And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 10: I Thought We Were Friends, McCharmly

I had ended up popping the pill.

All right. Say no to drugs, right? But I was so knackered after not sleeping for so long; it had been more than twenty-four hours and John's fingers were already taking another brown pill from its aluminum casing, teasing me, his other hand dancing round my waist, tickling me. My eyes kept closing and in the end I figured it wouldn't do much harm. And so I had popped the small offender and washed it down with the same mug that George and John had drunk from, wincing at the cold tea.

"Thought it would've been beer the way you lot go about," I told him and playfully flicked the empty mug at him. "Trying to do me in, then?" he chortled. "After all I've done for you?"

I held up my foot. "All you've done is made me look like a German stripper. When I go home it's all going to be I went to 1960s Hamburg and I all Got were These Shoes!"

"You're not going home, yet," John told me, taking my hand and kissing it. "Let me bribe you."

"Oh, and what would possibly convince me?"

He looked down at my feet. "New shoes."

And so I had found myself back out on Hamburg's streets, walking down a street called the Reeperbahn and entering a shoe shop, picking out a pair of black low heels which John pointed out that he'd liked. We bought those and strolled down the main shopping area, the sun shining down, figures in contrasting black walking next to us. Existentialists, or Exis for short. A coat in the window caught my eye and I oohed and walked into the tiny shop, where rock music blared and leather hung everywhere.

"What do you think?" asked John, leaning against a coat rack which held many leather jackets not unlike his own.

I ran my hands over the smooth leather jacket. The shop was tiny but it was artsy, beatnik, hipster, whatever was in style in 1960. A stylish shop girl stood nearby, sporting a boyish haircut, occasionally glancing at John and me and other passerby who entered the store with heavy lidded eyes. My gaze caught on her hair. I had been seeing more and more of these types of hairstyles—these androgynous hairstyles—around this area of town that John had taken me to: the Soho of Hamburg. Flash back to Paul's dark hair, combed upwards to resemble Elvis, Paul who was not who I thought he was.

"John," he had said earlier irritably, running his hands through his hair to make sure it was standing up alright, "We have a gig tonight. Do you know who is coming tonight?"

"Don't care," was John's flippant answer. "Besides, we'll only take a few hours. You know I'm decent at looking like I practiced, just shout and the Germans'll think it's gear." And then he had proceeded to ask George to lend him a few German marks for our date.

During this procedure I had stood a little ways off, feeling very awkward. I felt like I was the reason that Paul was annoyed. After all, I had brought John to the future and now he was buying me clothes (and borrowing marks off an innocent George who might never get them back).

"Everything here is made out of leather," I half whispered to John, ignoring the salesgirl's strange looks.

"That's the point, Cora my dear," he said, and I found myself in the dressing room trying on the leather jacket. A few seconds later his hand extended through the curtain, holding a tiny pair of black leather shorts, like panties, really, and I told him back, "I'll put them on if you find a pair for yourself."

"What do you think?" I asked timidly, stepping out of the room in the leather jacket.

"You look like the dog's dinner," John had told me. "Especially over that dress. You don't see many people wearing a leather jacket over a dress." He yelled at the salesgirl, "How many marks?"