The next morning, I awoke full of energy despite having only slept three or four hours total. Every time I woke up, I remembered John’s kiss and then had to relive it a couple of times before falling back asleep. Finally, my jittery stomach demanded breakfast. I skipped down the stairs and stopped before entering the dining room.

I took a deep breath, trying to get a hold of myself. Now, now, Emmeline. Mission first. I have to put John behind glass or else I’ll be toast!

I rubbed my brow and entered the room. Sure enough, there he was. Sitting at the table, with an empty plate full of crumbs at his place. Calmly sitting. Waiting.

When we saw each other, I felt a bolt of electricity in my toes. He was so attractive, but it wasn’t just physical. I still don’t know what it is. Something about him, his energy or his aura or something. It was pulling me in, away from the glass wall and convincing every part of me that he was as real as could be.

I sat across from him. Mimi had her eye on me too, but not with the same smile as John.

He bit the tip of his thumb. “Hello.”

A big heave of infatuation rolled over me. “Hi,” I said, grinning and blushing.

I heard Mimi sigh heavily through her nose. “The rent’s gone up,” she announced suddenly. “Now 105. Summer rate.”

I glanced back at John, who sensing Mimi’s harshness had now dropped his adoring eye into his lap. I forced a smile at her. “That’s fine. I’ll be glad to pay it,” I said.

“Oh.” I didn’t know if she sounded genuinely surprised or disappointed. “Well, wonderful. That’s alright then.”

I was aware of John watching me and I tried to do everything in slow motion and pretty. As I stirred my tea with my spoon, I did it slowly. Finally, my eyes met with his. He had his hand on his cheek as he watched me.

“Sugar?” he asked.

“Please.”

As he passed me the small bowl of sugar, our fingers touched. We both relished in the moment, holding a bowl of sugar in between us so we could touch fingers.

“When are you leaving to go back to the United States?” Mimi asked abruptly.

I cleared my throat and brought the sugar down on the table. “I’m not sure yet.”

“You’re not sure?” Mimi asked. “This work placement didn’t give you an ending date? That seems very funny to me.”

Again, I glanced at John who was now eyeing me anxiously.

“Well, I’m supposed to be finished by August 28^th,” I said, setting a biscuit on my plate. “But due to some recent changes, I might be seeking an extension.”

“Really? You are?” John asked not even trying to conceal his excitement.

“We’ll see,” I said. “There’s some… business here that I’m hoping will keep me indefinitely.”

John’s grin extended all the way across his face. Aunt Mimi looked at the ceiling as if she were praying for strength.

The next hour was painfully awkward. Suspicious Mimi didn’t want to leave us in the same room together, so we all sat in the living room in perfectly awkward silence. Mimi ran around shaking curtains and dusting the same knickknacks several times refusing to leave us alone. One of the cats had curled on my lap and I stroked his soft smooth fur. John sat sideways in a chair, his knees pulled to his chest and his feet resting on the arm. He had a little hole in his sock and his pinky toe stuck out of it. The stupid trivial things you notice about someone you kissed the night before.

On the small black and white television set, King Leer drolled on from the BBC broadcast. Neither of us were really watching since we kept glancing at the other person. Finally, after about the fifth time of locking stares, John grabbed the bottom neck of his sweater and pulled it over his mouth, crossing his eyes all the way to the bridge of his nose. I couldn’t help my breathy snicker, which made Mimi turn around and narrow her eyes at us.

Suddenly the phone rang shrilly from the hall. We both turned to Aunt Mimi as she stared back at us, like a Mexican standoff. The shrill bell of the phone went off a second time.

“Telephone,” Lennon said in a perfectly innocent voice.

Mimi put her hands on the top of her hips. “Don’t move,” she warned him.

Her dainty little steps crossed behind us and pattered into the hall. The bell cut off mid-ring.

“Yes, hello,” Mimi answered less than cordial. “What? Now? … No, it’s just that I can’t leave now…”

John and I both curled devilish smiles at each other.

“Yes, yes… alright, keep your shirt on, I’ll be right there.”

