She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)

by Ann Hood

  “Are you going to go to Carnaby Street, too?” Nora gushed.

  “I’ll bring back souvenirs from there,” I said.

  “Are you going to meet Jane Asher?” Jessica asked.

  I said, “I hope so!”

  Peter looked worried. “Maybe you should open it,” he said. “Before you make too many plans.”

  You know how on Christmas morning you race to the tree to open all your presents, but then once you get there you kind of dillydally? Like the suspense is almost better than the presents themselves? That was how I felt in that moment. That envelope held the key to my future. After I met Paul McCartney, the fan club membership would skyrocket. I’d be like a celebrity, not just in school but also in the whole town. Maybe even the whole state. Surely Michelle would want to be best friends again. Surely my father would see me as someone special. Surely my life would be even better than it was before.

  I licked my lips and held that envelope as carefully as I would hold anything valuable.

  “Here goes,” I said.

  But I still just stood there in the science lab surrounded by creepy things floating in jars and the smell of formaldehyde, while the Beatles Fan Club, all three of them, stared at me expectantly.

  I took a breath and slipped my pointer finger in the little space between the top of the envelope and the place where the glue stops. The paper opened easily because it was white and thin so that it could fly from London, across the Atlantic Ocean, to Rhode Island and me.

  “Hurry!” Nora said. “I’m about to die!”

  “Maybe it’s four tickets,” Jessica said. Like me, she could see that the envelope was pretty full.

  “That would be so cool,” Peter said softly.

  I pulled out the contents of the envelope and laid them on Mr. Bing’s desk.

  There was a letter, typed, brief, signed.

  And beneath that letter, which I didn’t even bother to read, was not one ticket. Or four tickets. There were, in fact, no tickets. There was just a pile of pictures of the Beatles. Publicity shots that I’d seen in Tiger Beat and Sixteen magazines. All of them were signed, but even I knew they weren’t really signed. They were stamped, fake signatures.

  “‘Dear Trudy Mixer,’” Jessica read, and if I wasn’t so disappointed I would have grabbed my letter right out of her hands. “‘Thank you for being a number one Beatles fan. Please be on the lookout for the announcement of their US tour this summer and the release of a new album!’”

  Jessica handed the letter to me.

  “‘Sincerely, Brian Epstein,’” she said.

  “The pictures are nice,” Peter said.

  “They’re not even a little special,” I said, angry. “They’re dumb publicity shots.”

  “May I have one anyway?” Jessica asked.

  I sunk into Mr. Bing’s swivel desk chair. “Take them all if you want,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “If I don’t leave right now I’m going to miss the late bus, and my mother will be furious,” Nora said, helping herself to a picture of George. “She likes me to cook with her when I get home,” Nora added. “My mom’s a great cook. She watches Julia Child.”

  I dropped my head in my hands. Brian Epstein hadn’t even read my letter, I realized. He’d just sent me this dumb form letter and fake, signed photos. I sat like that even after they all left. My head felt like it weighed as much as the whole world weighed. In the distance I heard the Future Cheerleaders spelling out Quinn: Give me a Q . . . Give me a U . . . Give me an I . . . Give me an N . . . Give me an N . . . What’s that spell?

  Finally I lifted my head, and there was Peter, still sitting at a desk, looking at me.

  “What do you want?” I said, not very nicely.

  “I’m sorry Brian Epstein didn’t send you tickets to London and a Beatles concert.”

  “I don’t care,” I mumbled. “It was just a dumb idea.”

  “No!” Peter said. “It was a brilliant idea.”

  “He didn’t even read my letter. He just sent me a publicity package.”

  “I know, but he must be super busy—”

  “Would you just leave? Please?” I said. Talking about it only made it worse.

  Obviously Brian Epstein was busy. He managed the Beatles. But then he should get a secretary or someone to read his mail and write proper responses. My father had a secretary. Even Peterson had a secretary.

  “I think you were brave to try that,” Peter said at the door.

  Brave? Really? Then why did I feel so stupid?

  I picked up the photos that Jessica and Nora didn’t take, and the dumb form letter, and that thin white airmail envelope, and threw all of it in the trash.

  * * *

  * * *

  Even though we were having spaghetti and meatballs, my favorite, for dinner, I was too miserable to eat.

  “What was in that airmail envelope?” Mom asked. Her sweater set was a color she called coral but I called orange.

  “Nothing,” I said, sullen. I twirled spaghetti around my fork but just left it there.

  “I thought maybe it was fan club paraphernalia,” Mom said. “Do you still have that Beatles fan club?”

  “Yes,” I said, sounding way too defensive. “I’m only the president. That’s all.”

  “Is something wrong with the spaghetti?” Mom asked.

  I shoved a forkful into my mouth.

  Dad was reading the New York Times, probably the Business section. His hand came around the open paper, speared a meatball, and took it back to his mouth.

  “Okay,” I said after I swallowed. “There was something very exciting in that envelope from England.” I said that last part really loud to get Dad’s attention.

