The Girl Who Became a Beatle

by Greg Taylor

  When I looked up, I was relieved to see that Julian’s expression had softened a bit. “Is that what’s freakin’ you out, Regina? Are you worried about how people are going to react to our next CD? The sophomore slump and all that?”

  That sounded like as good a reason as any to explain my odd behavior, so I nodded yes. Julian smiled. “Allow me to ease your anxious brow, OK? The songs on Something New are every bit as good as the ones on our first CD. Some of them maybe even better. When SN comes out? I guarantee it’s gonna cement your place as one of the best songwriters we’ve seen in a very long time.”

  The way Julian said that last sentence … I thought maybe he was jealous of me or, rather, jealous of my supposedly great songwriting talent. Maybe that’s why he was acting all standoffish. Julian was a pretty good songwriter, after all. We played a couple of his songs in the Caverns. Well, the other Caverns. The Caverns that existed in the real world.

  Whether or not that was true—the jealousy thing—Julian hid it pretty well as we filled in the rest of the song list, which included “If I Needed Someone” and “Drive My Car” from our second CD. Then he totally surprised me when he slid off the sink and extended a hand toward me. “What do you say, Regina? Let’s take it to ’em. For old times’ sake.”

  Old times’ sake? I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I’m telling you, when Julian reached out his hand, it felt like the prince asking for a dance.

  As I took Julian’s hand, his touch sent a ripple of electricity through my fingers, up my arm, and all the way to my hot head. Julian gave me a slight, somewhat rueful smile, then we walked out of the girls’ room, hand in hand.

  10

  “Ladies and gentlemen…”

  A roar exploded from the crowd on the other side of the curtain. Standing in the middle of a dark stage, my knees started to rattle. I’m not kidding. It felt like my legs had been plugged into a socket or something.

  “Live from Twin Oaks’s Thomas Jefferson High…”

  A bigger roar. I desperately tried to will my knees to stop shaking.

  “Streamed to the United States and beyond…”

  Now the roar was nonstop. And the shakes had spread to my arms. It dawned on me—really for the first time—that this concert had the potential to be a total disaster.

  “The Caverns!”

  No turning back now, however. The curtain opened, a spotlight hit me like a slap, and the roar of the crowd enveloped me like a wave, the kind that knocked me off my feet at Atlantic City when I was a kid and drove me headfirst into the sandy ocean floor. Which I kind of liked, actually.

  But this—this aural assault—was stunning. It was Cavernmania. The cheering was so loud in the auditorium, I couldn’t hear myself play. I was way too nervous to make eye contact with the crowd, so I kept my eyes locked on my acoustic guitar as my trembling hand strummed the musical introduction to “Yesterday.”

  This is what you wished for, I reminded myself as I waited for the crowd to settle down. Don’t blow it!

  When a hush finally fell over the auditorium and I croaked out, “Yesterday,” the famous first word of one of the most famous songs ever written, another roar rocked the place.

  As it turned out, Julian’s idea of doing “Yesterday” first was a brilliant stroke. After the craziness of the day, what I really needed was to be still. I needed to focus.

  Ironically, it was in front of hundreds of people that I was finally able to do that. Not at first, though. I was more than a bit shaky at first. I sang some truly prodigious off-key notes, which didn’t help my trembling extremities. I desperately ad-libbed a musical bridge between the first and second verses to buy some time and try to calm myself.

  It didn’t help matters that Lorna was staring at me in dismay about five yards away during my freak-out time. But it was Lorna’s glare that actually gave me a kick in the butt to move on and try to do justice to one of the Beatles’ most beautiful songs. I wasn’t about to let her bring me down, that’s for sure.

  Don’t blow it.

  So I started singing the second verse. Still a bit tentative in my delivery, but feeling a little better. It definitely helped when I heard the strings—those gorgeous strings—come in behind me.

  Wait. What? Strings?

