Into My Life

Chapter 27

    Friday morning the alarm clock went off again and I contemplated pitching it out the window and spending the day alone with Paul. As much as I wanted to, I knew I couldn't. I rolled out of bed in spite of his half asleep attempts to keep me there. I figured he would sleep late but when I came out of the bathroom, he was in the kitchen fixing tea. Brenda and Sandy were lingering over breakfast. That was totally unheard of. We never allowed enough time for breakfast much less lingering. Breakfast was a slice of left-over pizza or, at best, a piece of toast to go. But there they sat. Didn't take long to figure out why.

    Paul had brought a nice navy blue bathrobe with him at Christmas time. He looked cute and snuggly cuddly in it.  Well, what he was wearing this morning would not qualify as cute or cuddly.  It was a red silk Japanese kimono with a flaming dragon in vivid greens and electic blue and flashing yellow embroidered on the back. Eye catching all on its own but the way he wore it . . . casual, front barely closed, silk belt tied loosely and looking as if the slightest tug would undo it. If the sight his bare chest was not enough to mesmerize my roommates, the robe was also short. Not indecently so, but far from the mid-calf length of his navy robe. Bare chest, bare legs, and just enough bare thigh to fire the imagination. Put this under a face with a thick, dark shadow of beard and it flashed "MALE" in neon.

     Paul seemed oblivious to the rapt if somewhat furtive attention and disappeared back into the bedroom. "Show's over," I whispered to my roommates as the door closed behind him.

     "Can you get him to do a matinee performance this afternoon?" Sandy whispered back with a giggle.

     "Please, no!" Brenda said. "I don't think I could take it!" We all laughed and went back to the business of getting out the door on time.

     While we went off to school and work, Paul took advantage of the offer Carol had made at Christmas time to let him use the piano in her studio. He was free to use the piano in the studio until they opened at eleven or after nine at night. That worked great for him, allowing him to avoid contact with mothers bringing their kids to lessons and giving him something to occupy his morning. Carol was great - she resisted the impulse to go in to work early and "eavesdrop" while he worked, but was clearly thrilled to have him there. With him available and with time to kill for a week, she couldn't resist offering to teach him to read music. "Don't need to," he insisted. "If it isn't good enough to remember in me own head, then it's certainly not worth writing down!"

    Mrs. Berghoff apparently had not heard yet about the events at the hospital the night before - she didn't pull me out of class to lambast my unprofessional behavior. After seeing how happy Paul's visit made Debbie I didn't much care that our ulterior motive of pushing Mrs. Berghoff to take action had not worked.

    On Friday evening we went down to my parents and spent Saturday with them. Mom's phone calls to me had gradually tapered off as my parents changed from trying to dissuade me to some kind of acceptance -- "resigned" from their viewpoint, "sullen" from mine. The official parental statement was that they respected my decision, but she never lost an opportunity to remind me of the problems I was letting myself in for - or to tell me what people were saying. By this time, my family was feeling the pressure. They had been approached by reporters, my sisters had lost friends when then said they couldn't get arrange for them to meet Paul, my father had taken an awful lot of crap from people who couldn't believe that he would let his daughter date one of "them long haired freaks," and Mom's friends and acquaintances were only too happy to pass on every rumor they ever heard about any of the Beatles. So, the visit was a little stressful and not helped by a comment out the mouth of a babe.

    When we arrived, Jenny took only a few minutes to work through her shyness with Paul and was soon pestering him to play the piano with her. He picked her up and Janet, surprised that she remembered Paul so well, asked her "Who's got you, Jenny?"

    Jenny took a minute to look up at Paul and contemplate the question. Her response was based on her experiences with her little world of mommies and grampas and aunties and such. She smiled happily and announced, "Uncle Paul!"

    Steve was overcome by a fit of coughing, Mom looked away to hide the expression on her face and Dad just looked strained. Paul gave Jenny a little squeeze, and I was the only one who heard him say softly to her, "Someday, Jennybird, someday."

    Saturday's forecast was for bitter cold and I knew we would all be trapped in the house together. No escaping outside if it got uncomfortable inside. Worse yet, Steve had to work on Saturday so they had not stayed long on Friday evening. Without them to help with the flow of conversation and without Jenny to lighten the mood, it threatened to be a long day.

    I made certain I was up early enough to shield Paul from having to deal with my parents on his own but I needn't have worried. He slept late, still jet lagged enough to have trouble falling asleep at bedtime. When my sisters wandered downstairs and joined Mom, Dad, and me at the kitchen table I realized two things: Paul was going to be in plain sight of the group at the kitchen table when he got up and headed upstairs to the bathroom. And he was probably going to be wearing the red robe. I was just about to get up and go see if he was awake and find a tactful way of telling him to pull on his jeans and a shirt first, when he walked into the kitchen.

    Heads swiveled. I expected jaws to drop around the table, but my mouth was the only one hanging open. He not only had the robe neatly overlapped in front revealing no more chest than a v-necked T-shirt, but he was wearing matching red silk pajama bottoms!

