "It has to be solid," he said. "There are rumors that we are breaking up, washed up, fed up." In short, Paul was going to be busy. He assured me he would come to see me as often as he could - he would make time for it.

     "Don't worry," he said in response to my worried look. "I can't go without this." His hand slipped between my legs making it very clear he meant sex, but that reassurance didn't help. Maybe he meant "this" specifically - my . . . err . . . body parts. But after a while apart, I figured just the generic "this" would suffice and any girl could supply that.   I tried hard to smile confidently and failed miserably.

     "Tess, I know it is going to be a really tough go, but if I tell you there won't be anyone else, even when we're apart, will you try to believe me?"

     Five months. Five more long months. And this man had only to open his front door and whistle if he needed it. "Let's just say I believe you'll try," I told him." "And if anything does happen, I'll try to deal with it."

     "But you are willing to take the chance?"

     "Yes!!"

     He smiled at the certainty in my voice. "It's not that big a risk, Tess.  Remember when I told you that I waited so long to tell you I loved you because I didn't want to make it worse for you if you had to leave?"

     "Yes. That first morning in Scotland. "

     "That was only part of it. If I told you I loved you, then I had to keep a promise I had made to myself. After Jane, I swore that if I ever found the right girl that stuff would never happen again. I wouldn't screw around. Wouldn't take the chance of losing her. Would never hurt her the way I hurt Jane." He stopped and sighed. " The look on her face when she walked in on us . . . I never wanted to hurt you like that. But I didn't think I could stay away from other women if we were so far apart for so long . . . Nine months, love. To be alone for nine months. I couldn't . . . I knew I couldn't. So there I was, the right girl in my arms and scared to tell her I loved her. Telling you I loved you was making a promise I couldn't keep."

     I remembered something else about that morning. That moment when he looked at me, about to tell me something, and changed his mind. "That first morning in Scotland, you almost told me about Jane and Francie, didn't you."

     He nodded.

     "What stopped you?"

     He sighed, shrugged. "I started to tell, to explain why I held back telling you I loved you, but . . . I couldn't. I just didn't want you to know what I had done to Jane. It would be just one more reason for you to doubt me. We had to be so far apart for so long."

     I opened my mouth to say that it was still five months, but before I could say anything, he put a finger over my mouth. "I know," he said. "What? Five months yet? I'll be here whenever I can - and in between . . . Well, I've had a few months to find out that I don't want anyone else." He laughed a little. "Right before she slammed out the door, one bird even told me she didn't appreciate being called by some other girl's name in bed."

     "You called her Tess!?"

     "Oh yeah. She was quite insulted and I was quite unsatisfied."

     "I'll bet!" I laughed, imagining her leaving him quite literally high and dry.

     He laughed too but then said seriously, "She wasn't the only one who didn't satisfy me. No one did. I found nobody does it to me like you. Nobody feels as good, nobody satisfies me like you. I don't want anyone else."

    That sweet confession might have led to something more, but as I climbed on top of him, I heard the sound of the downstairs door opening. One or both of my roommates were home and my bedroom door was wide open. Paul and I had the blankets pretty much over us, but still, the closet light was still on and we were way too much on display for comfort. Especially if Mark or Chuck was with them. I leaped out of bed and crossed the few feet to my door and shut it as footsteps came up the stairs.

     Turning to tiptoe back to bed, I saw Paul sitting up in bed watching me, grinning. I hurried over to turn off the closet light, very aware of his eyes on me, and as I jumped back in bed, I could hear the apartment door opening.

     "Do that again!" Paul laughed.

     "Shhh!" I said, listening to the sounds outside my door. A whispered conversation.

     "His suitcases are still here!"

     "And he isn't sleeping on the sofa bed!" Sandy's excited giggle was unmistakable.

     Brenda shushed her and the familiar sounds of my roommates getting ready for bed were heard. As the house quieted down for the night, Paul and I snuggled under the covers, sleepy, yet with so much to talk about. Paul wanted to know how I happened to be at the theater that night and after I explained that, we were back on the subject of John.

     "I didn't know he left Cyn that weekend," I told Paul. "We talked about how unhappy he was there, but he said he had no place else to go."

