"Janice!" I felt a hand grip my arm and turned to see a girl I'd met a week ago smiling and trying to speak over the din. I had just barely stepped into one of the smaller rock clubs that wasn't too far from my aunt's apartment before I'd been spotted by... what was her name? Candice... no, Carrie... no, it was Chrissy. That was it.
"Hi!" I said, smiling. "What was that? I didn't catch what you just said."
The music quieted down a little, and, looking relieved, she said, "I said I'm glad you showed up. I met this guy the other day I want to introduce you to. Come on!"
I dutifully followed her through the crowd, and she led me to the table that must have been the farthest from any speakers we could get, so it was good for conversations when a band was playing or the party atmosphere was such that the deejay cranked the music. There were three guys and another girl sitting at the table, and one of them was...
"Phillip??" What was he doing here?
"Hey, I recognize you!" I think that surprised me more than seeing him here. "Janice, right?"
I beamed. "Right! And here I had no idea you knew I existed!"
"You know each other?" Chrissy said.
"By name and face," Phillip answered, still looking at me. "I see you made it out of that town, too. Good for you!"
I laughed a little and sat down next to him on the bench. "And here I thought the word through the grapevine was that you would only leave town if everyone in your band got signed to a label or something like that."
"Close enough. They got fed up with me waiting for them and told me that if I wasn't out of town in under a week, I'd be in deep trouble. Well, that's close enough to what they said. Their actual words were not meant to be repeated!"
We laughed and talked for awhile. There was no band scheduled for that night, and most of the people who came in left as soon as they found that out. Apparently, one of the bands who played here regularly had quit, and the other band had the night off, its manager refusing to even ask the boys whether or not they'd come in. From what I could gather around the club that night, the owner and manager of the place were both scared, theorizing that their one band was going in for a record audition. And the word was that they were good enough to get it.
"I've been trying to look for a band since I got here," Phillip said at one point. "I guess there's a shortage of musicians at the moment. But boy, if I could get some guys together, and just get here first... because you see how many people are in here, even though most of them only stay a few minutes. Before long, there'll be enough people trying to get a gig here, it won't even be funny. I'd like to hit it first, before anyone else."
He'd been drinking beer steadily since he got here, but he'd been drinking slowly, so he wasn't quite drunk yet. I could understand his frustration, but I was sure there were enough people who weren't in bands and wanted to be, and I told him so. "It's not as if every person who can play an instrument walks around with a sign on themsef reading 'Looking for a spot in a band'. You never know who you might find."
"Hey, is it true that you play alot?" Phillip said, turning to me.
"How's that?"
"Instruments. How many do you play, anyway?"
"Ah, just one on a regular basis." He motioned for me to continue, and I listed off my instruments.
"And you're not in a band?" When I shook my head, he said, "Okay, you wanna be?"
"In a band? You mean your band?"
"No other."
"Well, I, ah... I suppose, but I just got a job today, it would depend on how many hours I'd have to spend at it."
"Well, we'll talk over the details later, when I have more mental ability than right now. Between the music and the beer, I'm a little fuzzy at the moment."
"Yeah, you sound fuzzy!" One of the guys said, sounding even more, well, fuzzy than Phillip.
"You're one to talk!" Phillip countered laughingly.
It seemed like everyone was pretty much just going to get drunk from here on in, so I stood up to leave. "Hey, I have to be in the office tomorrow morning." I figured impressing them a little couldn't hurt. "So I'd better be off for now."
"Oh, before you leave," Phillip said, digging around in his pockets. "Give me your phone number so I can call you and we'll figure something out." He miraculously found a stub of a pencil, and I scribbled my number as best I could on a napkin, which he folded and pocketed.
"Be sure you're talking to me, when you call," I said. "I'm living with my aunt, and she's Janice, too!"
"Oh, great! I'll have to think of a nickname for you so I don't get you two confused!"
"How about Jan?" said one of the other guys.
"No creativity," Phillip said. "Girl from California, is into music... I assume you're familiar with the work of Stephen Stills?"
I laughed. "Dumb question! Of course I am!"
"Good, you can be Bluebird!"
"I love that song!" Chrissy said.
"So do I!" I told her.
"It's decided. Bluebird, I'll call you tomorrow."