    Paul said "Good morning" to everyone, looked at me with big grin and knowing look, came over and dropped a kiss on the top of my head, stole a piece of toast from Anne and responded to my mother's compliment on his attire with the information that he had gotten it while in Japan. Fearing I was going to burst out laughing and have to explain what was so funny, I got up and made myself busy fixing him breakfast.

    Paul went to get dressed and Mom joined me at the stove. Apparently Paul's appearance, though nothing compared to the show he had given Brenda and Sandy, had been enough to trigger concerns in Mom's head. "I suppose he is staying at the apartment again and we'll be hearing about it on the news," she said. The tone was disapproving of both the living arrangements and the fact that it would be public knowledge.

    I shrugged. "I don't think this visit will make the evening news. Not big news this time."

    "But he could stay at a hotel."

    I didn't like the way this was heading. "No," I explained, "I have to go to school. He would be bored silly sitting all by himself in a hotel room all day. This way he can walk down to Carol's studio in the morning and work on his music." Hoping to distract her from the real issue of how it looked to have him staying there, I went on to tell her how he had spent Friday afternoon with Carol's little boy. At four years, Kevin was hard for Carol to keep entertained every afternoon at the studio and she was glad to hand him over to Paul. They played with Kevin's train set in the basement, built a fort with Lincoln logs, and had peanut butter sandwiches for a snack. Aside from the peanut butter, something Paul found disgusting, it was hard to say who had more fun.

    My little ploy worked and I managed to avert an unpleasant discussion, but for the rest of the morning it was tough going. It was hard to keep the conversation going because so many topics dead-ended when they wandered off into areas we didn't want to get into. It was hard to discuss things we had done while I was in England without reminding my parents they never should have let me go in the first place. It was hard to talk about Paul's work because that meant talking about the Beatles and that risked discussion of a lifestyle my parents didn't approve of. And it was hard to talk about the future, for obvious reasons. But gradually we all relaxed and by the time we left, things were going well. I wouldn't call it a fun visit, but it was not unpleasant. Mom had even unbent enough to give Paul a good-natured hard time about his moustache, saying he had more than enough hair without it.

    "You don't like it?" he asked, picking up on her teasing note.

    "No, not really," she said.

    "I thought it made me look quite dashing!" he said.

    "It makes you look like some old President or Civil War General. Just like a picture in the World Book Encyclopedia."

    "Mom," Rose spoke up, "He is in the Encyclopedia!"

    "I am?" Paul asked, totally taken by surprise at this revelation.

    The 1965 World Book Year Book was on the book shelf right behind us and a minute later we were all staring at "Popular Music" and the photo of the Fab Four.

    Paul looked absolutely amazed, proud and yet a little embarrassed to see himself officially designated as History. He skimmed through the article, chuckling at the description of them "thwacking" away at their guitars. Mom just looked at the picture and said, "You look better without the moustache." We all cracked up.

    All in all, the time with Mom and Dad was a little tense, but on the way home Paul and I agreed that at least they were trying. There wasn't much else to say on the subject and we rode in silence for a while. But his comment to Jenny kept coming back to me and had me thinking about marriage and engagements -- and broken engagements.

    "Tell me about Jane?" I asked with no little hesitation. I wasn't sure he wanted to talk about her.

    It was a moment before he answered and he startled me because he laughed first. "I met her way back in ‘62. She was supposed to interview us and write an article!"

    I was surprised to learn that and laughed at the coincidence. "Did she proposition you, too?"

    "Lord, no. She was just seventeen--" He said that with a straight face, and I had to strangle the urge to laugh. "-- and really quite proper. I'm not sure she was that taken with me right off, but I certainly was with her. I was just a scruffy bloke in a new rock and roll group. She was an actress. A celebrity. She'd been on TV and the stage since she was five or six. Mike and I used to watch her on teen shows on the telly and rave about her. When I met her, I couldn't get over her hair -- It was this incredible shade of red. We had no idea - we had only seen her on the telly in black and white. And Mike . . . Mike was absolutely speechless when I brought her home with me. He was in awe of her. And green with envy." He chuckled a little at the memory.

    Well, so far this was not what I wanted to hear. I already knew she was beautiful. "What was she like?" I asked.

    "She was not like any bird I ever knew. Posh. Intelligent, public schools all the way." I was momentarily confused until I remembered that in England, "public" is what we consider a private school.

    "Spoke the Queen's English. Mum would have loved her. She was always on Mike and me to speak properly. I guess Jane was the shining example of good upbringing. Her father was a doctor and her Mum was professor of classical music. She knew about posh things - was right at home with them. Opera, art galleries, the theatre. But she wasn't big headed about any of it. She was quiet, sweet, but she had this attitude of . . . I don't know. Self assurance, I guess. Not conceited, just . . . sure of herself. She was so far above us Liverpool scruffs. . ." He laughed a little. "Maybe that was part of the appeal. The idea of me having a bird like that."