     "I guess that is part of why I thought you two were together. I knew he wanted to leave but couldn't bring himself to do it. He just needed a reason. Then you both disappeared . . ."

     I gradually pried the details of those weeks from Paul. When Cyn's mother told him neither she nor Cyn knew why I had left, he left Weybridge looking for John, hoping like hell he was wrong in his suspicions and he would find John and find out from him why I left. Les, John's driver, told him John was gone when he got back on Monday, and he hadn't heard from him. He wasn't at Ringo's flat in London - hadn't been there for a week or more. He checked in with Mal, then Neil who was just back from his holidays. Neither of them had seen him. He called Brian and Alistair, with no results. He'd told none of them why he needed to talk to John, but when he called them back the next day again asking if they knew where John was, they too were a little concerned. Brian called Cyn, and after hearing about John's request for a divorce, managed to get past Mrs. Powell to talk to Cyn herself. She had not heard from John. Brian objected strenuously to any idea of an expanded search for John.  He believed John to be holed up somewhere with a new girl and Paul wasn't about to tell Brian that was exactly what he feared. Paul called John's Aunt Mimi the next day, but she hadn't seen him - apparently he arrived there shortly after that and since Paul had been very casual on the phone, not wanting to worry Mimi, she never bothered to let Paul know he had shown up. And if she told John that Paul had called looking for him, John was not in the mood to talk to him right then.

     By then Brian was taking John's absence seriously and Mal and Neil were searching everywhere in London. Brian checked back with Aunt Mimi after a couple more days, only to find out that John had been there and gone - headed for New York. Still unaware that Paul was also looking for me, Brian hadn't asked Mimi if John was alone. Within a matter of hours after that, Brian got the phone call from John himself, saying he was going to take a holiday in the States for a couple of months. When Mal relayed that information to Paul, he was on the phone to Brian immediately, wanting a number where he could reach John. But he hadn't left a number. He wasn't sure where he would be. The next time John called it was to talk to Alistair about getting money sent over, not to Brian and Alistair didn't know Paul was still trying to reach John.   Days turned into a week, then two.   Paul kept after Brian to get him in touch with John, but John was moving around. He went to Florida for a week, then back to New York, then on to California. Brian finally demanded to know why Paul was so anxious to talk to him. Paul didn't want to talk about it even then, but Ringo and George were back from their holidays and finding out about John and Cyn, asking about me and finally everything came out.

     "That's when Brian went into his snit." Paul told me. "He wouldn't do anything to try and reach John and insisted that no one else be told. He could have contacted people in New York, tracked him down but he was so paranoid that it would get ‘round that John had left the band or was on the outs with him or that he had run off with you . . . he just holed up in his house. I was furious with him. He wouldn't take my calls. So that's when I finally went to Alistair, hoping he wouldn't ask questions. He didn't, but he had only a New York number and John wasn't there anymore."

     I suspected that one look at Paul's face told Alistair that this was no time to question what was after all a simple request as Beatle requests went, but I was puzzled at why Alistair didn't keep trying to find John for Paul. "But Alistair could have tracked him down, could have called those people in New York," I said.

     Paul sat up in bed, agitated by these memories. "Yes. I asked him to. Didn't tell him why. He didn't think anything of it - he didn't know you were gone too. But he happened to talk to Brian and mentioned I had asked him to get the number for me." Paul took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder.

     I sat up and put my arms around him, sensing something really bad had resulted. I had heard of Brian's screaming fits when he was angry and thought perhaps he had come down like that on Paul.

     "Was Brian really angry with you?"

    "Angry? I dunno. Suppose so. But that wasn't the half of it. Brian . . . well, he went to pieces. Having me go around him and use Alistair behind his back just . . . I don't know.   He's been so upset since we decided against touring - worried we don't need him, don't want him anymore.  I guess he thought it was all coming apart.  He, ahh . . . ended up in the hospital all messed up on tranquilizers."

    "Oh, God! He tried to commit suicide?

