June 20, 1963.
"Oh my… AHHHH!" Mandy yelled.
"Calm down! We're not even at the airport yet!" Emma laughed over the wind towards her best friend Mandy. They had the car windows down almost the entire ride there.
"I'm sorry! The wait is eating me alive! How are you not going crazy?" Mandy giggled ferociously.
"I'm excited don't get me wrong… I just know how to control it! Unlike someone..." She said.
"Oh shut it!" Mandy playfully slapped her best friend Emma. "I cannot believe that we are going to Liverpool… LIVERPOOL!" she yelled the last part out the window, letting her auburn hair fly all over the place. Emma laughed as her best friend went mentally crazy.
"It's not like we're going to Hawaii Mandy!" Emma laughed. "But at least we get to get out of North Carolina for a while!"
Emma has always wanted to go to England, especially Liverpool ever since she saw the pictures her mother took when she visited on a business trip. Emma needed time away from America well… time away from her parents and… life. Her parents were just like any other parents, they loved each other and fought. Not anything serious but, it seemed to have increased as her trip grew nearer.
"The airport!" Mandy squealed.
Emma's POV (Point of View)
"I know! Exciting!" I said, trying to put all of my enthusiasm into that sentence. I really wanted to visit Liverpool, it's just that I have so much going on back home it kept me distracted- constantly.
"Emma? Emma why does it look like you are not looking forward to spending this whole vacation with me? Emma come on, we are going to ENGLAND for goodness sake. That has to mean something to you." Mandy said sincerely.
"Mandy don't be ridiculous! You're my best friend of course I'm looking forward to spending all this time with you!" I said truthfully. Even though my parents constant bickering kept me on my toes, Mandy was always there for me. She'd listen to me express my feelings for hours. She would listen to me talk about the one thing that devastated me the most… Mark. Mark had been my boyfriend since I was sixteen years old, he eventually proposed to me last summer after my nineteenth birthday. But, he left me at the altar waiting for him. I later found him in the back of the church kissing Lindsay! Lindsay was my schools middle and high school slut, apparently she still is- a slut. Everything about her was fake… her hair, personality, and- breasts. She'd walk around school and stick her chest out as far as it could go, she probably has back problems now considering how much she did that.
I looked over and saw that Mandy had a sad look on her face.
"Mandy?" I said. She didn't answer. "Mandy? Mandy I'm sorry." She ignored me. Great now I just made my best friend ignore me. "Come on Mands. Okay, I promise I won't be an 'earth to Emma' person for this whole trip!" She still didn't answer, she simply turned her head the other way. "What do I have to do to make it up to you Mands?" I asked. No answer. "How about… Oh! As soon as we land we will go to the nearest 'Fish n' Chips' store? I know how much you've been dying to eat that." I saw a slow smile creep above her face.
"Well… you know I can't resist food." Mandy smiled.
"Okay then! We are going to pig out on Fish n' Chips!" I laughed.
"Aye' ey' Captain!" She saluted me.
"I can't wait!" I yelled.
Now it was Mandy's turn to laugh as I went crazy.
June 20, 1963
Liverpool
"I think we go left… no right! Wait a minute…" I said studying my map of Liverpool. I couldn't figure out where the 'Fish n' Chips shop was but, I had to… I promised Mandy we would go.
"Emma it's okay. Look there's a restaurant! Let's eat there come on." She said walking towards the small café.
"Nope. I am going to find that shop if it's the last thing I do." I said sternly. While Mandy was turned around I saw a man, mid forties with grayish hair walk past me.
"Wait sir! Do you happen to know how to get to Biscay's Fish n' Chip Shop?" I asked quietly.
"Oh yes. Go directly down this street here. Walk right then left. Then you should be there sweetie." He smiled. Obviously he knew I was a tourist.
"Okay thank you so much!" I said. I turned around to find Mandy right in front of me just… staring.
"If it's the last thing you'll do huh?" She said giggling.
"Do you want your food or not?" I said annoyed.
"Let's go!" She said urging me to walk forward. I couldn't help but smile.
Fish n' Chip Shop
"Mmmmmhh…. MMMMHH!" I said stuffing more food into my mouth. "This is delicious!" I said loudly. Mandy couldn't help but laugh.
"Sssssssh! You'll get us kicked out!" She laughed. Now it was her time to get me to be quiet.
"But it's so... so… freaking amazing!" I said.
"You're making a scene!" Mandy whispered. I didn't notice I was attracting attention, until I looked around to see pairs of eyes staring at me. I guess not any type of female ate like this in England. I just smiled back hoping they would look away. Some men and women laughed and smiled but, some just… didn't.
"Ooops." I whispered to Mandy.
"I think we should get going." Mandy stated. Mandy and I got up, threw away our trash, and exited the shop. I didn't realize that it was sunset until we went outside, we must've been eating for at least an hour. Mandy and I love food- especially me. Whenever I taste delicious food it's like a fat child comes out in me. Mandy jokes all the time how I'll be fat when I'm older. What girl doesn't like food? That's just it, there isn't one.
"So where's your cousins house?" I asked. Mandy's cousins live in England so we figured we would just stay with them while we were here.
"About that… they're sort of… not here." She stuttered.
"Wait, what do you mean not here?" I asked.
"Not in England I mean. They're on a cruise." She said quickly.
"Oh, so we have the house to ourselves. That's great!" I cheerily said.