The receiver slammed onto the hook, and the pattering double timed back into the living room. I quickly turned my attention to the cat and John slumped further into his chair with his head on his fist.

“I’m going out,” she said, her hands still in the disapproving position on her hips. “I hope I can count on you to have some common decency in this house.”

John fluttered his long eyelashes at her with a cheeky smirk. “Mimi, you know me,” he said.

“That’s why I’m worried.” She took a pillbox hat off the coat rack. “You won’t touch each other.”

“Mimi!”

 “You won’t. Promise me.”

 I could feel my face burning red as I kept to the cat on my lap.

“You have my honor madam,” he said putting his hand on his heart.

Mimi’s mouth flattened so tight that her lips disappeared into a disapproving line. She plopped the pillbox hat on her head. “I’ll be back before you can unbuckle your trousers.”

I shrank into my seat, wanting to die of embarrassment. A weight lifted off my chest when she breezed out of the house and the kitchen door slammed behind her. We looked at each other again, this time we both couldn’t help but laugh.

John had a mischievous, wild glint in his eye as he stood. The cat on my lap seemed to get the hint and sprang off to leave us alone.

“You promised you wouldn’t touch me,” I teased.

 “I won’t,” he said with a smile.

John brought his fingers so close to my hand, it was hovering about a half an inch over my skin. He slowly moved up my arm, I could feel all my little hairs raise in his path. He bent down, his lips the same half an inch away from mine. My heart was stomping in my chest.

There was a knock on the front door. I jerked away so hard, I smacked my head against the chair.

John shushed me. “Not a sound now.”

He leaned in to kiss me, but I pulled away again. “What if it’s Mimi?” I asked.

Suddenly, the front door opened, and a charming and recognizable voice called from the box porch. “John?”

“Nobody’s home!” John called back.

“The Nobodies? I must be in the wrong house.”

I sniggered at Lennon’s exaggerated annoyed face as Paul McCartney walked into the parlor room. His hands in his pockets. A leather shoulder bag draped over a shoulder.

“What do you want?” John asked. “Em and I were… in the middle of something.”

“Oh.” Paul furled his brow and looked between the two of us. “Oh!”

I had to press my finger to my lips to keep from laughing anymore.

“I was just coming round for—” Paul stopped mid-sentence when John’s frown tightened. “Right. Sorry. Never mind then. On my way.”

He swept toward the exit before John booted him out.

“Oh, uh, Em?”

When Paul turned back around to us, John grunted and stomped his foot.

“Sorry, it’s just that— I wanted to tell you, I really loved that song you wrote. Strawberry Fields? That’s a fantastic song!”

“Oh, it’s not really my—” I exchanged a knowing look with John. “Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

“I’m a bit of a songwriter too. I’m not quite as good. But, well, I was wonderin’ if I could get your opinion on some of these.” Paul reached into his saddlebag and retrieved a thick and wrinkled notebook. John cleared his throat and coughed an obvious ‘goodbye’. Paul hunkered down and handed me the notebook. “When you have time. I’ll leave this with you.”

John took Paul by the collar and walked him out. “Right, thanks for comin’. Cheerio. All the best. Adieu. Auf Wiedersehen, zeit zu gehe!”

I heard the two chatting under breath at the front door. I ran my fingers over the weathered notebook in my lap.

“Wow, this is kind of fat,” I said to myself.

I lifted the cover, the first song was, as I expected, I Lost My Little Girl. I chuckled to myself. Little Paulie. So cute. I flipped another page.

When I’m Sixty-Four

Hmm. My mouth twisted to the side. Okay, welp. Didn’t know that one existed just yet, but okay. I flipped another page.

A poem about a blackbird.

I took a sharp breath. Okay. Probably just a coincidence. Another page.

The Long and Winding Road

“What?!” I hissed to myself. I flipped each page rapidly. Key Beatles lyrics on every sheet of paper.

I saw her standing there. Can’t buy me love. Don’t be afraid, take a sad song and make it better.