    "No. I don't think so. He just started gulping pills, trying to feel like he could handle things and . . ." Paul shrugged."Well. You were gone, John had taken off, Brian was a basket case. Alistair begged off any further involvement and I considered sending Mal to New York, or . . . hell, hiring a private investigator," he said with a tired laugh at his own desperation, "but I was afraid to push it, not knowing what Brian would do if he found out what I was doing. So, everything just came to a halt."

    "Oh God." Now I understood a lot better what kept Paul in the dark for so long. Paul was still sitting up and I could feel how tense he was talking about this. I scooted around behind him and began to massage his shoulders. He groaned and I could feel him gradually relax as I kneaded the tight muscles. While I worked on him I thought about what he had told me. There was one avenue Paul apparently hadn't explored.

     "What about Cyn?" I asked, "She would have told you we weren't together."

     "Tess, I could hardly ring her up and say, "By the way, next time you talk to your husband, ask him if he ran off with Tess!"

     I cringed at that and wondered if Cyn ever knew what the others were thinking - or wondered about it herself. I asked Paul if had ever talked to her and seemed reluctant to answer.

     "Yeah, I finally got up the nerve to go see her, find out what she knew," he admitted. "She asked me why you left! She said that John never said a thing about you leaving when he went to Bristol to talk about a divorce. When she got back and found you gone, she was surprised. If I hadn't had a few drinks I wouldn't have had the heart to tell her what I thought. She laughed in my face! She didn't believe it for a minute. She said you were gaga over me and the idea was ridiculous. At that point she had only talked to John twice since he left and always meant to ask him, but the whole divorce thing . . . She said that was all they talked about - all she could think about. She said I should just call you and sort it out."

     "And you didn't listen to her?" I was surprised. Paul really liked Cyn.

     The reason for his embarrassment came out. "No. Actually I'd had more than a few drinks. I was drunk out of my mind. I told her "the wife is always the last to know," ranted and raved about what a son-of- a-bitch John was, tried to talk her into sleeping with me and ended up bawling on her shoulder and passing out on the sofa."

     "Oh, honey!" I stopped massaging and dropped my arms down over his chest and kissed his neck. "But she must have asked John why I left after that. Didn't she?"

     Paul shrugged. "After that scene I was too embarrassed to talk to her again. And I figured she would call me if she found out anything. I got a message from her a few weeks later. She had been trying to call me but I wasn't around. I had been in Liverpool for a bit."

     "What did she say?"

     "I never called her back."

     "What? Why not?"

     "That was right after I found out John was on his way to see you."

     I thought about that for a while as I went back to massaging his shoulders. It just didn't sound right. "But Cyn wouldn't have let it go at that. She knew how unhappy you were. She would have kept trying."

     It was apparent I was right because Paul made a strangled sound, keeled over on his side and pulled the pillow over his head. His muffled response was. "Don't make me tell you. I feel like an idiot already!"

     I snuggled down next to him, pried up the pillow and told him, "So do I. I set Olympic records for conclusion jumping. Now tell me."

     He sighed and punched the pillow back under his head. "Well, I suppose she kept calling. Dunno. I quit answering the phone. Too pissed at the world to want to talk to anyone. After a couple of weeks, she showed up on my doorstep. Said she was worried about me! John walked out on her and Julian and she is worried about me! Felt like a real shit then! She told me she had asked John why you left."

     "And he said . . .?"

     "He had told her that you caught me with someone else."

     "Wha . . You . . . Why . . .?" I spluttered, unable to fathom why he didn't figure it out right then.

     Paul put his hands up. "I know, I know! But I knew that it wasn't true!  There was no other girl, no big scene with you walking out. That is what I thought he meant -- guilty conscience I guess. After that mess with Jane, that's what "getting caught" meant to me. And I knew it never happened. Couldn't have anyway. There just wasn't anyone else."

     "So what did you tell Cyn?"

     He sighed. "At least I wasn't drunk that time. I had the sense not to tell her what I thought - that John was lying to her, covering up why you had left. He knew that Cyn was aware of what I had done to Jane and would believe it. But I did tell her it wasn't true -- I didn't want her thinking I had pulled that shit again -- and that I still didn't understand why you left. She looked at me and I could see she wasn't sure if she could believe me. I am sure she thought I had more reason to lie about it than John did. I don't think she knew he was seeing you every chance he got."

