The Girl Who Became a Beatle Read online

  “What?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “You’re still so … Twin Oaks.” Bradley walked around me to the door. He was hesitant to even get near me, so I held out my elbow, the way Gene Wilder did to Madeline Kahn in Young Frankenstein. (One of my favorite movies. You should see it if you never have.) Bradley didn’t get what I was doing. I guess he wasn’t familiar with the movie. But then he figured it out, reached out his bent arm toward me and we touched elbows.

  “Come by the set tomorrow? We’re filming at night.”

  “To watch you kiss Melissa?”

  “It’s only a TV world, Gina. This is real life.” For Bradley, I guess it was. He opened the door, then froze. Staring at the doorknob he had just touched, Bradley took a bottle of hand sanitizer from his jeans pocket and cleaned his hands.

  “Good idea,” I said. “Better to be safe than sorry. Especially with that kissing scene tomorrow.”

  Bradley smiled as he walked backward down the hall. Just before getting on the elevator, he blew me a kiss. I caught it and held it. I was still holding it when the doors of the elevator closed and Bradley disappeared from sight. I went back into my room and stood by the bed, thinking about what had just happened.

  What an absolutely bizarre experience, I thought. For one thing … when had I become so irresistible?

  The obvious answer? Since I had become famous.

  Famous.

  It was actually starting to sink in. I was famous. And for the rest of the week, I would be famous. And irresistible. And talented.

  At that point, one week seemed like plenty of time to enjoy my wish come true. At that point, seven little words had not yet surfaced in my brain. But they were about to, with increasing regularity as the days to my departure from this world of wonders ticked by.

  What seven little words? you may ask.

  “A girl could get used to this.”

  5

  Capitol Records.

  If there is such a thing as a church in the music business, the famous round Capitol Records building in Hollywood, California, would be one.

  I tried not to show my awe when we arrived in the lobby the following morning. But the framed gold and platinum records that plastered the walls of the reception area were enough to get my heart galloping like a scared little filly.

  Frank Sinatra. Judy Garland. The Beach Boys. Pink Floyd. David Bowie. Queen. The Foo Fighters. Radiohead. And …

  The Caverns!

  The sight of our platinum album hanging on the wall with all of those musical greats calmed me down a bit. See, you belong here! Well, not really. But I reminded myself to just enjoy the experience. This was all a lark, after all.

  When we got to the first-floor recording studio, I looked around the room. Plain-looking. Nothing fancy. But the vibes. Just thinking about the giants who had recorded here made me feel giddy and alive.

  Meanwhile, this was nothing new to Julian and Lorna and Danny. Julian and Lorna tuned their guitars as Danny snapped off paradiddles on a rubber pad that covered the snare drum. They looked very professional, my bandmates did. They fit right in.

  I caught Julian glancing at me from the corner of his eye. He looked curious about how I was dealing with all this. Considering my amnesia. I shrugged. He raised his eyebrows, nodded, then went back to his tuning.

  “Hi, gang!”

  A young man in his thirties or thereabouts entered the studio. He had a Starbucks cup in his hand and an intense look in his eye.

  “Hey, Trey,” Danny called to him from across the room.

  So this was Trey. He had “the look,” I’ll say that for him. Black goatee. Buzz cut hairstyle. Expensive-looking California casual clothes. Confident as a rooster. Julian gave Trey a nod as he walked past him toward me. Lorna ignored him.

  “Ready to lay down some more magic?” Trey asked when he arrived at my side. I felt uncomfortable with how close Trey was to me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good. Let’s get started.” Then in a lower, confidential voice, “Then we can call this baby done and get on with your new life, girl.”

  That stopped me cold. I had planned to announce to everyone that I wasn’t going solo. Wasn’t staying in L.A. But Trey had this thing about him. He had … presence. He radiated power.

  So, OK, tell your bandmates and Dad later, I consoled myself. What’s the difference? So long as you do it.

  Trey had joined Dad and several other people in the control booth. Hands on hips, he stood at the large window overlooking the studio. He looked like he was surveying his property or something.

  That made me kind of uneasy, so I concentrated on tuning my guitar. Julian had given me a heads-up on two things before we got to Capitol. One, we always rocked out with a few of our old songs before each recording session. Two, we were recording “Rain.”

  I was delighted to hear that “Rain” was going to be the last song we were recording for our Something New CD. It’s one of my absolute favorite Beatles songs.

  So after we wailed on “He Loves You” and “Help!” and were all warmed up and relaxed, the producer, who had a long braided ponytail that snaked down his back, said over the loudspeakers, “OK, let’s run through ‘Rain’ a couple times.”