Then I got to the last page. A hastily scribbled title Scrambled Eggs?? Underneath it, one single line, “All my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they’re here to stay.”
“Alone at last!” John entered the room, took a flower from Mimi’s vase, and presented it to me on one knee.

“Uh…”

I slammed the notebook shut in my lap, but it was too late. My IND gave a distinct buzz inside of me.

“I’m so sorry. Something came up. I have to leave.”

“Something came up?” John doubled back. “Air raid sirens go off? C’mon. What could have come up?”

“It’s an emergency,” I said, tucking the notebook under my arm. “My work study… I’ll explain everything later.”

“Explain it to me now,” John said with a laugh. That darn IND buzzed again.

“No, I’m so sorry, I have to go. I have to—” I grabbed Lennon by the neck and gave him the hardest smooch of my life, then I quite literally ran out the front door.

I clutched Paul’s notebook to my stomach as I walked. My little kitten heels clicked rhythmically on the sidewalk. Pat pat pat pat! A chill spilled down my spine followed by another buzz in my chest.

“I’ll come to you,” I said to my camera.

I sped walked all the way to Thorne’s hotel, blew past the front desk, up the two narrow flights of stairs and right to his door. My knuckles had barely touched Thorne’s door before he opened. “You chose the wrong subject,” he said.

The next two weeks were some of the most miserable of my life. John never left his room. And I was so riddled by grief and guilt that I tried not to either. I just couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear seeing him all empty like that again. And the silence. The awful, awful silence that filled this stuffy house. I couldn’t take it.

Some nights I would cover the crack under my door and fall asleep to Que’s home videos. Risky. More than once Aunt Mimi woke me with the vacuum outside in the hall and I always worried that she would find some reason to burst in unannounced. But I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t want to be in the quiet anymore. Listening to John and Mimi’s non reactions and my own horrible dreadful thoughts.

Sometimes in those quiet moments, I would remember this goldfish that I used to have. I named him Wolfgang Amadeus. And man, I was proud of that name. In his tank I had put a little piano and everything and I thought that was so funny and clever. I left for a weeklong VR music camp and when I came back one of his fins had gotten injured somehow and he couldn’t balance himself to swim. He would lie on his side at the top of the tank, floating as if he were dead.

Every day I would check to see if he were dead and he wasn’t. For weeks it was like that. Just floating and staring at me with his wide-open eye. His mouth painfully opening and closing. I remember wondering if I should take him to a vet. Or flush him to put him out of his misery. But I didn’t do anything. I let him float and float and float. Until he finally died.

I don’t know why I thought of Wolfgang during those shut in days at Mendips. Some days I would laugh thinking of a stupid goldfish. And then the laughing would make me feel sick to my stomach. Why would I laugh? I must be a sociopath.

Notifications piled in from Thorne. I didn’t respond to a single one. I wanted to call him a murderer and a traitor. Use the footage of him pulling a gun on me to press charges. Although, I felt in my gut that the time travel council would never back me up on that one.

One day, I forced myself to eat breakfast. I sat in the living room with a plate of cheddar cheese and plain crackers on my lap. The only thing I could stomach at the time. I heard the distinctive squeak of John’s floorboards in his bedroom. My chest tightened. We hadn’t had much of a conversation since I bawled at his side the day of his mother’s funeral.

He appeared in the doorway with a small portable record player under his arm.

“Hello,” he said quietly.

“John!” I shouted as if he had been lost at sea for several years or something.

“Are you doing anything at the moment, Em?” he asked.

The ‘Em’ part caught me. It was the first time that he had used my actual name. Well, part of my name at least.

“No. Nothing.” I pushed my plate of cheese and crackers behind a potted house plant. On the sly. Well, as sly as I could. I think Mimi may have caught of glimpse of what I was doing.

“I was wondering if you would fancy giving this a listen with me,” he said, holding a black album in its parchment cover. “It’s The Quarrymen. I haven’t listened to it much, with everything…”

“I understand,” I said nodding, not wanting to say it out loud either. “I would love to listen to that with you, of course.”

