Laura was waiting in Emma’s bedroom.
“Where’d you get the scarf?” Laura asked, oblivious to the fact that Emma had spent the night up in the studio.
“What? Oh. . . I just found it in a box when I was looking for a paintbrush.”
“It’s cute. Listen, Sam just called. He wants us to come down to the gallery and I got a call back from The Voice. They want me to come down for an interview.”
“That’s great!” Emma smiled as they left the room and walked down the hallway to the kitchen. “What did Sam want?” she asked, sitting down at the table.
Laura got two glasses of orange juice. “He wouldn’t say. Just that it was good news.”
An hour later, Laura and Emma were sitting in Sam’s office at Elkhorn Gallery.
“The show was a huge success, Emmie!” Sam cried enthusiastically. “I’m still getting phone calls about it. And then there’s this.” He slid a newspaper over to Emma and she picked it up.
“Young New Artist Hot In The Village,” the headline read.
“Read it out loud,” Laura insisted.
“Emma James’ show last night at the Elkhorn Gallery in Greenwich Village was both intriguing and fascinating. Her combination of modern and abstract is breathtaking and so life-like.” The article went on to describe her paintings and the crowd. “Keep on eye on this young lady. Soon she will be riding high at the top if the art scene.”
Emma sat down the article. “Wow,” she whispered.
“This is just the beginning, Emma,” Sam started. “I’ve been getting calls from galleries all over the city. They want your paintings!”
Laura hugged Emma excitedly. “This is so great!”
Emma smiled, unable to help herself. “I can’t believe this!” she laughed.
“I can,” Laura told her. “And I am not going to get into this again. You are an amazing painter, that’s why.”
Sam laughed. “She’s right, Emmie. You’re a brilliant painter, and I guarantee by next year that you will be one of the top artists in the country, having shows in Milan and London.”
London. Just the thought of that scared her. “Let’s just focus on New York for the time being!”
And that’s just what they did. Galleries across the city were in demand for Emma James originals.
On November 22, 1963, President John F Kennedy was assassinated, and the country mourned. What they needed was something to lift up their spirits and that happened on…
Emma struggled with the grocery bags as she tried getting her key in the lock.
“Bloody hell!” she cried just as the door was opened, revealing Laura. “Thanks for getting here sooner,” Emma muttered as Laura took one of the bags.
“You have a bunch of messages,” Laura told Emma as they carried the bags to the kitchen.
“How many are from Sam?” Emma asked, setting her bag down on the counter, starting to unpack it.
“Four!” Laura laughed, putting away the milk in the refrigerator.
Emma sighed. “When is he going to give up?”
“When you agree to at least one show. You have to go to L.A., Em!”
“If I do one show, will you two lay off my back?” Emma asked, looking over at Laura.
Laura crossed her finger over her heart. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Emma smiled. “Fine! I will do Los Angeles, but that’s it!”
Laura clapped her hands together. “Don’t you love it that you’re almost famous!?”
“Yeah, it’s wonderful,” Emma muttered.
Emma, Laura, and Sam left for Los Angeles on December 5th, where for the next two weeks, they were on the constant go. Emma never seems to have a days rest and can’t wait to return to New York for a much needed vacation.
“Wake me when we get a man on the moon!” Emma moaned as she stumbled into the apartment.
“If I can stay awake!” Laura laughed, falling in behind Emma.
Emma couldn’t even unpack. Managing to get herself out of her clothes and into some pajamas, she fell into bed, where she stayed for the next two days.
“She’s alive!” Laura joked when Emma came stumbling into the living room.
Emma flopped down on the couch and let out a loud sigh. “I probably could have slept forever.”
“Mind if I turn on the radio?” Laura asked.
“Whatever,” Emma mumbled.
“That was just Elvis Presley with Hound Dog. I’m Murray the K and you’re listening to. This next group hails all the way from England, where they are huge stars. Here are The Beatles with I Want to Hold Your Hand!”
Emma shot up from her lying down position on the couch and stared at the radio. “What did he just say?” she whispered to Laura.
“You heard him,” Laura said. “He said the Beatles.”
“Oh my god!” Emma laughed. “OH MY GOD!” She jumped off the couch and turned the radio up louder. John’s voice filled their apartment. A voice as familiar to her as a paintbrush in her hand. “They’ve done it, Laura! They made it to the top.”
Laura sat watching Emma dance around the room, a smile plastered on her face. A genuine smile, something Laura hadn’t seen in a while.
The song ended and Emma flopped back down on the couch.
“Look for The Beatles to appear on Ed Sullivan in February!”
“Oh my god!” Emma cried again. “They’re going to be in New York?”
“That’s what he just said,” Laura laughed.
Emma’s face went white.
“Are you okay, Emmie?” Laura asked, concerned.
“This is just so surreal! I haven’t seen or heard from any of them in two years!” She looked at Laura. “They’re going to be in the same city as me, and that scares the hell out of me!”
“Why?” Laura asked. “Maybe this will be a chance to meet up with them again. Why don’t you like talking about that period of your life?”
“Because it is too painful to think about,” Emma replied.