    "That's not true!"

    "I know that now. But then . . . I had just found out he had been up to see you at least twice in the last month."

    "You knew he came to see me again at the end of October?"

    "Oh yeah. By then Brian was back in regular contact with him."

    He sounded so miserable. He had good reason for his suspicions and everything seemed to block him from finding out the truth. "Cyn suggested that perhaps you hadn't told John the real reason - just made up the stuff about catching me with someone else as an excuse because you didn't want to discuss the real reason you were leaving, whatever it might be. I pretended like that was possible and she advised me again to call you. I told her it was too late. It was long since over and done and I didn't care any more. She left. I got stoned. Not caring any more was pure bullocks!"

    I had heard enough for one night. "No more!" I whispered sadly. I curled up close and we kissed away the bad memories. It was late and exhausted by the emotions of the evening, we finally slept, stirring at times for murmured whispers of love and soft kisses when one of us awoke and needed reassurance that this wasn't just a dream.

    I woke up in the morning to a whiskery kiss and hands sliding over my body. I opened my eyes to Paul's dark eyes, the brown that held grey and flecks of hazel and made his eyes so changeable. His hair was lopsided from sleep, his cheek creased by a wrinkle in the pillow, his beard dark and scratchy and his smile absolutely heart-catching.

    "This is the best part," I said. "Waking up with you still here," and snuggled against his warm body. With the bedroom door closed, it was freezing cold in there and he felt so good.

    "Mmmm," he said "and we can make it better," and went on kissing me, his lips so warm and soft and his tongue wetly tickling my ear. There was no place I could be, no moment in time that could make me feel happier than this, but Paul was certainly going to try.

    "No," I whispered. "We can't. We'll wake up my roommates."

    "I'll be very quiet," he said, sliding kisses down my neck.

    "No you won't!" I said as his kisses found my breast. "You aren't quiet! . . . oh, don't do that!" I said as he moved on top of me. "The bed will bang on the wall and Sandy's headboard is on the other side!"

    My concerns got me one of those "Oh really?" McCartney looks. Eyebrow raised, big teasing grin. He had no inhibitions about sex and was amused at mine.

    "I know they know we're having sex," I protested, "but they don't need to know exactly when! These springs are so squeaky they will be able to hear every move!"

    Paul did some trial bounces and, sure enough, the springs responded.  "Ah yes. Any humping done in this bed will have an orchestral accompaniment!" he laughed. "Well, maybe this will be quieter . . ."  His kisses moved down across my stomach. I squirmed away from him. The bed banged the wall and I joined him under the blankets to muffle the laughter.

    "This is going to be a problem," he said.

    "No it isn't. They'll be leaving to go to their parents for Christmas in a couple of days and then--"

    "A couple of days!"

    "Sorry. But my roommates aren't used to immorality close up. As far as they know, I was a virgin until last night."

    That surprised him. "Come on. You went to California to see John. What did they think you were doing?"

    "Nobody knows about that! Nobody!" I said with an over-abundance of emphasis.

    "Good!" he said with equal feeling.

    There was an awkward, mood spoiling silence.

    "I can't un-do it, Paul," I said softly.

    "I know," he said with a sigh. He took my hand is his, moving it down to feel hard evidence that he wasn't too upset. "Undo this," he said and began kissing me persuasively.

    I wasn't having any luck dissuading him and the longer it went on, the less I wanted to, but the bed squeaked mercilessly and I ended up scrambling out of the bed. I slipped on a robe and went to the bathroom and then brought his suitcases in from the hallway where they had sat all night. Paul asked if my roommates were up yet and when I said no, he rolled quickly out of bed, pulled some jeans and his shave kit from his suitcase. "Come ‘ead," he told me with a wicked grin. Next thing we were in the shower together finishing what he had started in bed. This was one real advantage to having the bathroom so far from the bedrooms! Of course not being able to pop back and forth from bath to bedroom also made for a rather funny moment later when we got out of the shower and Paul flipped up the seat on the toilet and proceeded to take an unselfconscious morning leak while I toweled off, trying to neither laugh or blush. In our time together in England this sort of intimacy had never occurred!