    We drove on in silence for a bit. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear any more about this model of perfection but Paul picked up and went on. "So, I gave her a pull and the next thing I know she is my girl and I am going to the opera and the philharmonic and art shows. Hanging out with the "Beautiful People," people with class and money. And in love with her."

    That was no surprise to me, but it did give me a funny ache inside to hear him say it. "And she loved you."

    "Yeah."

    I wasn't sure he was going to say anymore and I didn't know exactly what it was I wanted to hear. I guess I wanted to know more about the "problems" that he had mentioned when he told me about Francie. What had Jane done wrong - and how could I avoid the same mistakes?

    "So what went wrong?" I asked.

    Paul sighed and lit up a cigarette as he considered how to answer. "Well, we were together for almost three years. We were so busy. Recording albums in between the two movies, touring for weeks on end with hardly a break between. Special appearances, writing songs at the last minute to fill out an album. It was great to have Jane to come home to. I lived at her parents' house in London for the first year, then got a flat of my own for a bit. It was . . . it was a great time. We were in love but she wasn't pushing me. I had no desire to get married at that point - furthest thing from my mind - and Jane was not ready to settle down. She was just out of school and she wanted to act. She loved the theatre and almost didn't take the role in "Alfie" because she wanted be a stage actress, not a movie star."

    He fell quiet. "But you did get engaged . . ." I prompted.

    "Yeah. In part I guess because it was the thing to do. The longer we were together the more people questioned when we were getting married. There were always stories goin' round that we were secretly marrried or about to get married. If we planned to go away for a few days, it suddenly became a honeymoon. The reporters constantly asked if I was going to marry her. Made me angry to have them prying like that, and I finally told one of them to bugger off. Even though she was in no rush to get married, that upset Jane because it looked as if I didn't want to marry her. And my life was getting crazier. It was one thing when all the teenagers went crazy over us, but when we got really big - after America - everyone started treating us like some cross between gods and freaks. I needed something, someone I could count on. And Jane wasn't always there. I bought the house and I guess I thought we would be together whenever I wasn't on tour. But she was off working somewhere half the time . . . mostly in London but sometimes elsewhere. It never felt like we were really together. Oh, she had her clothes there and few pots and pans and we picked out some furniture together but there was always this . . . this feeling that she was just sleeping over. I knew she didn't want to be there alone when I was gone . . . but even when I was around . . ."

    The laughter was long gone from his voice by this point and the nostalgia was giving way to some painful memories. But he was just getting around to the part I wanted to hear. "And . . .?" I prompted when he didn't go on.

    "She was busy with her acting, doing plays and that movie. Even though she said she wanted to spend more time with me, she was happy with the situation. I wasn't. I wanted her to be there when I got home. I thought maybe getting engaged would make her give more consideration to what I needed. Kind of set us in a new direction. Prove to her she didn't have to make it big because I was going to marry her. So, I gave her a ring. We agreed we didn't want to get married for another year or so at least, but this made us kind of . . . official. It backfired though. Instead of making her feel like she could ease up on her acting, she felt more than ever she had to make a go of it. She didn't want to be just "Paul's wife" or to make it in her career because of me. She wanted to be somebody on her own. We had a few rows over that but never really had a big fight -- it was just kind of a constant thing between us. I pushed and she resisted. I kept saying if she really loved me . . . She said I was being selfish. I talked about how I wanted her home with me when I was there and she talked about her next tryout. She wasn't ready to get married - neither was I - but here I was, engaged and all, and things hadn't changed. If anything, we were spending less time together and talking less about the whole marriage thing."

     He stopped. I waited, but he seemed to be lost in his thoughts.

    "So she was stalling about getting married because she wanted to get her career started?" I finally asked.

    "Yeah . . . No. There was more. She was always encouraging me to get into classical music or become a record producer. She wasn't being critical or anything. She just didn't seem to take what I was doing seriously. A kid's hobby until I decided what I really wanted to do. Well, I was doing it. I knew the whole Beatles thing could fade away in no time at all, but I knew I was going to be writing and performing and if it was going to change it was going to be in the direction of Jim Mac's Band not the philharmonic as she seemed to think I should. I knew she was right about not being a Beatle forever, and I was glad she wasn't all starry-eyed over being with me just because of that, but . . ."

    He sighed. "I don't know. It was all just . . . off somehow. We didn't see it the same at all. But it wasn't impossible. I still thought we could make it work." He paused and shook his head. "Then there was a day I said something about redoing the third floor now rather than wait until we had a baby on the way. She said she didn't have time to hang about watching the workmen. If we decided to have kids, there would be time enough then. "If." That was when I finally began to think that as much as I loved her, maybe we didn't belong together."

    I was confused. He was making it sound like he had decided to end it with her. "You broke off the engagement?"

    "No! Lord no. We weren't making any definite plans to get married, and I kept hoping . . . I just let it ride. It was Jane that called it off."

    "Because she knew about Francie."

    "No." He hesitated and for the first time he seemed to be uncomfortable talking about this. "Well, yes. Or at least for the same basic reason, I guess . . ."

