"What habits?" I knew he would ask that question and I think silently to myself before coming up with a decent answer.
"Uh she went out partying a lot with friends to get drunk, and she abused pharmaceutical drugs for some conditions she apparently has." I answer after some careful thinking.
I wanted to include that she heavily smokes cigarettes, but I didn't want to seem like some hypocrite since I was just smoking one myself, and I notice that he tosses his on the paved ground to put out with the heel of his shoe.
"That must be pretty rough, I understand why you wouldn't want to live with her." he comments, finally somebody understands.
"When are you gonna go back then, to move in with your dad?"
"Are you getting sick of me already?" I joke and I meet his gaze.
"Nah, not even in the slightest, you're a fun girl and you don't act like a complete nut like so many others do around me." he replies with a smirk and I smile, I'm pretty surprised myself that I'm acting normal around him, I thought I'd act like a crazy if I was to ever meet him.
"I don't know." I answer honestly, because I have no real way of knowing when I'll be going back, he's probably wondering why I'm even here in the first place.
I glance around at the tall trees surrounding us with their leaves that are a beautiful assortment of colors, and most of them lay on the ground under a pigeon or a robins pair of orange feet. I huff and drag the front of my shoe across the ground to only raise it again off the pavement.
"Did you come here on your own to visit family or friends, and got lost?" he theorizes and I think about telling him about my guess of time traveling here, but it's still too early to.
"Yeah, I uh got a plane out here after a day of school to just escape I guess, and it took all my money getting here. I'm not that great of a planner it seems." I hate to lie to him, but what else am I supposed to tell him?
"If you're having problems with your parents, then why don't you move out and get a place of your own?" he brings up what I've been thinking so much these past few weeks.
"I can't afford it, and I also couldn't juggle the rent with a friend. I can't find a good enough paying job." I admit with an embarrassed look while I continue to hover over the ground dirty with torn leaves and cigarette butts.
"Why don't you move here and get a job? You know, a fresh start, and since you already have a place to stay for now and a few good friends, you're set." he states and I smile genuinely at his words, he really is so kind.
I tear my eyes away from the wildly colored maple and oak leaves to meet his eyes the shade of a light brown and he raises the black lines of his eyebrows at me.
"Do you know any places that are hiring?" I inquire and I think of all of my stuff I have back home that I'm not exactly missing, but I've gotten used to being without, and some I could possibly find here.
I miss the modern things of mine the most; my laptop, my iPod, cell phone and CDs. I long to have my drawing pad and bag of drawing pencils in my lap, and I miss the feeling of a camera in the palms of my hands. Now that I'm experiencing it I really do hate not having many clothes to wear, or hardly any really, I hope that'll change soon.
"I thought I saw a 'help wanted' sign in the window of the diner, and they pay pretty good I've heard. I'm sure there's loads of other places, you just have to look." he answers and I nod my head up and down.
"Do you think we could go back there for me to get an application?" I ask.
"Sure." he answers and we slow down on our swings to leave the vacant park full of kids and people walking their dogs while happy birds fly above them.
We get walking and we return to the cracked sidewalk that's uneven in places over here by the park and I look to Paul who stares at the ground with his hands stashed away in his pockets. I look to the shops with cars parked in front by the curb that we go by and I hear music coming from seemingly a music store as the door opens when somebody leaves with a bag in their hand.
"Are you close with your dad?" Paul asks me and we come up to a stoplight and we wait for the traffic to stop so we can cross the street.
"I used to be, but he just stopped spending time with me and talking to me as much as he used to, so I've always felt like he's been mad at me or something." I answer and he looks to me with a sad look.
"Did you ever try to talk to him or just go and have coffee together?"
"A few times, but I just stopped trying and caring after my attempts failed." I comment and the traffic stops and we cross.
The bright diner appears in my eyes again and we enter the place full of conversation and smelling of food which now kind of appalls me since I'm so full from eating here I don't even know how long ago. We make our way to the counter where who else but Pearl comes from what I think to be the kitchen and she flashes me a small smile. Paul nods his head at me to speak and I shyly blush.
"I was wondering if I could have an application." I inquire and she bends down a bit to grab one single sheet from probably a shelf of some sort below the cash register and I take that and a black pen from her offering hand.
"Thanks." I reply and she nods before turning her head to answer the voice of a man from the kitchen who's calling to her.
Paul and I take a seat each at the counter there on the apple red bar stools and I take the cap off of the pen and I skim over the papers questions.
I fill in my name, first and last, and then after thinking about my height and weight I write those in. The top portion consisting of age, sex, date of birth and marital status were a piece of cake.
"You haven't been arrested, have you, Court?" Paul questions with a sly smile when I arrive to the blank asking of any criminal charges and I smile at his joking words.
"No, have you?" I reply and he shakes his head with a funny look, and then he just smiles, that liar.
"You wouldn't be lying to me, now would you?" I tease him a bit after remembering some embarrassing story from the Beatles' Hamburg days.