  Glancing to the side of the stage, I saw my dad playing the synthesizer, making the instrument sound exactly like a string section. I’d been so totally out of it in the final minutes leading up to the concert that it hadn’t even registered on my frazzled brain that he was going to be playing the song with me. Tucked away on the side of the stage, barely visible—Dad was never one to hog the limelight, as opposed to Mom—he glanced up and gave me an encouraging smile.

  That should have helped, having Dad onstage with me, but it made me nervous all over again. I didn’t want to blow it with him right there, and the both of us on computer screens all around the world. So I just tried to hold it together and get through the song, when suddenly an incredible thing happened.

  All of my anxiety and trembling simply slipped away! I kid you not. It was totally amazing. In an instant, I had inexplicably entered a zone. It was … well, it was as though I were playing “Yesterday” for the first time. Discovering it for the first time. Bringing something new and fresh and real to it.

  In short, I lost myself in the music. Truthfully, it felt to me as though something outside of myself—my Fairy Godmother, perhaps?—was looking over me and helped get me into that zone. If that was the case, I’d take it. But really, Fairy Godmother or not, what I experienced during “Yesterday” was that magical feeling that comes along very, very seldom.

  Like a first kiss. Or an unexpected compliment. Or having one of those rare days when everything just seems to go right for a change. Point being, when you taste any of those things, you’re hooked. You definitely want to taste them again.

  When I got to the end of “Yesterday,” I wanted to taste it again. The feeling I had when I played the song. All I wanted to do was play another song and another and another and never stop. It was like I was under a spell or something.

  Which maybe I was.

  The final chord of “Yesterday” hung in a quiet auditorium like an invisible bridge between me and the audience. Then the crowd leaped up and roared. I stood on the stage, all alone in the spotlight, a big smile on my face. Then I gave my dad a little bow of thanks—the spotlight quickly going to him for a couple of seconds, which was cool—but after returning the bow, Dad immediately retreated backstage, and the spotlight was back on me, bright and blinding.

  It was a transporting moment, that’s for sure. I didn’t want the beautiful vibe to dissipate even the slightest, so I quickly exchanged my acoustic for my Strat and counted out the beat for “He Loves You.” Danny kicked in with the short, snappy drum intro and the Caverns were off and running. The crowd didn’t sit down for the rest of the set.

  How could they?

  “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Please Please Me,” “We Can Work It Out,” and “Help!”

  One great, irresistible song after the other. Which the band played with incredible force, tightness, and skill. I was shocked at how good we were. But then, we had been traveling the world doing this for quite a while now.

  Again, weird.

  But I didn’t dwell on any of that during the concert. Any of what had happened before that evening. I just played my heart out. And had the time of my young life. I couldn’t believe how comfortable I felt after the first song. It was as if I had been born to be onstage.

  I bounced all over the place, sometimes singing harmony with Lorna, sometimes with Julian, mimicking the way Paul and George or John and George would sing together at the same mic. I’ve always loved seeing them do that, for some reason, on the concert DVDs I have.

  I had such a good time that I was disappointed when we came to the last song. But then I reminded myself … there’s more of this to come! The band launched into the final song, which was the Beatles’ terrific version
of “Twist and Shout,” and the students were suddenly going wild and twisting in the aisles, and teachers and security guards tried to shoo them back to their seats, but that didn’t work, and then some of the kids surged toward the stage, and a couple of them hopped up onstage and started twisting next to me and then dove back into the crowd when the guards came after them.

  We kept playing right through all the terrific turmoil. After hitting the exuberant last chord of “Twist and Shout,” we did our Beatles Bow, then the curtain closed, and we left the crowd cheering and begging for more.

  As we left the stage, Danny and Lorna and Julian and I cracked up when we heard Mrs. Densby’s voice blare over the sound system that such behavior would not be tolerated. She would “shut it down” if everyone didn’t calm themselves. Which would mean no signing session!