    I remembered his admission that Francie hadn't been the only one.

   " . . . but we were still thinking we could sort things out," he was saying. "Jane was angry with me and wanted time . . . and maybe a little payback. I dunno. Things were messy. I took up with Francie again while Jane was gone for a bit. Let her stay at the house.  That was so . . . "

    He stopped, not finding a self-recriminating enough word apparently.  "That is what I regret most.  Not because it ended things with Jane once and for all but because it was such a shit way to let it end.  But I was mad at her for going, for other things. Thinking "Screw it. If she won't stay here now, when we are trying to pull things back together, it is pointless to keep on . . . And then she came back early and found Francie there --"

    "She found you with Francie?" I was shocked.

    He was surprised too. "I thought you'd heard about that! The gatebirds knew all about it!"

    "No! All I knew is that you cheated on Jane with Francie. I thought she just found out from someone else."

    He grinned a sad, sick grin. "Oh no. I had to do it up right. Had Francie there. The gatebirds rang the bell and said "Jane's coming!" I thought they were just making it up to give me a hard time over what I was doing. But she was there and that was The End."

    We rode in silence for a while as I thought about this. I guess I had envisioned the end of their relationship as sudden and dramatic and due to one single cause - his screwing around with Francie. But this had been a slow motion train wreck.

    "Did you try to get her back?" I asked after a bit.

    "No. Not really. I knew it was over. I did try to ring her up to apologize but she wouldn't come to the phone. I felt bad. I had really hurt her and I wanted to tell her . . ."

    His voice trailed off and I thought that was going to be the end of it, but he picked it up again. "In a way though, I was glad she wouldn't talk to me. I knew if we talked about it, odds were it would just get worse. She would ask the same questions you did."

     I couldn't quite follow that. "What questions did I ask?"

   "If the thing with Francie was because she had agreed to go up to Bristol. And that would have led to asking if there had been others."

    "But she knew that, didn't she?"

    "Suspected. Knew, I guess. About the girls while we were on tour at least. Anything else, well . . . didn't seem necessary to get into that."

    Anything else? Girls while he wasn't on tour. Girls in London. I could see his reasoning. "Yeah, that would have hurt her worse."

    He laughed. A sad, rueful laugh at himself. "I wasn't being all that noble, love. I was afraid she would be so angry she would tell everyone what a bastard I was."

    "She never has said much of anything, has she?"

    "No. A lot of people know what happened with Francie. The gatebirds knew all about - saw it all happening - but they never ran to the press with any of it. Jane said enough to make it clear she was angry with me, but she never gave out interviews. She has too much class for that kind of thing."

    He laughed a little. "As for Francie . . .   She was quite the girl, that one. She was anybody's for the promise of a good time or an opportunity." There was some sarcasm there but he also sound rather bemused.  "She really wanted us to be together whatever her reasons, really tried in her own way. Put up with a lot of crap, especially after Jane left. But it wasn't enough for either of us and it didn't last long."

    I listened to that in silence. Part of me was appalled that he could brush her off so lightly She was never a serious contender but certainly more than a one night stand. Yet I was also glad that he made no attempt to blame her for his break-up with Jane or imply that he was momentarily infatuated with her and plead ‘temporary insanity.' The honesty in that was nice and I managed to focus on that rather than the fact that he was talking about someone he had been screwing while he was supposed to be trying to salvage his relationship with Jane. I didn't want to hear anymore about that aspect of it and turned the conversation back to Jane.

    "You must run into Jane from time to time. Did you ever talk to her about what happened?"

    "Yeah. Enough to confirm that it was just not meant to be and best left alone. When I see her now and again it is a bit awkward. We say hello, how are you, what are you doing these days, and avoid looking at each other."

    My questions were answered. Paul wanted security and stability in his crazy life and Jane wasn't willing to give up acting to give him that. His screwing around left him far from blameless and I didn't blame her for wanting a career, but it seemed like some compromise was in order. It was hard for me to imagine loving Paul and not believing in him and his music. Or not wanting to give him the children he wanted. If she wasn't sure if or when she wanted children herself, fine, but she should have been honest with Paul about that from the start. And he should have honored his committment to her, at least once they were engaged.

    But . . . the temptations Paul faced were more than the average guys temptations or opportunities.  And as for Jane, she had been so young.  The start for them was when she was only seventeen. Who knew what they wanted at that age? Well, regardless, that wasn't a mistake that I was going to make. If Paul ever wanted to get married, I would. When he wanted children, I would be thrilled. Nursing was an ideal profession for a wife and mother. I could stop work when we started our family and go back to it on a part time basis when the kids were a little older. I might not have Jane's glorious red hair or classy upbringing, but I wanted the same things he wanted - and the idea of not taking the man who had written "Yesterday" seriously as a musician was nuts! And he had learned a lesson from both Jane and I about how women react to their man playing around. With that reassuring thought, I changed the subject.