"Groovy, talk to ya then! Good night!" I waved and left to walk back home. By now it was after ten, still early by most standards, but I'd have to get home at some point. Better to go before everyone was stoned.
Bluebird, hunh? Deep within her heart, you see, she knows only crying, just crying. But I could understand the draw of the song. The first time I had heard it, it had played itself over and over again in my mind for days. Not because it was poppy or catchy, it was closer to haunting. You wondered about the person who'd inspired the song. I wondered why Phillip had landed on that song to call me by. I would later wonder at the twist of fate that sent him to where I was.
For now, I stepped faster as I walked home, figuring that it was early enough that I would have no problems with the various drunks and stoners who would be wandering around before too long.
I was still bleary-eyed as I ran from the apartment, a bananna in my bag and my bag over my shoulder, having awoken ten minutes gone. Naturally, I had neglected to make sure my alarm was set, but I was eternally thankful that my own internal chonometer had been keeping track. I wouldn't be late to Apple, just out of breath when I arrived. I may not have been incredibly athletic, but I was sure I could make it in time.
Glancing at my watch as I rounded the corner of the Apple building, I mentally patted myself on the back, but decided I'd better not make a habit of this. As my eyes travelled up from my watch to the view in front of me, I tried to stop. I really did. But I was going so fast, I couldn't help it. My bag went flying, as did I, as did George, whom I slammed into.
I landed and slid a few feet, and as soon as I stopped, the only thing that came to mind was Oh, crud. Unfortunately, as hard as I wished it, no hole opened up for me to crawl into and pull in after myself.
Oh, no! I hope he's not hurt!
I jumped up, and at the same time as I whirled around and said, "I'm sorry!! Are you alright??" I heard George's voice saying the exact same words in perfect syncronozation.
He looked a little rumpled, and his hand was scraped, but he seemed fine. We started laughing, as did a couple girls who had been sitting on the steps the whole time.
"Well, I figured I'd run into you sometime around here," he said, "I just didn't expect it to be so dramatic!" This sent all of us into a new peal of laughter. When we'd calmed down, George said, "Well, girls, this is Janice, my new assistant, and Janice, these are a couple of my Apple Scruffs. Jill and Carol, isn't it?"
They nodded, beaming that George had remembered their names. Wow, I thought, So this is what has become of the Beatlemaniacs. All those screaming young teenagers... as time went by, they were filtered out, and only a few remained... For years, all they'd wanted was to meet the Beatles... and they got their wish. They got to meet their Beatle, and he knows who they are, and he knows that they care. Cool.
I shook their hands and they greeted me tentatively, as if they weren't sure whether or not I should be trusted. Well, that was only natural, of course. And tentative acceptance was better than instant animosity.
I found my bag and we went inside, George joking about how he had broken speed limits to try to get here ahead of me. "Even though," he said with a laugh, "in all honesty, I'm usually barely walking out the door by this time!"
"So I guess neither of us wins the bet, then, hunh?"
"I guess not!"
"Well, it's nice to know that, at the very least, I won't come up five dollars short at the end of the month," I said wryly.
"Let me guess. You're not normally an early riser?"
"Do I look like an early riser? I don't even know that an early riser is supposed to look like! All during school, I somehow managed to sleep through hitting the sleep button on my alarm clock a couple times and only woke up about a half hour before school started!"
"Well, maybe I should give you a bonus for showing up on time!" He rubbed his shoulder. "Though, it would be on the condition that in the days following, you'd promise to walk as soon as you round that corner!"
"How about if I just promise to be watching where I'm going? Are you hurt, though?" I said, hoping to god he wasn't seriously injured.
"I'm fine. You looked like you had a heck of a fall, though."
"I'll be fine."
"Are you sure? The last thing we need is for someone to have died in a Beatle-related accident," he said with a grin.
"Hey, you don't go through school being as clumsy as I am without learning to get through a little pain!"
Laughing, he said, "If you say so. I guess you'd know better, right?"
"Always!" Laughing, we walked into his office, which, unfortunately, had not miraculously cleaned itself overnight. "Um," I started hesitantly, "if you don't think you'll need me in the studio for a little while, it might be a good idea for me to get this place a little more organized than it is now!"
