She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)

by Ann Hood

  Every other summer I went to day camp at the playground down the street. We sat in the shade and did crafts, like macramé plant holders, gimp bracelets, and gluing shells onto small boxes. Sometimes the counselors, who were only a few years older than us, organized games of kickball or tag, but they mostly just liked to huddle together and talk about boys they liked. If we were lucky, they turned on the sprinkler after lunch and we got to run through it. It was the most boring thing ever, so when Mom announced that I had to miss camp to help her out this summer, I was delighted.

  Now that I had a plan to set into motion, I was even happier. I had all day to work on it.

  First, I had to figure out how to get that bus to Boston.

  I pulled the phone cord as far as it could stretch so that I was away from Mom, and grabbed the Yellow Pages from the cupboard where we kept them and the White Pages and Mom’s personal telephone numbers. I loved looking things up in the Yellow Pages, like businesses that sold reptiles and businesses that built sheds. Who knew there were so many weird businesses out there, nestled between plumbing companies and dentists and shoe stores. I loved the White Pages, too. So many people lived in Rhode Island! Once, I found shelves of White Pages from all around the country in the library basement. New York City had its own White Pages because so many people lived there. California needed two volumes, but Wyoming’s was skinny, skinnier than Rhode Island’s. That day I looked up Gertrude Mixer in as many states as I could. But there wasn’t even one other Gertrude Mixer anywhere, which made me feel special, even though I had the worst name ever.

  When I told Mom that I was the only Gertrude Mixer in the United States, she told me that women never listed their names in the White Pages. So Gertrude Mixer would be listed as G. Mixer. That way strangers wouldn’t have her phone number. “Well,” I told Mom, “when I have my own apartment and my phone number is listed in the White Pages, my name will be T. Mixer, not G. Mixer.”

  Anyway, today I needed to look up Bus Lines, so it was the fat Yellow Pages that I heaved out of the cupboard. I flipped to B, and there it was, just like Penelope told me: BONANZA BUS LINES. The ad beside the phone number said: DAILY SERVICE BETWEEN PROVIDENCE BOSTON LOGAN AIRPORT CAPE COD. I carefully dialed the number listed and counted seven rings before a woman answered.

  “Bonanza Bus Lines, how may I help you?”

  I lowered my voice so I sounded older. “What time do your buses go to Boston from Providence?”

  “Every hour on the hour, returning every hour on the half,” she said. She must have answered this question a lot because she sounded kind of like a robot.

  “Can the bus drop me off at Suffolk Downs?” I asked her.

  She hesitated. “Well, no. It drops you off at the bus terminal.” She didn’t sound so mechanical anymore.

  “Do you know how far that is from Suffolk Downs?”

  “No, but I’m sure you can get a taxi at the terminal.”

  I had Mom’s little Honey Do notepad and a pen so I could write everything down, and so far, even though I just had when the buses ran, bus terminal, and taxi written down, this plan was getting kind of complicated.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to think.

  “Is there anything else I can help you with?” she said, back to her robot voice.

  “No. Wait. Yes. How much is a ticket?”

  “One way or round-trip?”

  “Round-trip.”

  “Five dollars and fifty cents,” she said.

  I wrote that down, too.

  After I hung up, I stared at my list. There were some obstacles already and I hadn’t even started working out the details of my new, bigger plan.

  * * *

  * * *

  Mom was especially needy that day. I spent most of my time running around adjusting the fan and the pillows under her leg, turning the TV on and off or changing the channels, fetching her drinks and snacks, lifting and lowering the shades. It was hot and humid and her leg was itchy and smelly. But all the mindless activity gave me time to figure out what to do. Getting to the concert was not as easy as I’d thought before I talked to the Bonanza Bus lady. I made a mental list of problems: getting to the bus station in Providence, getting to Suffolk Downs from the bus terminal in Boston, and getting back to the terminal after the concert. Penelope had made it sound so easy!

  Penelope, I realized as soon as I had that thought. I would ask her how to get from here to there and there to here. As soon as I brought Mom a bowl of blueberries and readjusted her pillows, I looked up Penelope’s phone number and called her. This was, of course, terrifying. Someone like me—Ger-trude!—did not call one of the coolest kids in school. But she’d been so friendly to me. And we were both going to the Beatles concert, so we had the most important thing in common. Of course I didn’t expect Penelope to be home. She was probably at the beach or the mall or making out somewhere with that high-school boy.

  To my utter surprise, Penelope herself answered the phone. She sounded 100 percent bored until I said it was me, Trudy . . . um . . . Gertrude . . . Mixer.

  “Hi!” she said. “Wow! This is great!”

  It is? I thought. But what I said was that I’d called to talk about the concert.

  “As it turns out,” I said, “I’m taking the bus, too.”

  “You are? Cool!” Penelope said.

  I laid out my problems and Penelope said, “Oh, it’s easy. You catch a bus on Providence Street to downtown. And when you get to the bus terminal in Boston, you take the T to Suffolk Downs.”

  “The T,” I repeated.

  “Right. The subway,” Penelope said, and she didn’t sound at all like she thought I was dumb or anything.