    Paul was leaving on Tuesday. This time it would only be three weeks before I flew to England to see him on my Spring Break. The night before he left we went out for a long walk. We walked a lot whenever the weather allowed because it was one time we could be alone - the fans seemed to know they were not allowed to tag along. That night he was awfully quiet, and I finally asked what was on his mind. "I don't want to go back without you," he said carefully, knowing this conversation was off limits.

    "I know. I keep thinking about grabbing a suitcase, stuffing in the essentials and just taking off with you," I laughed, trying to lighten things up.

    He didn't see that I was joking - probably because I wasn't. I did think about it, but knew I wouldn't do it. His expression was hopeful but I had asked him not to ask me that again. "Can we talk about it?" he asked and when I didn't say "no" immediately, he turned me to face him.

    "Honey, I know how much nursing means to you, and you could finish next year in England if you decided you still wanted to. But Tess, you don't have to finish so you can get a job, not if you are going to be with me. In fact, having you tied down to a job . . . I want you to be able to go places with me. If we tour again or make another movie, I want you with me. I'm not sure there is any point in your finishing school."

    I didn't know what to say. This was an escalation from his previous requests for me to go to England with me. This was the whole thing about being a nurse. Not that I hadn't thought about this. If I worked even part time, it would be hard to get away for two weeks in Jamaica or a jaunt to Switzerland or Greece or wherever. The Beautiful People didn't have regular jobs. Two weeks vacation a year was generous in the United States and I doubted that England was much different. But dropping out of school . . . I just couldn't do that. Especially now when I was so close. Besides my desire to be a nurse, there was also the fact that it seemed to be the one thing that was impressing my parents. "At least she has enough sense to finish school in case he dumps her," kind of thing. Quitting school might well end the shaky truce we had going.

    But I remembered the conversation about Jane just a couple nights earlier. Worse, I was learning how determined Paul could be when he thought he was right. Was this going to be like what came between him and Jane? Did I have to choose between Paul and my career?

    I leaned against him, feeling shaken. No, it wasn't the same as with Jane. This was worse. Jane at least had an engagement ring on her finger. I didn't. All the insecurities of that night in Scotland came back to me. No guarantee we would make it. No guarantee he wanted to get married. Was I being selfish in insisting on going on with my nursing? Was this going to drive us apart as Jane's acting had done? I struggled not to cry.

    "Oh. God. Tess, don't. Don't do that, honey," He was hugging me and pleading with me. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. I just . . . Please stop, sweetheart. I didn't mean it. Everything will be OK. Don't cry. We'll do it just like we planned. It's only a few weeks before spring break, then only a month and a half . . ."

    "J-J-Jane," I sniffled.

    "What?"

    "You b-broke up with h-her because you didn't want her to work."

    "Oh, love. That wasn't the same at all! She wasn't planning some regular job. She wanted to be a star. Show Business. Agents and bookings and engagements all around the world. It was bad enough with me doing that, but both of us . . . We couldn't have had a normal life like that. Even if she wanted kids . . ."

    Paul was quiet as I pulled myself together. I dug through my pockets for Kleenex, wiped my nose.

   "Are we all right now?" he asked. "Back to plan A. In June we'll be together?"

    I nodded, feeling foolish. I leaned against him again and he kissed my forehead. He held me for just a moment, then we started walking again. As we headed back to the apartment, he asked "Have you been worrying about that all along?"

    I thought for a moment before answering. "I had thought about it. I wasn't really worrying." Well that wasn't exactly true. "Not very much, anyway."

    He didn't say anything for a while, then spoke with obvious reluctance. "Tess, I know I made it sound like Jane and I had big problems. But the truth is . . . we didn't. Nothing that we wouldn't have worked out. She could have had her career and she was just too young to think about kids yet. She wasn't refusing that, she just was asking for time."

    I looked up at him, wondering why he was going back into this.

    "It wasn't her job. It was me. I couldn't keep my pants zipped. It was as simple as that. I like to pretend it was more complicated, and there were other things and maybe we would have split up in time but . . . "

    I wasn't sure how to respond to this confession and after a long silence, fell back on humor. "Well, I never thought I'd be relieved to hear that the guy I love has a wandering eye!"

     He laughed and hugged me to his side. "Well, the eye still wanders, but I stay zipped these days."

    We walked on and I thought about that. Thought about all the years Paul had sex whenever he wanted and how hard being faithful to me must be. Like giving up sweets for Lent. No, worse than that. Sex was more addictive. You didn't just want it - after a week or so you needed it. If I felt that way after just a few months of very intermittent sex, how must he feel after years of having it regularly? And not just with one girl. An army of willing and enthusiastic partners. No, I wasn't going to get into that subject. If he was screwing around a bit, so be it.

     I guess I was silent too long and he misread my silence.

    "What's wrong?" he asked as if expecting to be cross-examined on the topic of zipper unzipping.

    I shrugged and gave him a big smile. "I just get a little overwhelmed sometimes. Paul McCartney, and me!"

    Rather than bringing a smile to his face, that brought a frown. "That Cinderella thing again!"