  And that’s when the trouble began.

  “Rain” has a great and very distinctive Paul McCartney bass part. Especially on the last chorus, where he goes into a triple-time tempo against the four-time beat. I’m not sure if that describes it very well, but you’d know what I mean if you listened to it. Anyway, I knew Paul’s bass line. Lorna didn’t.

  So I had to grit my teeth and tried to ignore the fact that Lorna was playing it all wrong the first time we went through the song. And the second time. Danny wasn’t playing the drums exactly right, either. There was a real war going on in my head, let me tell you. Two voices, jawing at each other.

  Let it go, said one.

  I can’t, said the other.

  Voice One: What’s it matter?

  Voice Two: This is the Beatles we’re talking about!

  Voice One: So what?! This is just for fun!

  Voice Two: But they’re doing it all wrong!

  When the producer said, “Let’s do a take,” my Beatles voice won out. Just be nice about it, Regina.

  “One second, please,” I said very nicely.

  The room immediately went silent, and everyone gave me an uh-oh kind of look. Lorna glared at me. That gave me pause, but I pushed on.

  “The thing is, I have a few ideas for the bass and drums.”

  “No. You don’t,” Lorna immediately countered.

  OK. All righty, then. It looked like I was going to have a fight on my hands. So what to do? All eyes were on me. It was my move.

  I thought things through before responding to Lorna’s challenge. I really did. But my final thought was, This is my wish come true. Not Lorna’s. If I can’t please everyone this week, I should at least please myself.

  “Yes. I do have some ideas, Lorna.” I said this as calmly as possible, but I could feel my eyes narrowing as the words came out.

  Lorna just glared at me. I stared back. It was a glaring-staring contest between the two of us. Predictably, Danny avoided any kind of eye contact.

  “Lorna, I think you should listen to what Regina has to say.” This came from Trey in the control booth.

  “Of course you do,” Lorna shot back. “She’s your prize. Your number-one gal.”

  “It’s her song,” Trey said evenly. “She wrote it. She should be able to express her opinion on how it should be played.”

  “Then she can play the bass part herself.” Lorna unplugged her guitar, put it in the case, and strode out of the studio. I watched Dad, who was still in the control booth, go after her. Being a teacher, he was really good at dealing with volatile teen behavior. I had a feeling he wouldn’t be too successful dealing with Lorna.

  OK, I thought. That went well.

  6

  “I can’t help it. I
hear the songs in my head. Every part. Everything.”

  We’d finished our morning recording session, which did not see the return of Lorna. Turns out we didn’t need her. I handled the bass part just fine. As for Danny, he was definitely ticked off at me for instructing him how and where to put in more drum rolls, but at least he listened to me.

  Julian and I were at a huge two-level music store called Amoeba. There were tons of used CDs, vinyl records, and 45s. The walls were plastered with posters of every band imaginable, from Jimi Hendrix to the Ramones to U2 to the Caverns to the Instigators.

  The Instigators?

  Anyway, every band except for, of course, the Beatles.

  “You’re a genius, Regina,” Julian said matter-of-factly. He was leafing through the Oasis albums. “And you’re always right. That bass part you played? Perfect. Your idea to loop the final chorus in reverse? Who would have thought of that? But now you see why you have the diva label. That’s what you’ve been doing all along. Telling everyone how to play their parts.”

  I absentmindedly leafed through some albums as I listened to Julian. Let it go, I told myself. Don’t try to defend yourself. You did the right thing.

  Suddenly, I came across a Monkees album. “This isn’t right,” I said. “If the Beatles don’t exist, the Monkees shouldn’t.”

  “What?” Julian asked.

  “Oh … nothing. Just talking to myself.”

  Julian pushed the Oasis albums back into place and headed down the aisle. I followed him. I wanted to ask him something. Something I had been curious about. “Julian?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “When you first heard my songs. What did you think?”

  “What did I think?”

  “Yeah, I don’t remember how you reacted.”

  “I was blown away. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”

  “Did you believe that I wrote all of them?”

  Julian looked over his shoulder at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “No hidden meaning.”

  “Of course, I thought you wrote them all. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, I never played any of them for you. Then, all of a sudden … what … how many songs were there?”

  “A dozen. Maybe more.”

  “And that didn’t seem kind of strange? All at once, bam!”

  “I was surprised you hadn’t played any of them for me before. They were all great. But I think your dad is right.”

  “My dad? What did he say?”