      I put on my robe, Paul his jeans, and we took turns with the hair dryer and at the sink. I flipped the seat and the lid down on the toilet, (thinking that if Paul was going to be a long term houseguest I would have to say something about putting the seat back down!) and watched Paul shave while we talked. There were a lot questions that last night hadn't answered.

     "Paul, when John got back to London, did you ask him about me?"

     Paul snorted. "I barely spoke to him. You were the last thing I wanted to talk to him about by that point."

     "But you were working together. Didn't he try to talk to you?"

     "I wouldn't let him say anything. I walked away if he talked about anything except the songs we were working on. He didn't seem to want to talk to me anyway, so we got on fine while we were working and didn't see each other outside of that. None of us saw much of him."

     I nodded, remembering that first phone call from John. "He said no one was exactly friendly. He couldn't understand why everyone was so upset with him for asking Cyn for a divorce. He didn't know that everyone thought that we had . . . that he and I had been . . ." I couldn't say it.

    "Oh, it was worse than that," Paul said grimly, frowning at his lathered image in the mirror as he rinsed the razor. "He had a meeting with Brian the first day he was back. He left Brian's office in a rage, yelling something about inviting Cyn's solicitors over to his flat to meet the "correspondent" in person. We thought he had brought you back with him! Whatever they thought of you, no one wanted to pal around with you and John. No one wanted to get involved in it."

     I realized as he spoke what that was all about. That was when John considered having some girl move in with him so Cyn's lawyers wouldn't go digging around and find out about us. No wonder everyone was uncomfortable around him. The last thing they wanted was to have to chat with John about his new love/Paul's old flame/Cyn's ex-friend!

     "Oh, God, what a mess."

     "Every bit that," Paul agreed and took a few more swipes with the razor.

     "How did you find out I wasn't with him?"

     A totally unexpected smile lit up his face. "I beat it out of him."

     "What!"

     "We had been working since noon, and it was late. Ringo wanted to go home. He said Maureen was waiting. John laughed and said he wanted to call it a night too. He made some remark about having a little blond with big knockers waiting for him. I couldn't believe it. He was screwing around on you already -- and bragging about it! I landed a couple of good ones and had him on the floor before Mal pulled me off him."

     "Oh God. You didn't!"

     "Damn right I did. As mad as I was at you, you deserved better from him."

     "Oh, Paul." Poor John. Poor Paul. Poor little blond with big tits who probably didn't get any that night. I started laughing.

     "You didn't hurt him did you?"

     "No. I meant to take him apart, but they stopped me. Good thing, too. He would have pulverized me in the end!"

    Well, that explained John's mention of a sneaky uppercut in his note. "And that is when you found out we weren't together?"

     "No. That is when I walked out."

     "You left?!"

     "Hell yes. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I felt like a fool." He hesitated and when he went on, the laughter in his voice was gone. "Up until that minute, if anyone had asked me, I would have said I hated you."

     I caught my breath, a painful stab in my chest and Paul caught the look on my face in the mirror.

    "Aw, love, no," he said, reaching to pull me up off the toilet seat. He hugged me hard but awkwardly, trying not to get shaving cream on me. "I never did. Never. I was mad and hurt and would have said anything, and I guess I thought I hated you, but when John said that . . .God. I just went off. By the time they pulled me off him, I knew. I wasn't over you. Never would be. I still loved you. Pathetic, bloody awful pathetic, right?" he asked with a little laugh, trying to jolly me out of feeling bad.

     A smile was a little hard to manage right then and I just hugged him.

    "You must have hated me," he said softly, questioningly.

    "No. Not really," I told him. "Sure I was mad . . . but I was madder at myself for being such a fool."

     He looked so surprised at that. "Why?"