    "What?"

    "This is all a fairy tale. I'm Prince Charming and you're Cinderella. And sometimes you get scared because you can't believe I'm a real person."

    I really had to consider that. "Sometimes I do feel like Cinderella. But it isn't that I don't believe in you. I only get scared when I don't believe in myself. When I don't believe you could possibly be in love with me. When I don't believe I can make the transition from my life to yours."

    His response was firm. "I am in love with you. And it's our life, Tess. Not mine. Ours. It'll be what we make it."

    The only response I could make to that was to kiss him.

    There were some extra cars parked in front of the apartment, and, as we suspected, a flock of fans erupted from them as soon as they spotted their prey. Paul obligingly chatted and signed autographs. In addition to the girls, one of the more tenacious of the local reporters was also waiting. He elbowed his way through the chattering girls and shoved a camera in our faces. While we were still wincing and seeing spots from the flash, he started in with the questions.

     "How much longer will you be staying in Minneapolis, Paul?"

    "Not much longer," Paul answered. "I've got to get back. We are in the middle of working on our next album." Neatly done. A true but non-specific answer to the question. He didn't need the press to know his plane was leaving at 9 A.M. And a wonderful lead away from that to a promotion of the new album. But the reporter didn't bite. He had his mind elsewhere.

    "Tess, is it true that you are planning to go to England as soon as you finish school this spring?"

    The girls gathered around all went "Ooooh!" and I thought "Oh, crap." The reporters had been nosing around my classmates like bloodhounds ever since Paul showed up at Christmas. It was inevitable that information would leak out. No point in being evasive. "Yes. I'll be graduating and plan to move to England."

    "Ahhhh," went the chorus of girls.

    "Because of Paul?"

    I had to laugh. "Of course!" The chorus laughed with me.

    "When are you going to announce your engagement?" A hiss of indrawn breaths from the chorus.

    "We aren't engaged," Paul answered for me. Sighs of relief from the chorus.

    "But isn't it true that you are planning to be married in September?"

    "What?" Paul and I both said at once. Even the chorus was speechless.

    "I understand you are planning a September wedding. Here in Minneapolis."

    I started to laugh. "Right month, wrong people. It is my roommate who is getting married in September." The chorus broke out in little squeaky cheers of relief.

    "But you are going to England to be with him?"

    "Yes." Persistent creep!

    "Paul, are you planning to ask her to marry you?"

    "Look, mate," Paul said with amazing good humor. "You really put me on the spot with that kind of question. If I say no, Tess here is going to wonder what kind of game I am up to. And if I say yes . . . Well, don't you think that is going to take a bit of the fun out of it for her if I do pop the question? Let's just say that she is coming to England so we can spend time together, get to know each other better. And if it all works out, we'll probably get married one day."

    The reporter was writing furiously in his notebook. Paul took my arm and we headed for the safety of the house. Inside, I stopped to lock the downstairs door. Paul leaned against the newel post waiting while I jiggled the touchy mechanism to make sure it really had locked.  When I turned and headed up the stairs, Paul said, "Hold on a minute, love." I turned back to look down at him. "I want to talk to you about what that reporter said. About what I said."

    He looked flustered. That was scary enough. It took a hell of a lot to get Paul to look anything but composed. And what the reporter had talked about was us getting married. A wild thought jumped into my head, but I squelched it as fast as I could. He wouldn't ask me to marry him now. Not after just denying it to the press. Not the night before he had to leave. And not standing here in the stairway. He reached up and pulled me down to sit on the step and sat next to me.I needn't have bothered struggling to overcome the surge of anticipation in my heart. His next words would have done it nicely.

    "Tess, I don't know how to explain this to you, but I need to try."

    They say the mind works hundreds of times faster than we can speak, and mine proved it. Before he could get the next sentence out, I imagined him saying he was in no rush to get married, didn't ever want to get married, was marrying someone else, was already married . . . Shut up and listen! I told myself.

    "I can't ask you to marry me yet. I . . . It's too soon. But I will someday." He kissed me very softly, then smiled. "I just want to be certain Cinderella knows that!"

    I nodded, feeling amazingly calm for someone who just had the whole world promised to her. But the truth was that except for that gap of time when we were apart and, as I had experienced tonight, a few moments of doubt now and then, I had known since those days in Scotland he wanted a wife and odds were good it was going to be me.

    "I knew from the first you wanted to get married, have a family someday," I told him. "And you wouldn't go to all this trouble for me if I wasn't . . . if I wasn't someone you thought you might want to marry. If you didn't think that maybe five years from now we could be "married raising a family"."

    "No "maybe" and I won't wait five years, Tess. I can't ask you now, but it won't be anywhere near five years."

    "Then I suppose I can't say "yes" yet either?"

