“She’s leaving to go to Macartneys?” he asked. Macartneys was a clothing store near Reinhold’s.
“No, she’s leaving you for Paul McCartney. Of the Beatles.”
He nodded his head and returned to the paper.
My mother’s love affair with Paul did have some advantages. I never had to beg for Beatles albums. She bought them for me the minute they were released, along with all the special-edition fan magazines, as well as 16 and Tiger Beat. She knew that Pete Best had been the original drummer and that George was dating Pattie Boyd and that Ringo, whom she insisted on calling the Ugly One, had suffered pleurisy as a child. “They should have kept Pete,” she’d say. “At least he was cute.”
I had my own record player, a red one that you could snap shut and carry like a suitcase, and sometimes my mother and I would listen to Meet the Beatles! while sprawled across my canopy bed. Inevitably, she’d spoil the mood by pointing out my sloppy hospital corners or the pile of dirty clothes on the floor, and I’d threaten to pack up my record player and hit the road. She’d say, “You’re lucky to have a mother, unlike Paul, who lost his own mother in 1956, when he was only fourteen.” And I’d say, “Yeah, but I bet you don’t know how old she was when she died.” And she’d say, “Ha! She was forty-seven, and her name was Mary. Anything else you’d like to know?”
Bridget couldn’t believe my mother was a Beatles fan. “My mom puts her fingers in her ears every time they come on the radio,” she said as we were waiting outside during a practice nuclear bomb evacuation. I warned her to lower her voice because our eighth-grade teacher, Sister Mary Ethelburger, was coming our way. She had heavily lidded eyes, a sloped neck, and thick, curved fingernails; she crept across the school yard on her short, stout legs, rocking from side to side. Since she taught geography and spoke endlessly of her fascination with the Galápagos Islands, we thought of her as an ancient tortoise that had over the centuries migrated to Massachusetts.
No one could decipher her foreign accent. Francis What’s-His-Name came up with the brilliant idea that she was a Russian Jew. “How many Catholics do you know with the name Burger?” he asked. It didn’t take long for Sister Ethelburger to go from being the world’s biggest land tortoise to assuming the identity of Ethel Rosenberg, the famous spy. We didn’t realize that the real Ethel Rosenberg had been dead for ten years, only that she’d given atomic secrets to the Russians. In our version, Ethelburger or Ethel Berger, had divorced Mr. Rosenberg, converted to Catholicism, and entered a convent, where her superior knowledge of nuclear weapons and endangered species had led to an assignment at St. Augustine’s. When the Russians invaded, they’d get the shock of their lives when an elderly nun threatened to drop the A-bomb or a gigantic tortoise on their heads.
In between learning about the weather conditions on the Galápagos, my friends and I conspired to move to London, where we’d get jobs as models or at Biba, the famous fashion boutique. Ever since kindergarten, I’d had the same close friends—Mary, Agnes, and Susan. Agnes and Susan were best friends, while I was Agnes’s runner-up. Not only was Agnes the smartest girl in class but also the one most likely to leave Andover for Greenwich Village and have love affairs with famous artists or heroin addicts. With her long brown hair and olive skin, she looked like Joan Baez and was always quoting Bob Dylan. One of her most enviable attributes, especially at a school that valued handwriting over actual writing, was her beautiful penmanship. Before one of the nuns confiscated it, she wrote with a cigarette-shaped pen that she occasionally “smoked,” driving the boys wild. She had no interest in her peers, however, setting her sights on older, more accomplished men, such as Dylan, or John Lennon, or the Central Catholic High School junior, who wore Jade East cologne. It had Oriental letters on the box and a strange musk smell that Agnes said was a powerful aphrodisiac.
Every spring, the Girl Scouts put on a show to entertain the Brownies, and Agnes thought it would be fun if we impersonated the Beatles. Since John was Agnes’s favorite, she wanted to be him, while Susan claimed George, and Mary, who had brown eyes and was left-handed, seemed the logical choice for Paul. That left me with Ringo, who was nobody’s favorite, except maybe his mother’s, but if she was anything like mine, she probably liked Paul best.