     This was going to take some explaining. I sat him down on the toilet seat, took the razor from him, and finished shaving him as I explained how stupid I felt for handing over my heart AND my virginity to a big star, to someone whose life and concept of love had been warped by fame. About believing that he had loved me as much as he was able to love. About alternately wanting to call him and praying he wouldn't call me. About making up the lie about Terry that my roommates saw through so quickly and about how hard it was not to be able to completely confide in anyone - out of pride as well as loyalty.

     He listened in silence (and probably fearing facial scarring if he moved a muscle) and by the time I finished telling him how I felt over those first few weeks, I was done shaving him. Still saying nothing, he got up, rinsed his face, splashed on after shave, and began stuffing his things back into his shave kit. Just as I was beginning to worry that I had said something really wrong, he stopped and said softly, "My God. You thought I had used you like that and you still made excuses for me. And kept it all a secret to protect me."

     He turned to me and there were tears in his eyes. "Oh, Tess, honey . . ." It was finally my turn to hold him and comfort him. Of course I started to snivel too, but this time they were happier tears and short lived.

     We were interrupted by the sound of a roommate stirring around out in the kitchen. We couldn't tie up the bathroom all morning. When we emerged Brenda was in the kitchen making coffee and heating water for tea. "Good morning," she said, eyeing Paul and me with a combination of amusement and embarrassment and appreciation for the sight of Paul -- barefoot, bare chested, bluejeaned. Then she took a good look at me and saw the after effects of last night's storm of tears - and this mornings scattered showers of emotional tears.

     "Are you all right?" she asked.

     "Bren, I have never been happier. Just some old hurts to get out of the way. I'll explain everything when Sandy gets up," I told her and changed the subject. "So did you and Mark have a good time last night?"

     "Apparently not as good as some!" she laughed. With that acknowledgment of our sleeping arrangements out of the way, she filled us in on what had gone on after we left. We started making plans for the day. We needed to do laundry, and Mark and Chuck were coming over later but breakfast was the first priority. I went to throw on some clothes before I started fixing breakfast. Paul followed and it would have taken only a couple of minutes for us to finish getting dressed, but I still had questions I wanted answered.

     "So if you left after the fight with John, when did you find out I wasn't with him?"

     "The next day." Paul was pulling shirts out of his suitcase. "I didn't want to go back the next day, but we had to get the mixing done. Ringo and George were exchanging funny looks when I came in, and when John showed up they rushed everyone out of the studio. John looked like he wanted to have another go at me, but he just sat down in front of me and said, "Get it straight. Tess is not with me. She did not leave London with me. She had nothing to do with my divorce and I had nothing to do with her leaving you."

     Paul stopped to pull a T-shirt over his head. "I told him to get off it. I knew about his trips to see you as well as you being in California with him. He said he only visited you twice - as a friend. And you went to L.A. on a school holiday. Sightseeing."

     He wouldn't look at me as he told me all this. "I believed him," he said.  

     I knew the way he said it - an undertow of bitterness- that he wished it had been true. Just as I had earlier that morning when I told Paul I couldn't undo what had happened with John, I felt a chill. The whole thing with John wasn't just a sore spot, it was a land mine. I wasn't sure how to de-fuse it but I knew at some point I was going to have to try or we weren't going to make it. I had no idea how to do that.

     Paul sidestepped that land mine, careful not to set it off yet not pretending it wasn't there. "I don't understand why he lied. He admitted it just a few days later."

     Recalling the conversation John and I had right before I left California, I said, "I know why."

     Paul looked at me then, his expression carefully neutral.

     "Because I asked him not to tell you anything about us."

     "You thought you could keep it a secret from me?" he asked with surprise.

     "No. Not exactly. Not after I answered the phone that day. I didn't want John to have to lie . . ."

     "He's perfectly capable of that," Paul said and there was a definite glint of humor in his expression.

     I relaxed a little. "But it just seemed best if you never knew we had . . ." I stumbled over the words I didn't want to say, and ended up just skipping them. "I didn't want what happened between John and me to come between you and John. You had been friends for so long, been through the whole Beatle thing together. I thought we could keep it a secret, that no one would be affected by it, and when you found out it just seemed better to deny it was anything but a sightseeing trip than to let it drive you two apart."