"Okay," he said with a chuckle. "Oh, did you fill out those forms?" I nodded. "Okay, when you get an opportunity, go ahead and take them down to Grace. And come down around lunchtime. If there's not too many people, we can order something in. I'll be in the same studio today as yesterday."
"Okay, see ya later!" I said as he waved and left. I looked around the office and felt instantly very tired. Well, I thought, I'm getting paid for this. Onward!
I walked into the apartment that evening, closed and locked the door behind me, turned the light on, and headed straight for the kitchen, where I put some water on to boil. Perhaps it was stereotypical, but the English had seemed right in assuming that tea would cure everything.
Not that it had been a hard day, or a stressful day, just simply a long day. Much of it had been spent in George's office, cleaning it as well as I could. When I had gone down at lunchtime, it had turned out that everyone who was there meant business, and I was sent out for sandwiches. When I came back, I mentioned to George that there was tons of stuff in his office yet, and if he got a few minutes later, perhaps he'd like to come up and help sort out some of the things, since I didn't want to throw away anything that might be important, but there was no way all of that crap could stay!
He'd come up at about half past four, at which time I was just finishing getting organized. It turned out that there actually was an extra desk, as well as a table. A potted plant, long since forgotten, had been buried in paperwork, and it amazed me that George ever managed to answer the telephone. Perhaps he didn't. But when he came up, he was definitely not in the mood for going through anything. I think he was getting burned out from constantly being in the studio, but I said nothing. As he sat and made various notes and doodles on some scratch paper, he relayed highlights of the day. Apparently, he'd gotten a lot done, but people were getting snappy at each other, and that frustrated him to no end. He just couldn't understand why people who were supposed to be friends, and who acted like friends in public, would treat one another like that.
Somehow, I had a feeling that this sentiment was not a new one to him in the past few years.
I hated carrying other people's worries with me, and in this case, I knew there was very little, if anything, that I could do about the situation, so I sipped my tea and tried to forget aobut it.
I nearly dropped the cup when the phone rang, breaking the silence of the apartment.
"Hello?" I said as I picked it up.
"Hello, may I speak with Bluebird, please?" the other voice said.
"Phillip?"
"Hi! How are ya?"
"I'm doing okay, yourself?"
"Better than ever. Listen, the reason I called. I ran into a couple other guys who lit up when I said that I was a drummer looking for a band. They said they were a band looking for a drummer. So, they want to jam with me this evening for awhile, to kind of see how well we work together. They're coming over in about a half hour to an hour. Can you make it?"
What? I thought at first. "You mean, be in a band?"
"This conversation is sounding familiar. Yes, bring your guitar, warm up your vocal cords, et cetera." He gave me his address, and I told him I'd be there as soon as I could.
I spent about a half an hour playing my guitar, trying to get my fingers moving as I knew they could, and singing various melodies, so that if I actually did need to sing, the first notes wouldn't be croaked. I strapped my guitar to my back, grabbed my keys, and set out to find Phillip's flat. A hastily scribbled note to my aunt told her that I wasn't sure what time I'd be back, and gave her Phillip's number in case she needed to reach me.
I recognized the street that Phillip had said he lived on. In fact, it was the intersection just past the park where I'd met George. As I walked by the park, I looked over. There were no children playing on the playground, no kids kicking a ball around, and no adolescents out on a Beatle hunt. The setting sun and the absense of people almost made it seem like something from a different world.
I walked on, finally coming to Phillip's flat. He lived a little farther away than I'd expected, and I decided to call for a cab when I went back home. As it was, though, I was still the first one there. Phillip said he expected the other two guys any minute.
"I sure hope we can make this work," he said. "If nothing else, I'd like to find someone to move in here or that I can move in with, and share the rent and utilities with. I've got enough for the time being, but it's kind of a worrisome topic when you're not presently employed."
"I can imagine," I answered. "So, you just up and moved?"
"Pretty much. All of a sudden, everything there seemed to turn sour. My girlfriend started dating one of the other guys in the band, my little brother is about to go to college and so my parents were really pressuring me to give up on the music thing and get an education. I guess that it was then that I realized that I had always told myself that I would go to college if my drumming didn't work out, but the catch was, that just sitting in that nothing place, I wasn't even giving the drumming a chance."