  “Ah,” I said.

  “It’s super easy,” Penelope said.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “It helps when you’re with other people, so they can double-check that you’re going in the right direction and stuff.”

  “Sure,” I said again.

  “I never asked,” Penelope said. “Who are you going with?”

  “The Beatles Fan Club,” I said without even thinking.

  “Oh! Of course! If I wasn’t running the Poets Club, I would be in the fan club.”

  “You would?” I said.

  Penelope laughed softly. “Thanks for calling.”

  “Bye,” I said, realizing I should have been thanking her, not the other way around.

  “Hey!” Penelope said. “Look for me at the concert? I’m in row M, seat twenty-one.”

  Then there was the click of her hanging up.

  Mom was calling, “Trudy! Come turn off this television before I lose my mind!”

  “Coming!” I said.

  But I wasn’t coming. I was adding to my Honey Do list. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Even though they were the least cool kids in the school and I didn’t want to be seen with any of them, the three remaining members of the Beatles Fan Club had to come to the concert with me. They were the only other people who cared as much as I did about getting there. And when they heard what else I had planned, they wouldn’t be able to refuse.

  * * *

  * * *

  If I had called Michelle or Kim or even Hannah Mazzy, who was popular in a bad way—for example, she liked the Rolling Stones and her brother had actually been in jail—and asked them if they could come to my house the next afternoon, the answer would be no. Not just because they had no interest in coming to my house but also because they were busy. Busy going to the beach or sitting in front of a fan in someone’s bedroom listening to records or, in Hannah’s case, busy playing Frisbee at Goddard Park. Other kids were busy at camp—day camp or even sleepaway camp in New Hampshire or someplace.

  But all three members of the Robert E. Quinn Beatles Fan Club were absolutely, 100 percent available. Jessica did go to Girl Scout camp, but not until the end of J
uly. And Peter went to visit his father’s relatives in Indiana, but also not until the end of July. Mostly, they did nothing all summer.

  For the emergency meeting I made fudgies, which were basically oats, melted chocolate, and peanut butter shaped into cookies, dropped on wax paper, and put in the fridge for a couple of hours, and a pitcher of cherry Kool-Aid. I asked Mom to please not need anything between one and three, left her the pile of magazines and snacks, and closed the living room door to dull the sound of the television. I put on Meet the Beatles, a nostalgic choice, being that it was the Beatles’ very first album, and I hoped that would help my case. After all, I was going to ask the fan club to lie, steal, and run away. I needed all the help I could get.

  At 12:45, exactly fifteen minutes early, I heard Nora outside calling Goodbye, Mom! Thanks for the lift! Love you, too!

  I rolled my eyes, not just at how dorky Nora was but also at the fact that she arrived fifteen whole minutes early. Hadn’t she ever heard of being fashionably late? Luckily, I was ready. The pitcher of Kool-Aid was nice and cold and the fudgies were on Mom’s good platter, the one decorated with daisies.

  When the doorbell rang and I went to open the door, not only was Nora standing there but so was Jessica, in her Girl Scout uniform. Maybe it was my imagination but the merit badges on her sash seemed to have tripled.

  She must have seen my looking because she grinned and touched her sash and said, “I decided to get a badge a week this summer. It’s my goal.”

  Before they even walked inside Peter came riding up on his bicycle. I only hoped Theresa, my next-door neighbor who went to Catholic school, didn’t see him because having a boy like Peter ride his bike to your house was about the most embarrassing thing I could imagine. Theresa was a year older and rolled up the waistband of her kelly green and navy blue plaid skirt as soon as she rounded the corner out of sight. She also unbuttoned her white blouse one extra button. Which is to say she was not a girl you wanted to see someone like Peter, on his bike.

  I hurried the three of them in and led them to the kitchen. It was only 12:50.

  After they all took glasses of Kool-Aid and cookies I announced that I was calling the first ever summer emergency fan club meeting to order.

  They waited, expectantly. I couldn’t help but notice that Peter’s nose and cheeks were sunburned and Nora’s bangs were cut kind of crooked, like maybe she’d cut them herself.

  Very dramatically, and slowly, I pulled the four Beatles concert tickets from my pocket.

  “As you can see, these are tickets to the Beatles concert in Boston on August eighteenth,” I said, fanning the tickets on the table.

  “Wow,” Peter said in a soft voice.

  “Can I, like, touch them?” Nora said.

  I let her hold them for a few seconds.

  “Due to circumstances out of my control that involve international travel and medical emergencies, three of these tickets have become available,” I said.

  They just stared at me, still waiting.

  “And it seems only appropriate that they should go to the Beatles Fan Club,” I said.

  Now it was my turn to wait. But nobody said anything.

  “I mean,” I said finally, “you guys.”

  “My mom won’t let me go,” Nora said. “No way.”

  “I have camp,” Jessica said.

  “I am the luckiest person alive,” Peter said.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Jessica,” I said evenly, “this is the chance of a lifetime. There are rumors that the Beatles might break up—”

  “What?” Nora gasped.

  “—and this could be your only chance in your entire life to see them in concert,” I finished.