    "No," he laughed. "Not just yet, but hold that thought." Then suddenly he looked serious and in a funny tone he said, "But when I ask you, I want to be sure you know what you are getting into." He paused, sighed and when he went on it was as if he was saying things he wanted me to know and yet didn't want to say. "I know it looks glamorous. Money and fame. Man, we all thought that was what we wanted once."  Another hesitation and he shook his head as if in disbelief that they ever could have been that naive. "The money is nice. But it won't be forever. I don't think I'll end up some bum - I've tried to invest some money and I know I can make a decent living for us no matter what happens to the Beatles."

     I didn't believe that he thought for a single minute that I was in this for the money, so I didn't bother objecting.

    "But the rest . . ." he went on. "Tess, everything we say and do can end up in the papers. That would be all right if they did it straight up. But things get twisted 'round. And I don't know how long it will be like that. Even when the Beatles are just some old group that used to be big, I'm afraid the press will still be out there, waiting for some juicy gossip about the has-beens."

    He sighed again. "You know how they are, always asking questions hoping to stir something up. Like tonight. You've seen a lot of it, but I want you to think about what it would mean to live with it everyday."

    I had thought about it, but only as an immediate problem, not as something that would be there for years to come. I nodded. "All right."

    "And there is no real privacy. The press is bad enough, but the fans . . . They are always there. Always watching. They know what brand of tooth powder I buy! That is just crazy, but that's what they do. That's annoying, but it is worse when you hear what they say about you. Tess, you are going to have to deal with that part of it more than I do. The fans are nice to me. They don't judge whether I am good enough, pretty enough, fashionable enough to be with the Beatles. They are nice here, but . . ."

     He stopped and I finished for him. "You don't think the ones in England are going to take too kindly to an American."

     "Yeah. They can be really nasty about the girls we date. Make fun of everything about them. Say some pretty awful things right to your face when I'm not around."

    "Pattie warned me about that. And Cyn told me how scary it is to think someone might kidnap your kids."

    He groaned. "Yeah. There's that. And there are people who hate us. Think we represent the end of the world as far as music is concerned. And worse. Some think we are dangerous, evil, "spawn of Satan" crap. It is surprising where they pop up. Then there are the ones who want something from you. Try to get inside your life and then turn around and use you. And worse -- the old friends who sell you out for a few minutes of being famous themselves ." He hesitated. Fidgeted. And finally came to the point. "Tess, I don't have to work  with people who don't like us. But there will be others like your teacher. They could make things very rough for you. You might find it impossible to go on with your nursing.  Because of me."

     Well, there it was. His laundry list of things to worry about. But for all his reluctance to discuss it, it was still a much shorter list than mine. I had all of that on my list plus worries about  adjusting to living in England, being so far away from my family, fitting in with his friends, meeting his family, learning to be a nurse in a foreign country, holding down a regular job when his life was wide open, establishing a relationship with John that didn't threaten Paul, wondering if he would get tired of me or "outgrow" me like John had Cyn. Even so, there was still not enough on that list to make me give him up. Nothing would.

    "Paul, I'll think about all those things. But the thing with my nursing . . . maybe it won't work out. Maybe I will have to give it up at least for a few years. But right now I have to try."

    He nodded, understanding that.

    "I know other people might make it hard for me to go on with nursing, and if you have to travel I may not be able to hold down a job, and when we have kids I don't know if I want to work then anyway --"

    His smile was wonderful.

    "But there is something else, something that could keep me out of nursing entirely. And you have to take care of it. I can't."

    "What?"

    "Drugs," I said, knowing no other way to say it except bluntly. "I can't be with you if you are using drugs. I can't go to your house if you have them there. I can't have them in my house or our house. And I can't hang out where drugs are being used or with the drug crowd."

    He looked at me, considering my words. It seemed an eternity before he said, "All right, love. There won't be any in the house.  But drugs are part of the music scene and that is where I work. LSD isn't illegal, at least not yet. If they ban it, I won't cross that line. It isn't worth it. And I don't use the hard stuff, but . . . there will be pot at parties and I will probably smoke it -- and I will publicly support any move to get it legalized. I won't smoke it at home, but that means I may not take you with me sometimes. I will do what I can to keep you out of it, but, love, I can't sit here and promise you that you won't get booted out of nursing because of me."

    "I know." I couldn't be unrealistic. Drugs were big in the music business and it was crazy to think that Paul could disassociate from everyone who was using them. And if he chose to keep smoking marijuana . . . well, from what I had seen, being around someone who was high was a lot more pleasant and safer than being around someone who was drunk and it just seemed like the laws had it all backward. I couldn't object to his support of legalizing it.

     We sat there in silence for a minute, then Paul sighed. "Well, I guess all that is enough to make you think twice about marrying me."

    "I'll take all of it into consideration," I said smiling at his dejected look.

    He looked relieved at my smile. "Consider this, too," he said and kissed me in a way that erased everything he had said.

    We sat on the stairs and held each other, kissing and whispering sweet things and the first of the goodbyes we needed to say. "Paul," I said after a while, "There is something else that reporter said. . ."

    He groaned. "What?"

    "Well, it wasn't so much what he said as the way he made it sound. I can't move in with you. I'm going to get an apartment in London."