“No, not in here you don’t,” Aunt Mimi burst in. “Take it to the porch.” 

“Right. Sorry, Mimi,” John said, bundling the record under his arm.

Honestly, I could have exploded at that woman. I had put up with a lot of her attitude since moving here, but that one sent a flaming spark through me. And I clenched my fists to keep from giving her a piece of my mind.

Here was your own nephew, basically your son, completely traumatized and scarred and depressed. And all he wanted was to share his raw God-given talent with you, a talent that would be worth a billion dollars if it weren’t for me. And you had to go and turn him away like that. Shame on you and your nasty quiet museum of a house.

“Come along then,” John said, tilting his head toward the front door.

I hopped up, making sure to leave my dirty cheese and crackers plate behind the plant. I should have picked a stinkier, sharper cheese to plague her with. Oh, well.

I followed John to the front porch, a little boxed in room with beautiful tulips and roses in stained glass on each window. John sat on the black and white checkerboard floor and pulled the black vinyl from its sleeve.

“Paul’s coming for this, you see,” he explained. “Each of us are going to take a week with it. I had it first. Then Paul, then George, and so on and so forth, see? Seventeen six this cost us! Here, have a look.”

He tossed me the record. When I caught it, my heart constricted. Their very first recording. This was without a doubt the most expensive thing I had ever touched. (Second, I guess if you count the portal. And third, I guess if you count the time that John touched my hand.) Millions of dollars in my hands. All in perfect crisp, clean and new quality.

I suddenly understood why Thorne had made such a big deal of souvenirs vs. samples. This wouldn’t be too hard to smuggle. One trip to the dark market with this and I’d never have to work another day again. I could go back into music. I could do whatever the hell I wanted.

“Wow, it’s really nice,” I said gently handing the vinyl back to John.

“Now, how do you know it’s nice if you haven’t even heard it?” John asked, smirking. “I’ll put it on and then tell me what you think.”

John spun the record in between his two hands and that made my whole body clench. He placed it on the player and set the needle on it. In Spite of All the Danger rang into the foyer.

It was kind of weird pretending like I hadn’t heard that song a few dozen times. As we listened John watched me intently with this thumbnail in his mouth. Occasionally, he would break in with “I hadn’t gotten enough air on that bit.” Or “I would have changed this if they hadn’t given us only a quarter of an hour.”

After that song had ended, he flipped the vinyl over and played the B side, That’ll Be the Day. Finally, when that song had ended, John held his breath. “Well, Em, what do you say?”

It was clear that he was nervous and anxious about what I thought. Imagine that. But here I was in a conundrum because before now I had always discouraged any little effort that John had put into his music. Like a cold and unforgiving Aunt Mimi. But this time I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to do that. It had gotten me nowhere romantically and all it had done was push John away. I knew Thorne was watching and I knew he was actively disapproving of everything I was doing. But maybe I didn’t care. And I certainly didn’t want to follow Thorne to his capital T anymore.

“I loved it,” I said, being truthful with John for the first time since meeting him. “I loved it so much. I think your cover of Holly’s song is better than the original.”

“You’re having me on!”

“Really. And the chorus of In Spite of All the Danger is genius! Especially for someone of your age to write—”

“Well, Paul wrote that one,” John said sliding the vinyl into its cover. “And George came up with the guitar solo.”

“Oh, really? Well, still, your voice. I—”

John beamed at me, but I had to stop myself. I was giving him too much. Digging an open grave. If I kept going, I would never be able to convince him that he should give it up. Especially give it up for me. Why would he?

“But you know, you’re also a fantastic artist. I think that’s where your talent really lies,” I said, hating every inch of myself.

His smile dropped. “Yeah,” was all he said.

“Or your writing, I mean…” I choked on the lump in my throat. “There are so many other things you can do in this world than being the lead singer of The Beatles, John.”

“Of the what?”

I clamped my mouth shut. How could I have been so stupid? It was the most rookie mistake in all of time traveling. It wasn’t enough just to know history, but you had to actively know history and be consistent with your time period. This was a bad one. Thorne was going to lose his mind.