Informed of the news, my mother reacted as if I’d had a sex-change operation and had actually become Ringo. “So you’re the Ugly One?” she said. “You’re the incredible sad sack with the big nose?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You should quit the band,” she advised. “They clearly don’t appreciate you.”
Yoko Ono hadn’t even appeared on the scene and my mother was all ready to break up the Beatles before we’d made our first appearance. “Ringo,” she repeated, shaking her head. “You’d better be careful not to sit on any damp stoops or you could get pleurisy.”
For the next two weeks, we practiced lip-synching to “She Loves You,” shaking our heads in unison as we mimed the falsetto ooooohs. I played percussion with two pencils, while the others played air guitar. It soon became evident that Mary was the breakout star. Her resemblance to Paul was uncanny. She must have practiced his mannerisms for hours, perfecting the way he cocked his head and jutted out his chin, casting his angelic eyes heavenward. When my mother caught us practicing in our basement, she nearly fainted. “It’s remarkable,” she said. “It’s Paul. It’s really Paul.”
Bumpa made me a cardboard drum set, painting The Beatles on the front. I was dying to get a pair of Beatle boots, which I hoped would compensate for the psychological damage that would ultimately result from being Ringo.
“Beatle boots—are you crazy?” was my mother’s first reaction. Her second was “Your father is going to have plenty to say about that!” Eventually, I wore her down, and we went off to Reinhold’s.
“What kind of girl wants Beatle boots?” the salesman asked.
“Girls who impersonate Ringo,” my mother said. “He’s the Ugly One.”
“They’re all ugly,” he said. “That hair! It’s a disgrace.”
“Particularly Ringo’s,” she said.
Fed up with the way they were dumping on my alter ego, I blurted out that my mother was in love with Paul. Her face turned bright red. Realizing that I might have jeopardized my Beatle boots, I added, “You know, of Peter, Paul and Mary.” The salesman started singing “Puff the Magic Dragon,” encouraging my mother to join in. She only knew that Puff lived by the sea and nothing about Jackie Paper or the land called Hana Lee. For a major Peter, Paul and Mary fan, it was a pretty weak showing, and the salesman looked suspicious.
I reminded him that we’d come for Beatle boots, and he told me they didn’t make them for ladies but that he’d try to find a men’s pair. “This is getting worse by the minute,” my mother whispered. “Now you’re going to be wearing men’s shoes. Your father is so upset he can hardly speak.”
“He doesn’t anyway.”
The salesman had no concept of Beatles footwear, presenting me with several pairs of construction boots. Since we were years away from the Village People, I showed him a picture I’d torn out from a Beatles magazine. The salesman put on his glasses to study it. “These are like flamenco boots,” he said. “You know, Olé!” After he disappeared into the stockroom, I asked my mother for some change so I could get a ring from the vending machine. I already had seven, but Ringo wore four on each hand, so I was short one. You never knew what was going to slide down the chute, and I got a plastic tarantula, a devil, and a Rat Fink before scoring big with a skull ring.
“You may be in luck,” the salesman said. Opening the first box, he pulled out a black boot with elastic inserts, a side zipper, and a two-inch Cuban heel. After referencing my Beatles magazine, I said, “That’s it!” The boots even fit.
On the day of the performance, we wore white dickeys, navy blazers, and black slacks, tucking our hair inside our collars to make it look shorter. I
was the only one with Beatle boots. Agnes said that since I was behind a fake drum set, nobody would see my feet, but I told her it was important to get into character. The Brownies were in the school auditorium, waiting for the show to begin, while we stood backstage with one of our classmates, who was preparing to do her famous Scottish sword dance. Ellie was dressed in the traditional costume of tartan skirt, white frilly blouse, velvet tam, and lace-up shoes known as ghillies.