    "I guess it is better that way," he agreed with a sigh. "Your parents, my Dad, the press. All that."

    "It will mean sneaking around if we want to spend a night together."

    "No. Not really," he said with a laugh. "No one seems to raise an eyebrow at that. They just frown on flat out living together."

    "Well, at least it will be easier than here. We can go to your place instead of sending my roommates to the movies."

    "Roommates?"

    "I'll have to have roommates. I can't afford much more than a room on my own." I didn't want to insult his English loyalties, but from what I had learned while in London, the standard of living for young, single people generally meant a two room flat in a fourth floor walk up, heat paid for by putting coins in a meter, hot water unlikely, no closets, and a bath shared by several other tenants. By comparison, I was spoiled rotten.

    "Actually, Tess, I have a flat. I kept the one I was living in before I bought the house."

    "Why?"

    By the look on his face, that wasn't the question to ask, and he avoided answering it directly. "Comes in handy if a friend needs a place for a bit. You can stay there. We can work something out in trade," he grinned.

    I was still thinking about the cost of maintaining my own place - and about the implications of why he had kept the apartment - so the idea of being a "kept woman" didn't strike me. "Is it furnished?" I asked.

    "Sort of. No telly, no phone. I don't think there is a kitchen table but there is a sofa."

    "And I'd be willing to bet there is a bed."

    He caught the meaning and had the good grace to look embarrassed. "Yes, there is a bed.  And yes, that's why I kept it."

    "Did John use the place too?"

    "Yes, a bit."

     I didn't want to hear who else might have used it for little extramarital escapades and so I teased him. "Well, if I live there instead of with you, then I'll know you aren't going there with some other girl."

    He didn't know I was teasing. "There aren't any other girls, Tess. I told you I wasn't going to make that mistake aga---"

    I shut him up with a kiss. He came up smiling. A few more kisses and he said, "It hasn't been easy, but I still find I don't really want anyone but you."

    "Good. Plan on keeping it that way!" More kisses. Not "gotta have it" kisses. Just warm and tender and even better because they were just for love.

    "While we are on the subject of being together forever," he said after a bit, "I . . . I guess there is one more thing you need to think about and I had better say it." This had the sound of something that could have been followed with that stupidest of all questions: "Promise you won't get mad?" But he didn't say that and I waited and listened.

     "There are going to be birds hanging round. Women who want a tumble with a Beatle. Even when we aren't at the top anymore, they will be there, waiting for some day when I might be . . . tempted. And they aren't shy about letting me know they are available. Before I ask you to marry me, I think that you need to give a bit of thought to whether that is going to be a problem for you. Knowing they are always there. Always willing. Always trying. Waiting for a day when I might not walk away from it."

    I wasn't even a budding feminist at that point so where my response came from, I'll never know. I guess the whole issue of his being faithful had been on my mind -- especially since we had talked about his breakup with Jane. I'd said back the first night we had gotten back together that if he did screw around, I would try to deal with it and that was still true. As I had discovered when questioned by Sandy and Brenda, I had to admit that I would forgive him, stay with him, keep trying until I couldn't take anymore. But I certainly didn't want him to know that!   I had told him I would "try to deal with it" and that was supposed to mean "It would be hard to take and I didn't know if I could forgive you." but it still left the door open. Not flat out permission like saying "I'll understand," but still wishy-washy. Well, tonight the right answer was suddenly crystal clear in my mind. The problem was not in stating how I would deal with it. It was not my problem at all.

     I looked him straight in the eye and said, "I can handle them being around. But I think you need to give a bit of thought to whether you can before you ask me."

     I left him sitting on the steps looking more than a little surprised.

    Brenda and Sandy were making popcorn, and when I came in alone, they asked where Paul was. "Thinking," I replied.

    "About what?"

    "Whether he really wants to be married."

     That got gasps and "He asked you?" from Sandy and "You asked him?" from Brenda.

     "No. Neither. Do we have any Coke left?"

     "No. What is going on?"

     "Preliminary discussions," I said with a laugh at the oddity of the situation. "I'll make some Kool Ade. Red or grape?"

     "Red. So what did he say?"

     "He listed all the problems I would have if I married him."

     "All the problems you would have? Then what is he sitting out there thinking about?"

     "He mentioned that I might have trouble dealing with the fact that there are always going to be girls who are eager and willing. Whether he is married or not."

     "Yeah, that might be a problem," they agreed.

     "Yeah, but I told him it shouldn't be my problem. I told him not to ask me unless he was sure he could handle it. That is what he is thinking about."

     They were more than a little startled. Before they could say anything, Paul came in. Ignoring my roommates who were trying really hard not to let on that they were dying to to know his response, he came directly to me. "That's the first time you've ever done that to me," he said with a rueful grin.

    "Done what?"

    "Put me in my place right proper like you do with John."

    "John needs it, you usually don't."

    "Well, John would argue with you. I won't. You are right."

    "And?"

    "And I'll take it into consideration," he answered with a wicked grin.