“Did you say, ‘beetles’?” he asked.

“No. I don’t know what I just said.” I was dying inside. Dying!

“How did you know I wanted to change the name of the band?”

“I didn’t.” No really, I didn’t. I didn’t think he was thinking of a name like that until his Hamburg years.

John kept pressing. “How did you know I wanted to use an insect name?”

“Sure, like Buddy Holly and The Crickets,” I said.

John’s jaw dropped. “Yes!”

“Yeah,” I shrugged.

“But how did you know?” he asked, his voice getting all high pitched.

I stood to my feet. Reaching for anything that I could use to get myself out of this hole. I finally settled for, “You must have told me about it.”

John shook his head. “I haven’t told anyone about that. I haven’t even told the lads about that.”

“Then how else would I know?” I asked. I could tell by John’s face that I was completely blowing his mind. So, I slipped in another little nugget for myself. “You must really care for me, to confide something like that with me.”

His heavy dark brows furrowed together as he studied the checkerboard floor. I could hear the gears in his head whirring. Finally, he shook it off.

“I’m going to step out for some air,” he said. “Do you want to go somewhere with me?”

“Yes!” I said. “I would like that very much.”

We left Mendips together and walked through the little alley way behind the house. John was talkative and it felt so good. So good to hear him talk. I had missed his voice. And I don’t mean singing, but just hearing him joking away. His voice had left a big gaping space inside of me when it had slipped away.

“Let me take you on a tour of ye ol’ Liddypool,” John said and gestured widely through the street. “Now, Em. This here is a normal everyday tree. I don’t know how familiar you are with trees in America. But here, Liverpool is full of them. All leafy and stick-like.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. 

“Ah, here is a place I used to come to as a wee little Jimmykin. Now, in those days, I wasn’t allowed to play here. And I had to hop the fence, you see? And now, in these days, I’m still not allowed to play here and I’m still going to have to hop the fence.”

My smile slowly melted into awe as we arrived at the big red iron gates of Strawberry Field. 

“John,” I whispered.

“There’s nothing to be squeamish about, Em. This old gate doesn’t bite,” he said grabbing the railing and rattling the fence. “It’s a boy’s and girl’s home. Which suits us because I’m a boy and you’re a girl. So, make yourself at home.”

He lifted himself up on the elaborate swirls and ironwork of the famous gate and started to climb. Now you have to understand that for me, a musician, and a history buff, this was an incredible thing to happen. To sneak into Strawberry Field with John Lennon. The very field from his childhood that inspired him to write one of his best songs. Let’s just say, I was geeking the Galactica out.

I followed him without hesitation.

The cold metal gate was easy to climb despite the bright red slippery pattern. I had to maneuver carefully through the iron spires on the top. But hopping the fence was second nature to John who made it up and down like a monkey on a ladder.

  The grounds were beautiful, and I had never seen such big full foliage. I know John was joking about the trees only being in Liverpool, but there really was something to say about how green the past was. I was forever in awe of it.

John shushed me as we moved through the thick woods and muddy paths that led through the property, I could see a mansion far off. Children’s faint laughter and shouting came from that way. We stayed on the outskirts, keeping sure that no one would know that we were there.

He led me to a garden, nestled behind a group of oak trees, isolated from the rest of the grounds. We sat together and talked, I could hear the rustle of the leaves as the warm breeze blew across my face and tickled my hair against my neck. It felt good to be out of the fish boiling house of Mendips and into the open. And it felt even better just to be with John.

After a while of non-stop chatter from the both of us, we laid next to each other in the tall grass and watched the big, fluffy clouds creep across the sky.

Soon John became quiet. I could see him falling back into himself like he had been for the past couple of weeks. I panicked. What could I say that would help him? What could I say that would bring him out of this?

“John?”

He turned his head to me, his eyes squinting in the sun. There was nothing. I couldn’t think of anything at all to say.

“Um, I—”

His eyebrow raised, still squinty from the harsh summer light. I had this moment, this horrible realization of how awful I was with boys. How I never have successful conversations with boys. Boys never liked me. Boys never thought I was interesting or worth pursuing. I was disenchanting.