  “Well,” Nora said, staring at the fake straw place mats I’d set out, “maybe I can convince her.”

  I turned to Jessica. “I thought you had camp in July.”

  “I do. But if I earn more than a dozen merit badges by August fifteenth, I get a free week. It’s a really huge honor,” Jessica added.

  “Is it huger than seeing the Beatles?” I asked her. “Seriously?”

  “It’s just that I’m working really hard on badges like Archery and Botany and Reading. I mean, I have to read ten books for that badge, plus all the other stuff.”

  Frankly, Jessica looked pretty miserable. She was working herself to death, and it was only the first week of July.

  “Jessica,” I said, “we are talking about the Beatles.”

  “The Beatles!” Peter said.

  I appreciated his enthusiasm.

  “I don’t know,” Jessica said. “I made this goal and I want to reach it.”

  “How are we going to get there?” Peter said, ready to plan.

  But without Jessica and Nora on board, how could I tell them what I needed to tell them? Unless my new plan was so spectacular—which it was—that it would convince them.

  “So we need to take the bus to Boston—”

  Nora looked terrified. “The bus?” she said.

  “It’s super easy,” I said. “I’ve done it like a million times. You just get on the bus to Providence from right in front of the fire station and then at the station in Providence you connect to Bonanza.”

  “Does the fan club have any money left over from the Beatlemania sale?” Jessica asked.

  “Unfortunately no,” I admitted.

  Last spring we’d had a big sale one Saturday where people could sell or trade Beatles records and memorabilia. But we’d used all eighteen dollars on stamps and envelopes for fan letters, stuff to make signs, and a fan club copy of Rubber Soul when it came out.

  “But bus tickets are only six dollars. Round-trip,” I added for emphasis.

  “I don’t have six dollars,” Nora said.

  “Can’t you ask your mom?” I said.

  “No,” Nora said quickly.

  “I have four dollars already,” Peter said hopefully.

  Jessica’s eyes lit up. “We can have a lemonade stand and that will help me get my Entrepreneur badge.”

  I wondered if this meant she was coming, but before I could confirm that, she frowned.

  “Of course I wasn’t going to work on that badge—”

  “But now you are!” Peter said. “And we’re going to help you, so it will be really easy.”

  “I guess,” Jessica said, obviously thinking.

  “Okay,” I said, “then we’ll take the subway to Suffolk Downs, which is also super easy.”

  Now Nora was looking worried.

  “Then we’ll see the concert and then we will do the most important fan club business we’ve ever ever done,” I said.

  Nora looked even more worried.

  “After the concert, we are going straight to the Parker House Hotel. Do you know why?”

  Jessica shook her head.

  “Because we are going to meet Paul McCartney. And get his autograph. And show up at school in September as the only kids in the entire school who actually met Paul McCartney,” I said.

  “We can actually talk to him?” Peter said, his eyes shiny with excitement and big dreams.

  “Yes,” I said, as if I knew this as a fact.

  “How are we ever going to meet Paul McCartney?” Nora said.

  “That’s what this emergency meeting is all about,” I said. “We have to figure that out.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Help!

  OPERATION MEET PAUL MCCARTNEY

  THE ROBERT E. QUINN BEATLES FAN CLUB PLAN A:

  August 18, 1966

  Jessica and Trudy tell parents they are having a sleepover at Nora’s. Nora tells parents she is sleeping over at Trudy’s. Peter tells parents he is on a campout with sixth-grade boys for team building.

  Meet at the RIPTA bus stop in front of fire station on Provide
nce Street at 1 p.m.

  Board 1:15 bus to Providence. (IMPORTANT: ACT LIKE YOU DO THIS EVERY DAY!!!)

  Arrive at bus terminal at 2 p.m. Buy tickets for bus to Boston.

  Board 3 p.m. bus to Boston, arrive 4 p.m. (IMPORTANT: LOOK CONFIDENT!!!)

  Take Green Line at Park Street to Blue Line to Suffolk Downs. (IMPORTANT: IF ASKING DIRECTIONS CALL THE SUBWAY THE T!!!)

  Arrive at Suffolk Downs and scope the following: stage door, alternative exits, possible stakeout locations

  CONCERT!!!

  During encore—LEAVE!!!

  Split up: Jessica and Nora to stage door, Peter and Trudy to alternate exits

  FIND PAUL MCCARTNEY.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Please Mister Postman

  Why is it that when you are waiting for something really special, like your birthday or the last day of school or meeting Paul McCartney—the days just drag and drag? Even though we managed to get my mother in the car, stretched out on the backseat, for a weekend trip to Cape Cod, and the Beatles Fan Club raised money doing that lemonade stand, and my father prepared for his big trip to Japan—despite all that, it felt like August 18 was never going to arrive.

  One really weird thing that happened while I was waiting for August 18, was that Peter started riding his bike to my house practically every day. The first time he did it, I watched him through the blinds, confused. We’d made a plan. Why did he need to see me? He stood on the front steps, I guess trying to decide if he would ring the bell or not. Luckily, he just went away. Until the next day. That time he rang the doorbell. I, of course, ignored it.