"No we sort of don't have the house." She said. Okay now I was confused.
"Huh?" I questioned confusingly. "Wait are you saying we don't have a place to stay?" my voice going an octave higher.
"Yup…"
"Mandy how could you do this? We both agreed that you would be in charge of where we stayed and I would be in charge of everything else." I said getting angrier. "How could you forget getting us a place to stay?" I questioned.
"I'm sorry! It's just… I sort of figured that we wouldn't even be home half of the time considering we're both 20 years old and single. There are a lot of clubs around here, so I thought that we would meet people and just-"
"Be sluts and sleep around with every guy we see?" I finished her sentence, raising my eyebrows.
"Well I wouldn't put it that way…" she said looking down.
"I can't believe this."
"I'm so sorry! It's just, also I was so excited for this trip I forgot!" She pleaded.
"It's fine. I guess we'll just have to stay in a hotel." I sighed. If we can afford it…
"Do we have enough money?" She questioned, as if she could read my mind.
"Yeah, I packed extra money just in case something happened." Stating the obvious. "Hey, it's okay… we are still going to have a great time." I said trying to comfort her. Mandy smiled and hugged me.
"Okay." I said, releasing a big huff of air. "Let's go find ourselves a hotel!"
Hotel- 7:30
"Mandy are you almost ready?" I yelled towards the bathroom where Mandy was getting ready.
"Yes, almost. My makeup isn't quite finished." She yelled back. Mandy always has the need to put on makeup wherever we go. Thank goodness she's not the type of girl who over do's it.
"Okay." I said while I sat on the bed staring at my beige flats. I decided to wear my black sleeveless shirt tucked into my beige brown skirt. I noticed how the girls in Liverpool wore mainly dresses but, no thank you. They looked uncomfortable to walk around in but, I guess that's just me… I'd rather wear something I'd be comfortable in, instead of not breathing or sucking in your stomach in something else. I remember being with Mark… he would always expect me to wear dresses or show off my body in clothes especially at events… what a bastard. Since I've lived in North Carolina for basically my whole life, you would expect me to be pretty tan… but I'm not. I'm pretty pale actually, not like a ghost or anything I'm just not tanned. My hair is in between dark and light brown hair. It's not so dark but, it's also not so light. It's like lark… (haha dark & light mixed together= lark in my vocab… okay not funny. Continue!) But you could call my eyes dark brown because, I don't think there's such thing as black eyes…
"Okay I'm ready!" Mandy yelled, distracting me from my thought. She walked out in a black dress with heels… oh boy.
"You whore-bag!" I yelled in a friendly way… if there's away to say that friendly.
"Oh come on! I just want to look nice!" She explanined.
"Why? Where are we even going?" I questioned suspiciously.
"Well since we've been here I've seen fliers everywhere about this band called The Beatles AND since you've given me permission to pick the first experience we have we're gonna watch em' play." She said in a rush. "They mainly play in clubs and café's stuff like that."
"Um okay." I agreed.
Club/Café place (:
Mandy and I walked into the club or café… honestly I think it's just a mash-up between the two. Straight ahead was the bar with hundreds of bottles of alcohol. To the left were some black little tables with menus on them. To the right were more tables and a dark brown stage and to the left of the stage were the restrooms. The stage was setup with some amplifiers, I'm guessing for the guitars, a drum kit, and microphones scattered around the stage. I could hear music playing around the café, I didn't realize it was coming from the actual stage. A man was playing a golden saxophone while another man was playing a keyboard, it sounded like jazz… I'm guessing they're opening up for that band Mandy mentioned, what was it..? The Beatles! That's right.Mandy and I sat down at one of those little black tables, ours was in the back of the café. I suddenly heard someone announce the next band.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, the band you've been waiting for: The Beatles!" the bartender said. There was a loud wave of clapping, cheering, and some screams coming from the audience. Wow… I didn't know they were this popular in Liverpool. I thought to myself. Four men came out on stage. Each one looked like they were in their early twenties and they had almost the same type of hairstyles. They're hair was dark brown to black and they wore suits, not fancy suits but simple nice ones. Then the main man started to speak…
"Hello everyone!" he said. I could hear some girls squeal for him. He was handsome and cute. He had an oval bubbly face, big beautiful eyes, and a great accent to go with it. "I'm Paul." He smiled. Paul mmmmhh... "This is John." He pointed to another man with little eyes and a square face, he was on guitar. "That's George." Paul nodded his head towards another man, skinner than John, with jet black hair. He was also on guitar but he seemed shyer than the others. "And that's Ringo!" Paul pointed with two hands towards the man on the drums. Ringo had a smaller face than the other but, with a big nose. I noticed he wore five rings on his hands… that look pretty cool I thought to myself. "I'm going to start off with a song called Yesterday." He informed the audience. He started to play the acoustic guitar that was strapped on his shoulders. Paul played so expertly, the music soothed the audience and I. He started to sing:
Yesterday, Suddenly,
All my troubles seemed so far away,
Now it looks as though they're here to stay,
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
I'm not half the man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
He continued singing but, then… our eyes locked. It gave my stomach butterflies just to stare into his big hazel eyes. I looked down, feeling my cheeks flame up. After making sure it was safe I looked back up at the handsome man on stage… he was still staring. I didn't want to look away again but, I had to or else my face would probably catch on fire from blushing so much. Something about him… the way he sang… spoke… it just made me want to know him even more.