    Deep in thought, Paul slipped on a shirt and buttoned it.  He finished, looked at me, and I could see doubts and questions unspoken in his eyes. I sensed he wanted to ask more about what John meant to me, why I had let it happen in the first place, but he wasn't ready for that. He gave me a weak smile. "For Beatle fans, everywhere, eh?"

     A truthful answer would have been "Yes, in part. But mostly for you and John." But I was glad for the way out of that sensitive area. I smiled. "Yup. We are waiting on a new album and we'd prefer you two not be bashing each other around in the studio!"

     Paul smiled. "Oh I think we've done with that. Though there were a few things John said that would have ended in another go-round if I hadn't been so muddled trying to figure things out."

     "So he never did tell you why I left?"

     "No. He told me you hadn't left with him or for him, then got up and started playing back tapes. I sat there for a few minutes before I realized he was not going to say anything else. So I went over to him and asked why you left. He looked at me as if he thought I were completely demented! He called me a "Stupid bloody idiot" or something like that and turned away."

      Paul pulled a pair of socks from the suitcase and sat down on the bed to put them on.  "I wasn't about to give up and when I asked him again, he got pissed off. He called me a "hypocritical bastard" and a lot of other names.  He finished by telling me I was a two-faced, blind, ignorant, smarmy bastard and to fuck off." Paul sighed. "I have dodged around the man so many times when he was in a foul mood ‘cause I didn't want him to start in on me. But this time I just stood there and took his shit because I didn't know what else to do. I had to know. When he was done I asked him again why you left. He just stared at me then started laughing and called me a few more names. Finally he said, "You just think about it for a while, mate. I think you can come up with some reason a girl would walk out on you."

     "And what did you come up with?" I asked.

     "Nothing. Nothing that made any sense anyway. We went back to work -- or at least the others did. I sure as hell couldn't concentrate. We gave up trying to get anything done after just a few hours. Everyone was leaving but I cornered John. I told him I had to know why you left. I couldn't come up with a reason. Ever since you left I had been trying to come up with some other reason. The last thing I wanted to believe was that you were with him." He laughed a bitter little laugh. "The old My girl and my best friend'. . . But I couldn't explain it any other way. Nothing else worked -- Maybe you meant some old boyfriend back home. Maybe you just had second thoughts about living with the kind of stuff we have to put up with. Maybe you had just been playing games all along. And I knew that was rubbish." He laughed a self mocking laugh and shook his head. "God, I must have been a sad case. I all but got down on my knees and begged him to tell me! But it got to him finally. He took pity on me and said, "She'll kill me for this, but I think you had better talk to Tess."

     "He never told you I had seen you with her?"

     "No. I don't know why. Maybe he still believed I had done it but saw how much I loved you and thought we could work it out. If he had told me--" Paul stopped abruptly, realization dawning on his face.  "God! He did! He told me I was a two-timing, lying, cheating, mother-fucker who didn't deserve any decent woman! It didn't register with me that he was laying it on the line!"

     He gave me a chagrined look. "I remember thinking he was a fine one to talk, but mostly I just thought he was blowing off his mouth. Had a head of steam up and was dredging up old dirt. It was just one of the things he threw at me and it didn't mean anything because I knew I hadn't cheated on you!"

     Still shaking his head at his thickness, he groaned, got up and came to me, putting his hands on my shoulders, squeezing gently. "I would have called you right then, been on the next plane, but he made me agree to this whole setup. He wasn't about to let me upset you until classes were out. He said the last time had been hard enough on you. That you had trouble in school because of it."

    Well, at least John hadn't repeated Sandy's exaggeration about me almost flunking out!  "Yeah, well, I guess I did. A little." I said. There didn't seem to be anything left to say. It had all been a ridiculous, snarled mistake that had managed to perpetuate itself and I didn't want to talk about it anymore. I settled into his arms, and said, "But everything is fine now. You are here and if I wasn't starving to death, I would be the happiest person on earth."

     Paul chuckled. "Me too.  Eggs. Scrambled. And --"

     "Toast. Strawberry jam. Juice and Tea. Anything else, sir?"

    "Yes," he said as his hand slipped down to squeeze my bottom. "But we can eat first."