There are some people who shouldn’t be around swords, and Ellie was one of them. Though agile and light on her feet, she suffered from stage fright and reached levels of near hysteria whenever she had to perform. Her mother was usually on hand to calm her down. “You can do it, you can do it,” she kept whispering as her daughter stood shaking in a corner. Because we’d seen her do it a dozen times, we wished she’d dispense with the theatrics and just get on with it. The Brownies were getting restless. Finally, hoisting the two giant swords over her shoulders, she strode onstage and one of the Brownies, thinking she was about to be slaughtered, ran for the exit.
Ellie placed the swords in a cross formation while her mother played recorded bagpipe music. With her arms flung high, she began dancing counterclockwise around the swords before stepping inside them. The goal was not to touch the blades or inflict self-injury. From backstage, we heard the sounds of metal grating against metal. She kept tripping, and I pictured the girl in The Red Shoes with her feet all bloodied, or worse, with no feet. Ellie limped off the stage, telling her mother that she needed to go to the emergency room.
After the Brownie leader announced that we’d be taking a short break, the rumor spread that the Scottish dancer was dead. “This is a disaster,” Agnes said. “The Brownies are crying.”
After the swords were removed, I set up my cardboard drum set and sat on a folding metal chair, while the other girls stood in front of me. As the Brownie leader pulled open the curtain, she cried, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!” When the Brownies realized we weren’t the real thing, they went back to sniffling and comparing merit badges. One fiddled with an Etch A Sketch. The school janitor was in charge of our music, and after we gave him a sign, he placed the needle on the 45 of “She Loves You.” When one of the Brownies noticed Mary’s startling resemblance to Paul, she let out a scream, setting off a chain reaction. Shaking her head during the ooooh part, Mary caused such a sensation that the Brownie with the Etch A Sketch rushed the stage and had to be restrained.
After the performance, the Brownies crowded around Mary, referring to her as Mr. McCartney and asking for her autograph. Things grew so unruly that the Brownie leader suggested we leave the building, and as we ran out, we could hear the girls chanting, “Paul, Paul, Paul . . .”
Due to our legendary Brownies appearance, we were deluged with offers to perform at kids’ birthday parties, so we officially became the Beatle Girls. Mary immersed herself completely in the role, carrying a picture of Jane Asher in her wallet and talking in a Liverpool-by-way-of-Boston accent. No one dared criticize, though, because she was the big draw, the fabbest of the Fab Four.
We bought silver ID bracelets with our designated Beatles name on it, although I cheated and had mine engraved PAUL. On weekends, we strolled around town in our Beatles outfits, hoping to attract attention. Though I was tired of being the Ugly One, I loved my Beatle boots, which despite their two-inch Cuban heels were comfortable even when running away from our fans. One Saturday, we caused a near riot in the frozen food section of the Andover Co-Op. The Brownie with the Etch A Sketch screamed, “Look! It’s the Beatle Girls!” and Brownies came out of nowhere, chasing us out of the supermarket and down Main Street. It was straight out of A Hard Day’s Night and we were totally exhilarated, although we feigned annoyance because we were losing our privacy and soon we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without getting mobbed. “We need to tyke a ’olidye wiff our birds,” Mary said. “Some place pryvit, like the Galápagos.”
There was some discussion about getting Beatles haircuts, but none of us wanted to go that far. When I mentioned it to my mother, she didn’t think it was such a bad idea. “After all, you have the boots. Why not the hair?” My mother never liked my hair; it was now medium length and naturally straight, which in her mind meant lacking body.
For years she’d been getting perms from Mrs. Godfrey and anything that wasn’t tight and curly read “limp.” “Why not go to Mrs. Godfrey’s and let her take a look,” she suggested.
Many of the top British models were wearing their hair in a Vidal Sassoon bob, and I thought it might look cute on me. Armed with a stack of fashion magazines, I told Mrs. Godfrey exactly what I wanted: “Something mod and totally fab.” She glanced at the pictures, assuring me that she could easily do any of the styles. Something told me it was a big mistake to let Mrs. Godfrey go anywhere near my head, but since fame had already gone to my head, I wasn’t thinking clearly. She began chopping and chopping, and when she was finished, I didn’t look like a British model. I didn’t look fab. I looked like Moe of the Three Stooges. Not wanting to offend Mrs. Godfrey, who was a perfectly nice woman even if she wasn’t Vidal Sassoon, I pronounced it “different.”