  We grinned at each other, sweaty and happy, and knew we had rocked the place something special. It was a terrific moment. Whatever was going on behind the scenes, between me and Julian and Lorna and Danny, didn’t matter just then. We were a band at that moment. We were one. And as far as wishes went, this one felt like it had kicked in.

  Big-time.

  11

  The signing session was allowed to proceed, in spite of the fact that Mrs. Densby had her hands full controlling the still-boisterous crowd. Students were lined up in front of the signing table, laughing and jostling, as some of the younger ones broke from the line to chase one another around the auditorium while waiting to say hello to their hometown heroes.

  As the Gold General tried to corral the disruptive students like a frustrated cowhand, the band signed everything from T-shirts to posters to dolls to special vinyl editions of Meet the Caverns! Even girls in my class who had never given me the time of day shoved Caverns merchandise in my face and gushed about how great the concert was.

  Then a girl who looked like she was eleven or twelve handed me a photo album. Inside was the entire history of the band, told in press clippings and articles from not just the teen mags and Rolling Stone but also Time and Newsweek and even The New Yorker.

  I hadn’t noticed anything like this at home. So I got totally caught up looking through the album until the girl gave me a little cough to remind me that she was there. I asked her what her name was.

  “Joelle,” she replied.

  “I have a big favor to ask, Joelle.” Joelle’s eyes expanded in surprise. A favor? What kind of favor could Regina Bloomsbury possibly ask of her?

  “This is the most incredible collection of articles on the Caverns I’ve ever seen,” I explained.

  “I like you guys a lot,” Joelle replied, pleased with my compliment.

  “In that case, do you think you could let me keep this for the next week or so? I’ll write something very special in it and deliver it to your house. Myself.”

  There were two responses at war in Joelle’s eyes. She was hesitant to let go of her precious album. But she was definitely excited as well. Regina Bloomsbury, coming to her house?

  “We’ll have a photo session when I get there.”

  That did it. Any concern Joelle had about parting with her painstakingly put-together album disappeared in an instant.

  “It’s a deal,” she said, sounding remarkably grown up and businesslike all of a sudden. “My address is on the inside cover.”

  “OK,” I said, and gave her a smile.

  “By the way,” Joelle said as she turned to go. “I hope you don’t mind me telling you this…”

  “Of course not. What?”

  Joelle leaned close toward me and spoke in a whisper. “I love Bradley and all, but I still think you and Julian were great together. Sorry, but that’s just how I feel.”

  You could have pushed me over with your pinky finger at that moment. Julian and I had been together in this wish world of mine? As Joelle walked away, I was aware of Lorna shooting me a curious look.

  I tried to compose myself. It wasn’t easy, after what I’d just heard. But I managed to give Lorna an innocent shrug and—indicating Joelle’s album—said, “I haven’t kept one of these. Have you?”

  12

  “Glorious Rock ’n’ Roll!”

  “The Caverns! The Return of Innocence!”

  “Bloomsbury: The Suburban High Priestess of Pop!”

  Those were just a few of the headlines in the various articles in Joelle’s album. But I wasn’t interested in all the rave reviews of Meet the Caverns! I needed the behind-the-scenes stuff. The stuff about me and Julian.

  First I had to deal with Dad, though. After we got back from T.J., he clearly wanted to sit for a spell, have a cup of coffee, and talk about the concert. He was proud of me, I could tell. Besides that, I think he was pretty pumped about the fact that he had just played for a worldwide audience—in addition to “Yesterday,” he accompanied us on “In My Life” and “Drive My Car”—even though he wouldn’t admit that.

  But almost as soon as we sat down, calls from L.A. and New York started coming in. The MTV people were ecstatic about the early estimates of how many people had streamed the concert, which was, like, a lot. Trey couldn’t wait to tell us about the requests he was already getting from concert promoters in obscure places around the world, desperate to get us on our next worldwide tour.

  Then Mom called.