Laura came over and sat down beside Emma on the couch wrapping her arm around her shoulders. Emma leaned her head on Laura’s shoulder. “You need to talk about things, Em. You hold way too much in.”
There was silence for a moment, then Emma began to speak.
“I was best friends with John and Stuart. It was through them that I met everyone else. George, Cyn, Pete and Paul. We were a gang. Always together. Always having fun. Paul and I started dating. I’d always thought he was attractive. Always had a bit of a crush on him. One day we kissed, and it went from there.” She stopped to wipe away a tear that had fallen down her cheek. “I truly believed that I would spend the rest of my life with him. I was wrong. After I told him the news about being accepted to NYU, he got all weird, and then one day he gave me this speech about how he didn’t think we could make a long distance relationship work, yada yada and then it was over. Just like that.” she laughed. “I was silly to believe in happily ever after, but I did.”
“Every girl does,” Laura confirmed. “Tell me more about John and Stuart.”
Emma hadn’t talked about Stuart since his death and she wondered if she would be able to now. “John was great. He could always make me laugh. He had a very sardonic sense of humor. He was smart. He would never admit that to anyone, though. He had to keep up his tough guy persona. But that tough guy stuff was all a bunch of bullshit. He was a teddy bear. And boy, can he sing! He understood me. Knew what I was feeling because he and I had been through many of the same things. I could always count on him when I needed a shoulder to cry on.” She stopped, memories of her times with John filling her head. She smiled. “Stuart was the first person I met in Liverpool. He was so sweet, and shy, and talented. The Picasso of Liverpool. That’s what he was nicknamed. His paintings were breathtaking. He was the one that always pushed me about my art. Many a time, I wanted to quit, but he wouldn’t let me. You couldn’t hate Stuart. No matter what. You could be in the midst of an argument with him and he would smile and that would be it. The argument would be long forgotten. He worked himself too hard. Never let himself have a break. I miss him more than anything in the world.”
Laura squeezed Emma’s shoulders, knowing that what she had asked Emma to do had taken a lot of courage and strength. And she knew she needed to get her talking about something else. “What about Paul?”
“Paul? He was the man who broke my heart. The man I cried over every night before I went to sleep for a year. I loved him more than anything, and probably still do. He could always make me smile, singing me silly love songs he would make up on the spot.” She unclasped the ID bracelet she still wore and handed it to Laura. “On the back it says, ‘You have my heart, Paul.’ I gave him an identical one. There was a ring too, with the inscription ‘with you I am complete.’ I threw it at him the day we broke up…I don’t like talking about this, Laura.” She sighed, sitting up. “I keep things bottled up. That’s just the way I am. Maybe it’s not good for me, but it’s the best I can do. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” She got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. A sign to Laura that their conversation was over.
“. . . Now, yesterday and today our theater has been jammed with newspapermen and photographers from all over the nation. And these veterans agree with me that the city never has witnessed the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool who call themselves the Beatles. Now tonight you’re going to twice be entertained by them, right now and again in the second half of our show. Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!”
Screaming.
“One, two, three, four . . . Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you . . .”
Emma and Laura sat on their living room couch, a glass of red wine in each of their hands. All day they had been watching tv and listening to the radio. Every station was Beatles, Beatles, Beatles.
After performing ‘All My Loving,’ Paul, John and George step back from the microphones and bow to the audience. They may have looked rebellious with all that hair, but they were very polite. Next they slowed things down with a rather nice rendition of ‘Till There Was You’ from The Music Man.
Emma stared at the tv, her heart beating faster. There was John, and Paul, and George. A new guy was sitting behind the drums where Pete used to sit. Ringo was his name. What could have possibly happened to Pete?
They were in matching suits, matching hair. And the music! If she closed her eyes, she was transported back to the dingy and dark Cavern. When she opened her eyes again, their names were appearing on the screen. She almost choked on her wine when it came to John.
“He’s married!” Emma cried. Was it Cyn?
Then they kicked it into high gear with ‘She Loves You,’ the unofficial anthem of Beatlemania. That long hair that had been sitting there so quietly was now flying from side to side. Their feet were tapping, their bodies were moving. The camera cut to the crowd clapping their hands in union to the beat. The song ended, the last ‘yeah’ greeted by the loudest screams of the evening. It was a hell of a set.
“Why don’t you try and get to their hotel, Em?” Laura asked.
Emma leaned back against the couch. The show had gone to commercial. “You’ve heard what they say on the radio. They have security everywhere.”
“I’m sure if you told them who you . . .”
Emma laughed. “They won’t want to see me. I’m fine with all this. Our friendship just wasn’t meant to last forever.”
The conversation was cut off with the return of the program.
During the show’s second half-hour, the Beatles returned. Ed Sullivan came back out and tells the crowd that the group had received a telegram from Elvis Presley, and that they would be on the show for the next two Sundays from Miami.
“Oh, yeah, I tell you something . . .”
The camera cuts back and forth from the Beatles to the crowd.
They finish with ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand,’ bow to the audience and walk over to Ed who shakes their hands. The Beatles smile and wave to the crowd and walk off the stage. Emma was crying at the end.