“It’s certainly ‘mod,’” she said.
To my mother’s eyes, it was worse than mod. It was the dreaded word: limp.
“Are you thinking of a perm?” Mrs. Godfrey asked.
My mother nodded.
Two hours later, I arrived home with short curly hair, which, had it been longer, would have counted as Andover’s first Afro. “Why is your hair all frizzy?” Bumpa wanted to know. I stared at my mother. “Blame her,” I said. It went through my mind that she did it on purpose to get Paul all to herself. When she came upstairs to ask if I wanted to listen to A Hard Day’s Night, I told her to leave.
“What happened to you?” Agnes said when I walked into the school yard the next morning. “Did you get electrocuted or something?” All Mary could say was “Blimey!”
During English, Sister Superior charged into the classroom with some “very disturbing news.” We figured the gig was up for Ethel Berger and that she’d be carted away to prison for being a Russian spy and a terrible geography teacher. “I would like to see the Beatle Girls,” she said. Thinking she wanted to book us for a performance, Agnes reached for her calendar, but Sister Superior began tapping her wooden clicker against her palm. One by one, we slowly stood up.
“Where’s the other Beatle Girl?” Sister Superior asked.
“I think they’re all accounted for,” Ethel Berger said.
“But aren’t there five Beatles?”
“No, you’re thinking of the Dave Clark Five,” Bridget offered. “Or maybe you think Pete Best’s still in the band, but he’s not.”
“Enough!” Sister Superior said. “Now what in the name of all the saints and angels in heaven do you think you’re doing impersonating those hoodlums?”
“The Beatles aren’t hoods,” Bridget said. “They’re rockers who went mod.”
“Go to my office, Bridget. I’ll deal with you later.”
“You four are a total disgrace to womanhood.” Sister Superior stared at me. “And you? I suppose this is the latest Beatle hairdo?”
“Not really.”
“You don’t even look like a girl anymore. Boys, would you marry someone with hair like this?”
The boys, deliberating for all of a second, held their noses and screamed, “Pee-Yew!” Francis What’s-His-Name screamed the loudest, and from then on, I never used my middle name, not even the first initial.
“This charade has gone on long enough,” Sister Superior said. “I am officially disbanding the Beatle Girls. Tomorrow, I want you to bring in your Beatles costumes and whatever else you have, and they will be confiscated.” Afterward, she made the rounds of all the younger grades, informing them that the Beatle Girls were dead. I’d heard that some of the Brownies cried, but they quickly got over
it. The next day, I handed over my plastic rings, my white dickey, and my Beatle boots. I’d left my Paul ID bracelet at home, but Sister Superior didn’t seem to notice.
“That’s ’orrible about your boots, mate,” said Mary, who was still clinging to the last vestiges of fame.
Word must have gotten around, because my mother seemed to know all the details when I got home. My grandfather was waiting for me with my usual snack of a Hostess Yodel and milk.
“I hear the Beatles have been disbanded,” she said. “What was the offense?”
“You’re looking at it,” I said, pointing to my hair.
“That’s nonsense, Patricia. It had nothing to do with your hair. I heard Sister Superior took away all your things, including your boots. They cost good money, you know. That’s the last time you are ever going to talk me into getting you a pair of stupid shoes.”
Now my Beatle boots were stupid. She’d loved the Beatles. Had Sister Superior gotten to her too? While my mother’s infatuation with Paul had been annoying, it had elevated her briefly into the realm of extraordinary, and now she was just a plain, unimaginative housewife. “I don’t want my Yodel,” I said, stomping upstairs.
We didn’t speak for the next three days, and then one afternoon, I found my Beatle boots in my closet. “I told Sister Superior you needed them because of your foot problems,” my mother explained.
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