I sighed heavily and huffed onto the ground in defeat.

“Why was World War I so fast?” I asked.

John still looked at me with one eye closed. “Why? Because they were all Russian?”

I couldn’t hold back my gasp. Then in complete shock, a sharp laugh burst out of me.

 “World War II was a lot slower then. They must have been Stalin,” he added.

This balloon of excitement burst inside of my chest. Sweet, sweet vindication. Stupid AI Lennon bot doesn’t know a darn thing about anything!

“Maybe that’s why the Dark Ages were so dark,” I said, rolling onto my stomach. “You know, all the knights.”

John gave me a silent laughing smile that scrunched up his nose.

I rested my chin on my arm. His thick eyelashes and light brown eyes caught the sun. And his thick coarse hair had bits of grass tangled inside. Things had gotten quiet again, but not in the same way. This time we were looking at each other. I could feel the fingertip of his pinky accidentally brushing against mine.

Uh oh.

I knew this feeling. The little giddy pinpricks at the top of my chest and the unintentional smile. This wasn’t just a glimmer of attraction. This was the feeling you get when you think about someone a lot. The feeling when you start planning your outfits to that someone’s taste. When you start planning your life around that someone’s whereabouts.

I had caught myself right in the middle of that feeling and I threw a box of baking soda on that fire.

“Wall of glass,” I said aloud.

“What’s that?” John asked, leaning forward.

I jumped to my feet. “I… I have to go.”

John looked at me in total confusion. He probably thought a bee stung me I had hopped up so fast.

“Don’t go, we just got here.”

Again, the feeling. Again, the extinguisher. Go away. Go away. Stop! I internally screamed at my own heart.

“Sorry John. It’s just that I… I have to go. I forgot that I… that I have to go.”

John rolled to a sitting position. “Alright. Let me walk you back.”

“No, that’s okay! Um, that’s okay.” I quickly brushed the grass off my tweed skirt. “You stay here. You just got here. You should stay. Really. I’m fine.”

His eyes bounced around as if he were trying to put together the sudden and abrupt turn of events. “Was it something I said?”

“No, not at all. Um, kind of the opposite actually,” I said.

“Huh?”

I grimaced. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s… great. I’ll— I’ll talk to you again, later.”

I beat it out of there, half-running on the uneven mud trail between the giant oak trees. I could hear John call after me from the hidden garden. “Em, wait!”

I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was full on taking Dr. Greggs advice and I was getting myself the Galactica out of there. I huffed and puffed all the way through the back alley, into Aunt Mimi’s garden, through the little kitchen, around the corner and up the stairs. Not stopping or slowing at any point during the journey. I slammed my bedroom door shut and clawed at my face.

Alright, Emmeline. Take a deep breath and think things through. Be logical now.

I consciously slowed my breaths and sat on the bed. Alright. That had been a fluke. I was just excited because of all the historical meaning behind it. And not because of John himself or anything like that. Yeah. That’s right. It had all been a little fluke.

My reflection blushed in that full-length mirror. Dr. Thorne was watching me in all my awkward glory. And how would I even explain this erratic behavior? No matter what I told him, I would not tell him about the weird little fleeting feeling that I had. Anything that would suggest I was getting too close would be enough of an excuse for Thorne to consider the mission compromised and take over.

So, no. He would never find out. John’s life depended on it.

I couldn’t get personally involved like that. I mean I was there to get involved, but not involved involved. I had to be twice as careful now. I would focus on breaking up the band. No more miss nice girl. The band had to go. It had to.

 I looked at my hands, still dirty from playing at Strawberry Field. The image of laughing and joking with John was tainted with the image of aiming my gun at his AI and pulling the trigger. Not to mention the image of Julia laughing and dancing with him by the piano. That memory was especially clear. I slipped my shoes off and crawled into bed all dusty from sitting outside. The house was shrieking quiet again and I hated it. I turned on the videos from Que and tried to remove myself from John.

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