And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 6: I Don't Want to Spoil the Party

If I had to go back and pick a night where we time travelled, it wouldn't have been this one.

It was a normal night and we were staying in but June popped by and we had gone to a party. That being said, there's a lot more that went into that vague detailing, but things had wound up coming full circle. I suppose I should go back and properly explain.

After the shoplifting incident, John had left the house for a while to take a walk, and I had stared at my empty room and Mr. Lungs sitting on my desk and faced the fact that it was time for him to leave. And so I had consulted the book, staring at it through the glare of my desk lamp, but all it did was give me a blank stare of empty pages. Everything before John's photo—still intact. Just blanks afterwards. The chasm that was my room stared at me, its empty eye sockets of missing Beatles memorabilia drilling into me, reminding me that John needed to get home.

There was the bang of the front door, signifying John's return. He came upstairs and deposited a bag of takeout Chinese on my desk. "I'm home, darling," he told me in a satirical manner, playfully attempting to kiss me, but I swatted him away, grinning. "How was the office?"

    "War efforts are going poorly. Almost had to stop Churchill from going at Hitler's throat."

"Oh, you, you're so strong, barely see any scratch marks on you at all," I shot back at him, satirically batting my lashes at him, and then my voice went back to normal when I smelled the Chinese. "Chinese! Why'd you choose this?"

"It's not because you're half Chinese, if that's what yer wondering." He turned his face and I couldn't read his expression.

"Mm. Good thing I love Chinese. Where'd you pick up the nosh?" I tied my hair back and let it go.

"Same deal with the bloke at the packie shop. Said I could have anything under £20. And so... here's your breadwinner, dear. Go get the kids and tell them it's time for supper."

The book was cast aside, the book with no title now, a shadow of its former self, my hunger replacing it. John parked himself on my bed and slurped up some hot and sour soup, picking up my guitar and strumming a little tune:

General Tso's Chicken / Finger Licking' Good

I didn't want to tell him he just ripped off the KFC slogan.

I couldn't tell John just how great he had the potential to become along with the Beatles. That, I felt, was against the rules or whatever game the universe was playing with me. In return, the universe had wiped out every figment of John that had ever existed. Last night we were watching the telly, and a special came on about a famous surgeon named Paul McCartney who died that earlier spring. Died. I changed the channel quickly before John could notice, my eyes tearing up. Why the hell was everyone dying?

I leaned back, accidentally falling against him and moving away. He said nothing, a strange look in his eyes. We both felt that unspoken connection.   

The setting sun outside my desk window brought me back into reality. I leaned against my elbow and looked at John, who asked, "Any... luck with the book?" I could sense anticipation in his voice, but whether it was yearning of reluctant I couldn't tell. "Give it here."

Before I could hand it over, there was the ring of a doorbell. I walked over to my bed and stuck my head out of the window, at first wary at the sudden visitor but I ended up yelling down to her. "June! Come in. Door's open." A moment later she was upstairs, hopping on the bed next to John. "Hello, Scouser. You want to join us for a little get together tonight?"

"Marty's?" I said, almost forgetting about the party.

"How could you forget?" She asked me. "Here with... Long John," she decided on. He's your boyfriend, then, Cora?"