  The only thing Dad and I shared these days was a mutual love of the Beatles. He was always the first one to get their new album as soon as it came out, and he’d put it on the good stereo and we’d sit side by side listening to it and studying the cover and reading bits of the liner notes to each other. It was so nice being with him like that, sometimes I wished the Beatles had a new album come out every week.

  Dad didn’t appear to hear me, so I said in that too-loud voice, “Yup. It was a signed letter from Brian Epstein and some very special photographs. Also signed,” I added when the newspaper didn’t budge.

  “Isn’t that nice?” Mom said. “Who exactly is Brian Epstein?”

  I looked right at that newspaper and stared hard enough to bore a hole right through it into Dad’s eyes.

  “Only the Beatles’ manager,” I said.

  “How in the world did you figure out how to write to him?” Mom said.

  “Mom,” I said, trying not to sound as exasperated as I felt, “I’m the president of the fan club! They send us all sorts of information.”

  Dad lowered the paper—finally!—and smiled. “Well, it was very resourceful to write directly to Brian Epstein.”

  I practically glowed. “Thanks,” I said.

  Compliments from Dad were the best because he was so smart and so busy with the big “technological boom coming our way.” He was working on a big deal with some company in Japan involving semiconductors. Dad was a visionary.

  “Trudy,” Dad was saying. “I have a question for you. What do you think of disposable diapers?” he said.

  “Um. They’re a good idea?” I offered.

  “Well, they would certainly free up a mother’s time. And save on water bills and electric bills,” Mom said.

  “That’s a good point,” Dad said thoughtfully.

  “I don’t know how Mrs. Jenkins did it,” Mom said, shaking her head. “Five kids, all in diapers! Now she could have used throwaways.”

  I was cutting a meatball in half, then quarters, then eighths, because I liked eating them symmetrically.

  “Trudy,” Da
d said, “do you know what’s happening on August eighteenth?”

  “Disposable diapers?” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “Music in elevators?”

  Dad folded the section he was reading into sharp creases so that only one piece of it was visible. Then he turned that piece toward me.

  I saw a picture of the Beatles and beneath it the line: US TOUR ANNOUNCED.

  “On August eighteenth,” Dad said, “the Beatles are coming to Boston.”

  “Boston! That’s practically around the corner!”

  Dad laughed. “Fifty miles to be exact. And they’re giving a concert at Suffolk Downs,” Dad said.

  He smiled at me. I smiled back. And for a tiny instant it felt like it did when we sat on the couch together listening to a new Beatles album.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ticket to Ride

  Here are things I knew:

  Michelle’s mother always dropped her off at school on Wednesday mornings because that was the day Mrs. Bee worked at her father’s office. Mr. Bee was an optometrist and any kid who needed glasses, thankfully not me, went to him.

  Because Mrs. Bee had to be at the office by 8:30, Michelle got to school early on Wednesdays, usually between 8 and 8:15.

  No one liked to get to school early.

  Therefore, Michelle usually hid in the library until the first bell rang at 8:30.

  If I got to school by 7:59 and went straight to the library I would get Michelle all to myself for fifteen to thirty minutes.

  So I got to school on Wednesday at 7:59.

  * * *

  * * *

  Sure enough, Michelle slouched in right on schedule, at 8:10. She hadn’t cut her hair like Twiggy yet, but to my surprise she had on pale pink lipstick like an eighth-grader and she smelled like lemons. Lots of lemons.

  “Trudy!” she said, all awkward and surprised.

  I held up Romeo and Juliet, which was what we were reading in English class, and recited the story I’d made up as a reason for being there.

  “Yeah, I forgot my book at home yesterday so I came in early to read the homework pages.” I shrugged for good measure, like What are you gonna do?

  “Oh,” Michelle said with zero interest in my story. Or me.

  “You smell like lemons,” I said.

  “It’s Love’s Lemon!” she said. “Kim gave it to me.”

  She held her wrist out for me to sniff, which I did even though all I had to do was be in her general vicinity to catch a whiff of fake lemons.

  “Nice,” I said, but I felt miserable.

  Michelle started looking through her purse, but I had the feeling she wasn’t really looking for anything. She was just trying to seem busy to avoid talking to me.

  “Did Kim give you that lipstick, too?” I asked. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I cringed. I sounded pathetic.

  “My mom let me buy it with my allowance,” Michelle said, still digging around in her purse. “It’s Yardley,” she added.

  Yardley was from London, and it’s what any girl who was allowed to wear lipstick wore because it gave you the London Look. Sometimes at the drugstore I played with the samples, swirling open the tubes and trying to decide if I’d buy Pinkadilly or Good Night Slicker or London Luv Pink when I was finally old enough.

  “I got Yardley Oatmeal Soap for my birthday,” I said. “Remember?”

  Michelle nodded and gave me a little smile.

  “Anyway,” I said, “I have a huge surprise for you.”

  She finally stopped digging around and looked up, frowning.

  “What are you doing on August eighteenth?” I asked.

  “How would I know? That’s, like, a million years from now.”

  “So you’re free?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Trudy,” she said, and started looking through her bag again.

  I decided to plunge forward.

  “Well, I know what you’re doing. You’re coming with me and my father to Boston.”

  I waited, but Michelle didn’t say anything.