"No, me lie to you," he replies with his cheeks that start to faintly flush with embarrassed color and I raise my brows a tad at him. "Yes I have once, but ya can't tell a soul, and I'd erm rather not say what it was for." he replies and I just nod and look back to my paper, oh Paul.
I of course skip the part about having any children, their ages, owning my car, even though I have my own back home, and it's dependability. I next read a question about being pregnant and I circle no, and look to the black clock above my eye level across from us on the wall that reads early afternoon.
"You got a place to be?" Paul asks playfully and I shake my head 'no'.
I come to the part about where I went to school, and I fill in where I went after remembering they've been up and running for a good 50 years.
"Finished." I state after writing my answer to the last question and I look to Paul who pretends to be asleep with his dark head resting on his folded arms that lay on the countertop, he doesn't budge.
I remove the cap and inch toward his revealed cheek with the pen and his eyes shoot open and he moves away.
"Don't you dare." he remarks with a glare and I see an amused smile pulling at the corners of his lips.
"Well maybe if you wouldn't be falling asleep on me, then I wouldn't be thinking about drawing on your face." I reply and he grabs the pen from me and he gets my cheek with it and I punch his arm jokingly but he holds his hurt bicep with a frown.
I take the pen away from him and his hand falls from him arm and he begins to chuckle like a kid and I shake my head with a smile.
"It's not funny, you're not the one with pen on your cheek!" I exclaim and he hides his blushing face in his folded arms and his figure shakes with laughter.
I huff and Pearl appears back and a look of confusion appears on her face at the sight of Paul who thinks this is much funnier than it really is, that dork.
"More like all over your cheek." Paul adds with his muffled voice and I return my eyes to the waitress with my blushing cheeks.
"I'll get you a wet napkin, love." she kindly offers and I jab Paul's waist and he flinches as if he's ticklish and I smile.
"Don't." Paul states and he removes his still pink face from his arms after getting over that bout of laughter and I tickle his middle again and he squirms.
"Here." Pearl returns with the most napkin and I thank her and grab the napkin holder to use as a mirror, but it's a bad mirror actually.
I try to wipe the black pen marks off my right cheek, and Paul takes the napkin from my hand and spins my chair to face him.
"Let me, I can see it better, and I was the one who struck you after all. I might as well be a nice gentlemen and help ya." he volunteers and he places his right hand under my chin to hold it and his gaze catches mine or mine caught his, one of the two.
"You make it sound like I'm annoying or something." I add on and he shakes his head immediately and he smiles at me.
I smile and a small grin sticks to his lips as he gently wipes off the pen from my cheek and he finishes.
"Thanks, even though you did get me with the pen."
"You're welcome, and you shouldn't of been tickling me you know." he adds on and I giggle and turn back to the counter and I give Pearl the completed job application.
I glance back to Paul whose fist is propped up against his cheek while he faces the same way I do on his seat while he somewhere had gotten a magazine and I peer over his shoulder to see a picture of some actors, and I notice one of them to be Jane Asher. I had forgotten until now that at this time Paul is dating her.
Paul looks up to see me there by his shoulder staring at the black and white picture he holds in his hands.
"You see that girl there? Her name is Jane, she's my girlfriend, she's an actress. We've been dating for a couple of months." he tells me and I simply nod my head in mostly disinterest.
"Oh, how old is she?" I go along with this even though I have a small idea of her age.
"She's 17, she lives here in town, she's really great." he continues to speak fondly of her and I glance to the clock mindlessly and then back to my hands and I play with my thumbs before folding my hands.
"Mm, what's she like?" I randomly ask for no effect or reason.
"She's really nice, very pretty and a fantastic actress." he answers and I don't nod, but instead play with one of the bracelets on my pale wrist.
"Something the matter?" Paul questions and I had gotten lost staring at a picture on the wall of apparently some celebrity I don't know who had eaten here some time ago.
"No." I reply after turning my head to face him and he looks back to the magazine and he turns the page before closing it and setting it down where he had found it, I oddly didn't notice it being there before.
"What'd ya wanna do now?" he asks while I read a framed newspaper article on the wall across from Paul.
"I don't care."
"Do you got any more of that story to share?" he inquires and I admit I don't feel like talking about any of that right now.
"Maybe later?" I suggest and my eyes leave the printed words to rest on him.
"Yeah sure, so do you uh maybe wanna go back to the flat and we can find something to do there? Us lads have the lad day off and I think John went to go spend time with his erm- somebody." Paul stutters a bit at the last part and after thinking about it, I realize that he was possibly going to say Cyn, but maybe he decided against it because at this time it isn't, wasn't a good idea to have the fans knowing that John was, is married with a kid. It's still nuts to be in this time, it's no longer in past tense, but in the present.
"Yeah." I reply after his eyes had wandered to something or somebody and we hop off the stools to exit the full restaurant and we next encounter the sidewalk where in the blue sky the sun is struggling to peek from behind the fluffy clouds.