“Oh, Emma!” Laura cried, leaning over to give her friend a hug.
“I’m fine,” Emma reassured Laura. “I’m just so happy for them.”
Emma was really happy for her friends, even Paul, but seeing them in every newspaper and hearing them on every radio station was just too much for her.
She had spent so long trying to push her memories of Liverpool to the back of her mind. She couldn’t handle them coming back. Not now, maybe not ever.
1964 was quite the year for Emma. She was becoming known across the country in the art scene. Requests were constantly being asked for paintings to be put into an art show. It seemed to be going okay for Emma. Then on April 18, Laura broke the news to Emma that she would be moving to San Francisco to take up a job at the local music magazine there. On June 6th, she left.
The Beatles were back in New York on August twenty eighth and twenty ninth where they played the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. Emma didn’t go to either show.
1965 proved to be a trying year. Things just seemed to go down hill for her.
With Laura gone, Emma felt more alone than she had ever felt. Alcohol seemed to become her only friend. The spring was one of her worst times. Inspirations for paintings just weren’t there. She’d spend days without any sleep, desperately trying to come up with something for Sam. But her heart just wasn’t in it anymore. And it was also at this time that Emma found out that Paul was in a serious relationship with a young British actress, Jane Asher. There were even rumors that the two were married. This ruined all Emma’s hopes that if one day they should meet again, everything would go back to the way it was before she old him that she was moving to New York.
She closed her eyes, her head pounding. She knew she shouldn’t have come here, but she couldn’t spend one more second in her apartment. So she came to her favorite coffee shop. The one that served tea and English muffins. The one that reminded her of Liverpool.
The waitress came back with her order and she managed a smile and a polite ‘thank you.’ The waitress smiled back and then left to take care of her other customers.
She picked up the cream. Her hands shaking too badly to hold it steady.
She ran a hand through her long strawberry blond hair and pushed up her dark sunglasses that hid her sleep deprived violet eyes. She’d been up all night trying to finish a painting. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, she had given up and retreated to the coffee shop.
It had been three weeks since she’d last completed a painting. Her creativity and inspiration seemed to have vanished. Things just couldn’t get any worse.
“Emma?” A male voice interrupted her thoughts. A British male voice.
She looked up and her mouth dropped open. “Paul?”
Her heart beat faster as she stared up at the image of what seemed to be a ghost. He wasn’t really there. She needed to get some sleep. Her mind was playing tricks were her. Emma removed her sunglasses, as if this action would prove the truth to her. “Paul?” she asked again.
His head nodded. It was really Paul. Her friend, the man she had loved for all those years. Here he was, standing in front of her, dressed in a long black trench coat with the collar pulled up around his neck, a black hat shoved to just above his eyes. Dark sunglasses hid his chocolate brown eyes from her. He was in disguise, but she knew.
When she tried to speak, her voice caught in her throat. What was he doing here? Emma blinked her eyes a few times and cleared her throat. “What are you doing here?” she finally managed to get out.
Paul looked at the chair across from her and gestured with his hand if it would be alright for him to sit down across from her. Emma nodded her head and he sat down cautiously. “We have a concert this afternoon, haven’t you heard? We’re on our way to rehearsals and stopped to get some tea”
Emma shook her head. “Sorry, I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment.” Go away! her mind screamed. Leave me alone! I’m not ready for this yet!
Paul picked up a straw wrapper and began twisting it around his middle finger. A silence fell over the table. “Well,” Paul laughed. “This was not how I imagined this to be.”
Emma looked at him. This wasn’t the way she had imagined it either. In the back of her, mind she had always pictured herself running back into Paul’s arms and they would kiss and make up and everything would be fine. But that’s not how this would work out in the real world. “It’s not how I pictured it either.”
More silence.
Emma could feel Paul’s eyes on her but she wouldn’t look up. She concentrated on her sunglasses, which she was playing with. This has to be a dream, no, a nightmare. Finally, she looked up to see that Paul had removed his dark sunglasses to reveal the eyes she used to stare into and see such love, such passion. When she looked into them now, they were filled with a jumble of different emotions. Too many for her to pick out just one. What was he thinking? Was he thinking the same things as I am?
They stared into each others eyes, both searching for something; what that was they, weren’t sure of.
“Emma . . .” Paul started.
Tears immediately came to her eyes. Damn it. “Please Paul,” She put her sunglasses back on and tossed a few bills onto the table top. “I can’t deal with this right now, Paul. This is just all not happening.” She got up from her chair and looked at Paul. He had a look of confusion washed across it.
Taking a deep breath and turned all the way around, walking out of the café that reminded her of Liverpool, and today it came with a ghost from the past.
It wasn’t until Emma got back to her apartment that she realized just what had happened. Paul had found her, and she ran away. It was not luck that had brought him into that particular café today. There were millions of places just like it, yet he had walked into that one. And she had left him sitting there. They hadn’t seen each other in almost four years, and she walked away. She could have gone with him and seen John and Stuart, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. She didn’t want to go back to that part of her life. She didn’t want to drag up old demons and pain. Her life was different now. There was no room for old ghosts.