  “Do you know why we’re going to Boston?” I asked her finally. “We are going to Boston to see the Beatles! In concert!”

  “I don’t think I can,” Michelle said without looking at me.

  “You don’t think you can go see the Beatles? Live? Has the overly strong scent of fake lemons made you lose your mind?”

  “I think I’m going to Acapulco,” Michelle said.

  “Mexico?”

  “Kim’s family goes there every summer and they stay at this hotel right on the beach.”

  “Michelle,” I said, trying to regain my composure, “I am talking about the Beatles. In Boston.”

  Michelle looked me right in the eye. “The hotel is called The Princess and it’s shaped like a pyramid,” she said, as if that explained everything.

  I stared right back at her until I saw Nora walking toward me, her hair all tangled. I could not at this crucial moment have Nora come up and talk to me. That would prove to Michelle that I was not best friend material anymore, that I was a person who someone like Nora wanted as a friend. But now Nora was grinning and waving.

  “Trudy!” she said, and I realized she wasn’t waving at me really. She had a newspaper clipping in her hand and that was what she was waving at me.

  Michelle turned, too, and when she saw who was coming she snapped her purse shut, gathered her books, and stood up to leave.

  “Did you see the Beatles’ tour schedule?” Nora was saying, still waving that newspaper clipping.

  “Bye, Trudy,” Michelle said softly. “I don’t want to interrupt your Beatles business.”

  “They’re coming to Boston,” Nora said. “The fan club should go to the concert.”

  “Wait!” I called after Michelle, who had made a beeline for the door. “If the Acapulco thing falls through . . .” But she didn’t hear me. She was already gone.

  “If my mother lets me go,” Nora was saying. “She likes to keep me close to home.”

  From right outside the door I heard Kim’s voice.

  “Was that Ger-trude in there?”

  I sighed, a big, long, sad sigh. Then I coughed, choking on Love’s Lemon scent.

  * * *

  * * *

  Every day I asked my father if the tickets had gone on sale yet and every day he said no. “Remember to get one for Michelle,” I always reminded him, because what if she could come and then we didn’t have a ticket for her?

  “Trudy,” Dad said after the millionth time I asked, “I promise you that as soon as the tickets go on sale I will buy four—three for our family and one for Michelle. So please stop pestering me.”

  We were at dinner, which was basically the only time I ever saw Dad and therefore the only time I could ask about the tickets and remind him about Michelle.

  “Won’t this be fun?” Mom said. “Maybe we can go to Durgin-Park first for dinner. What do you think, Charles?”

  The Wall Street Journal lowered and Dad’s face appeared. He didn’t look very happy.

  “Speaking of dinner,” he said, “what is this we’re eating?”

  Mom beamed. “Maple Syrup Chicken,” she said. “It’s from The Galloping Gourmet.”

  Mom had a crush on the Galloping Gourmet, whose real name was Graham Kerr. He was English, like everything worth liking was, and he had a cooking show on in the afternoon.

  Dad poked at the Maple Syrup Chicken, which was, by the way, disgusting.

  “There’s mushrooms in here,” he said. Mom murmured yes. “And green peppers and . . . and raisins?”

  “It’s Indian,” Mom explained. “I had to buy curry powder, which was not easy to find, believe me.”

  “Are these nuts?” Dad asked.

>   “Almonds,” Mom said proudly.

  Dad shook his head and returned to the Wall Street Journal, leaving his Maple Syrup Chicken untouched.

  “How do you like it?” Mom asked me.

  “It’s interesting,” I said, because that was the best word I could come up with.

  “Yes,” Mom said, smiling. “It is interesting.”

  “Dad,” I said, “do you think the tickets will go on sale tomorrow?”

  The Wall Street Journal lowered again.

  “Someday very soon we are going to be required to wear safety belts when we’re in the car,” Dad said. “What do you two think about that?”

  “Oh, Charles,” Mom said, still wounded that he didn’t like the Maple Syrup Chicken, “that’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s coming,” Dad said. “Mark my words.” He folded his newspaper into sharp neat creases and went to his study.

  Mom patted my hand. “Don’t worry, Trudy,” she said. “He won’t forget. He wants to see the Beatles almost as much as you do.”

  Still, I couldn’t help myself. I left a note for him to find the next morning:

  If the tickets go on sale today please please please don’t forget to get one for Michelle.

  I spent a long time trying to decide how to sign it. I considered a long line of Xs and Os. I considered Luv, Trudy. Finally I settled on: Luv, Your daughter Trudy because honestly sometimes lately I wasn’t so sure he remembered he had a daughter Trudy.

  * * *

  * * *

  It seemed like a million years passed before one night Dad came home and instead of taking off his coat and hat and hanging them in the closet, then going straight to his study until dinner was ready, he walked right into the den where I was doing my New Math homework and he said, “I thought you’d be interested in this, Trudy.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, barely looking up because New Math was very confusing and if I paused to listen to his theory about how we were all going to have to be belted into our seats in the car then I would lose my train of thought and mess up. And if I messed up, my parents couldn’t help me because this was New Math and they only knew how to do Old Math.