"Well, it's not like we weren't a hour's drive from Los Angeles. Why London?"
He shrugged, then said, "When I was young, my parents would bring me here every year for Christmas. My relatives live all over the world, but we all would come to London to celebrate Christmas with Gramma." He paused, then continued, shaking his head. "She died when I was eight. I guess you could say that put a stop to the annual family vacation." He paused again. "And what about you? How long ago did you move here?"
"Actually, my parents and my aunt gave me the trip for my graduation present. I left about a week after graduation, and I'm supposed to go back in another month, but I'm thinking that I'll just stay here. I've got a job, I'm making friends, and I really don't know what I would do with myself back in California. Did I just say that?"
He laughed and said, "People from all over the world move to California for the opportunity, the lifestyle, and the thought that they might run into a star or become one themself any day, and here we are, saying that there's no advantage for us there!"
A moment later, the doorbell rang. "Ah, that must be them," Phillip said as he stood up. He opened the door, and greeted the two guys that came in. As soon as they saw me, they looked as though they felt a little akward.
"Er, we can come back later, if we're intruding," one of them said.
"No, no," Phillip said, laughing. "Janice, meet Craig and John. Guys, this is Janice Miller. She sings, plays guitar, piano, and a long string of other instruments I don't remember, and I asked her yesterday to join my band."
They raised their eyebrows, as if they were unsure of this new twist. I guessed that they were a couple old friends who were trying to put together a band, and they hadn't expected a prospective member to try to have any control this early. I hoped this didn't jeapordize Phillip's standing. At any rate, they shook my hand, and we all sat down.
They didn't mess around, really. After a few moments of laughter and general talking, they started talking to Phillip about his experience in playing, and just how much he could play. They pretty much ignored me, but that gave me a chance to study them.
Craig was a few inches taller than I, a skinny guy with light blonde hair and brown eyes. He seemed to do more of the talking, while John -- who had said at one point that most of the best bands had someone named John -- was a little taller and more heavyset than Craig. Not fat, he just gave the impression that he was stronger and more physical. His hair was a definite red color, his eyes very green. He left most of the talking to Craig, but every now and again he would interject a few words in a calming kind of baritone voice. I wondered if he would be doing most of the vocals. He reminded me of Sarah's cousin, who lived in Fullerton back in California. I'd met him a few times, though he was three years older. Whenever his family was at Sarah's house, I'd talk to him, ask him questions, just so I could hear his voice.
"And you, Janice? What bands have you played with?" Craig's voice broke through my trance and called me back to the world at present.
"Well, I, ah--" I started to answer.
"She's been playing mostly folkie music," Phillip answered. "Dylan, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell..."
I reminded myself to thank him later. "Yeah, that's basically it. And my school schedule was so tight, I really didn't even have time to perform much."
"How often did you perform?"
Okay, what all qualified as a performance? I thought a moment. "I've probably only performed six or seven times."
"So you basically have no experience?" Craig was beginning to irritate me.
"Is this a stoning offence?" I said wryly.
"We want to be a tight performance band. We don't want to just be meeting once a week in someone's garage."
"You think that because I'm not a big performer, that means that I have no drive or ambition or desire to perform? How about this scenario? I don't want to just be sitting and playing in front of a bunch of drunks in a cheapo club all my life. I'd rather be sitting in a studio, cutting tracks." A suspicion struck me, and I just had to act on it. "How many times have you performed?"
There was silence as Craig and John shot each other a look. Phillip leaned forward, as if remembering that he was the one that was looking to start a band, and he had as much right to question their credibility as they had to question either of ours.
"Well, it's been awhile--" Craig began.
"How many times?" Phillip said sharply.
"I've been playing guitar in coffee shops and the like regularly for about three years now," John said. "Craig's never performed."
Craig gave John a venomous glance and turned back to me. "Well, it's all well and good that you like folk music, but we do want to have a rock and roll band here, so I suggest familiarizing yourself with some of the rock bands."
I just raised my eyebrows, not wishing to make an argument out of the evening.
"Craig, relax," John said. "Look, why don't we just break out the guitars and see what we can play?"
That seemed to relieve the tension, and when I started playing 'Last Time,' Craig seemed to brighten up, realizing that I might just know a little bit of rock. From then on, the evening was very fun.