  Dad spoke to her very briefly—and tersely, his good mood instantly vanishing—then handed the phone over to me.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said tentatively.

  “My god, what a fantastic concert!” Mom wailed. She sounded just like one of the T.J. teens who had lined up for autographs. She really did. “You were brilliant, Regina! Absolutely brilliant!”

  “Thanks, Mom.” It felt so weird to be talking to her. Surreal is what it felt like.

  “I can’t wait to see you in L.A.,” Mom practically yelled over the phone. It occurred to me that she and I had probably seen each other sometime over the past year. At least Mom had seen me.

  “You know what, Mom? We have to get up really early tomorrow. I better go.” I surprised myself, saying that; I just couldn’t deal with a phone conversation with my errant but suddenly very attentive mom at that moment.

  “You blowing me off, Regina? Is that what you’re doing? Blowing off your mother?”

  “No. It’s just—”

  “I’m kidding! Go get your beauty sleep. Just wanted to call to tell you how terrific you were.”

  “Dad was pretty good, too, don’t you think?”

  Mom didn’t answer right away. Then she said, “I guess, but you were the star, honey!”

  Very confusing. I mean, now that I was famous, here Mom was, calling and saying how great I was? It gave me kind of a bad feeling, to be honest. But my reaction to hearing Mom’s voice for the first time in ages was actually more complicated than that. No matter how much she might have put me off with her gushing, I found myself desperately wanting to believe that if I went back to being just Regina …

  Mom would feel the same way about me.

  “Well, good night,” I said.

  “Night, Regina. I’m staying at the same hotel as you. Did your dad tell you?”

  Did he? I couldn’t remember. “Ah … yeah,” I lied.

  “See you in La-la Land, honey!”

  “Bye.” I hung up and just stood there in the kitchen for a moment. Even at this hour, I could see a few paparazzi outside, bundled up in heavy snow jackets to ward off the cold, hoping to get a shot of me through the windows.

  Weirdness, weirdness, and more weirdness.

  I said good night to Dad at that point, then—feeling kind of spacey and hungover from my brief conversation with Mom—went upstairs and got ready for bed.

  Finally, I would be able to look through Joelle’s album. I curled up with the bedside light on and started to go through it. First, page by page, but then I got restless and jumped ahead to see if there were any pictures of me and Julian.

  There were plenty of pictures of me, that’s for sure. It was disorienti
ng and very strange to see so many photos of myself. (I don’t like to have my picture taken.) There were pics of me with the band. On the red carpet at the MTV Video Music Awards, People’s Choice Awards, Teen Choice Awards, Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards. With celebs like Taylor Swift, Eminem, and Rihanna. Then, with a flip of the page …

  Bingo.

  My heart did a flip-flop when I came across the Teen People photo of Julian and me kissing. Kissing! The accompanying article chronicled a day at the beach Julian and I had spent together on an off day during our U.S. tour, which—judging from the date on the corner of the page—had been about six months before.

  Other photos, captured by a telephoto lens, showed Julian and me strolling hand in hand in the sand. Me kicking water at Julian from the surf. Our kissing photo was the last one of the bunch.

  I have to tell you, this, more than anything, made my current amnesia especially cruel. I had kissed Julian. And had no idea how that felt!

  There were a few more pictures that documented our relationship, and I felt worse seeing each one. There was one of me holding on to Julian’s shirttail as we perused an outdoor bookstall in London. Another that showed us singing together during a concert, our faces intimately close. But the photo that really got to me was us having coffee at a sidewalk café with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

  We’d been in Paris together!

  I stared at that picture for quite a while. A familiar sensation boiled up inside me as I looked at Julian’s face, smiling at me across the small circular table on the sidewalk of that Paris café.

  Anger at my Fairy Godmother.

  I got up, went to my computer, and turned it on. But then I realized that I didn’t have any idea how to get in touch with my F.G. Why? Because she didn’t tell me, that’s why! I went to my Gmail account and angrily typed out an e-mail.