  “He thought writing those songs was your way of dealing with the pain of your mom leaving. But you weren’t ready to let them out … to let anyone hear them. Then, for whatever reason, you let ’em fly.”

  Mom.

  Julian mentioning Mom brought that familiar, complicated feeling rushing to the surface. I still couldn’t believe I’d be seeing her in a few days. I had not a clue what that would be like. Later, I told myself. You’ll deal with that later.

  “You know what? I gotta go.” Julian was looking at a clock near the line of checkout counters.

  “You gotta go?” I repeated, surprised. Julian hadn’t mentioned anything about going anywhere.

  “Yeah. I’ll take a cab.”

  Abernathy was waiting for us outside.

  “Where you goin’?”

  “Just … somewhere.” Julian looked uncomfortable as he strode toward the exit.

  “Somewhere? You mean, like, a girl kinda somewhere?” I already knew the answer to that one. I could smell it. I could. Julian gave off a scent.

  “Yeah, like a girl kinda somewhere.” Julian said that as though he were talking to a juvenile. “You wouldn’t know about Hayley, Regina. She and I haven’t been in the teen rags.”

  I flashed hot when Julian said that. It was obviously meant to be a crack about all the media attention Bradley and I had received.

  “So, what … is this Hayley like a girl-in-every-port kinda thing?”

  Ouch. What a terrible thing to say. And I regretted it the second I said it. (Note to self: Try to edit some of your thoughts before saying them!) I could see Julian’s ears literally turn red.

  “Yeah, that’s me, all right. I’m a girl-in-every-port kinda guy.” Which Julian definitely wasn’t.

  We were out on the sidewalk by this point and Julian looked up and down the street for a taxi. “You know, Regina, I’m actually glad that we broke up. Band relationships never work. Better to just be friends.”

  “Is that what we are? Friends? Doesn’t feel like it right now.” What it felt like was … Julian abandoning me.

  “What do you want me to do? Babysit you?” Julian held his arm up for the lone taxi traveling down Santa Monica Boulevard.

  “Oh, real nice, Julian. Real nice.”

  “Hey, don’t try to make me out like the bad guy. I wasn’t the one who broke this up!” Julian swirled his finger in the space between us, indicating the two of us as a couple.

  “I thought you just said it was good that we broke up!”

  “It was! It is!” The taxi stopped on the other side of the street from where we were.

  “So what are you complaining about? After all, it didn’t take you much time to find someone else!”

  “Oh, give me break, Regina.”

  “No, you give me a break!”

  We were starting to sound like two little kids having an argument on a playground. Julian shot me an exasperated look, then ran across the street to the taxi.

  “Have a good time with Hayley!” My parting shot.

  “Say hi to Bradley for me!” Julian’s.

  I watched Julian hop into the taxi. Then I spun on my heel and went off in a huff to look for Abernathy.

  7

  I felt like a caged animal when I got back to my room. Pacing, back and forth, back and forth, as one question pounded at the inside of my skull.

  What happened?!

  My first full day in L.A. and I had managed to alienate Lorna and Danny and—to top things off—got into a fight with the one person I could talk to in this new world of mine. My confidant!

  Calm down, Regina! It’s not the end of the world! I took deep breaths and tried to ease my heart rate down from the BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! stratosphere.

  The hot tub! That’s it! Take a nice, long soak! That’ll make you feel better! I knew I had to do something to calm myself down. ’Cause at that point, I was even thinking in exclamation points!!!

  I was on my way to the bathroom to fill up the tub when I noticed the message light blinking on my phone. It was a Bradley message, wanting to know if I was coming to Paradise Cove in Malibu, where they were filming.

  Of course! Bradley! Why hadn’t I thought of calling him? He was exactly what I needed after my tension-filled day. A sympathetic ear.

  Instantly forgetting about the Jacuzzi soak, I went on a tear to figure out what to wear. Bradley had seen me in my old PJs and tank top. Time to look a bit better than that.

  OK. They were filming a beach scene in Malibu. So what does one wear to a beach scene in Malibu on a February night? I hadn’t bothered to unpack since arriving in L.A., so by the time I answered that question, my three suitcases looked like they’d exploded and spewed clothes and accessories all over the place.

  My outfit for my Malibu excursion? Old, faded jeans, a long-sleeved tee with AN OLD-FASHIONED GIRL printed on the front, my red Converse sneakers, and a bright red hooded sweatshirt with a pouch in the front.

  Red seemed like a good choice. It signaled … I don’t know, everything from “Danger” to “Excitement” to “I’m out to have a good time!”

  Anything I wanted it to be.

  It was good that I was trying to have a bit of fun at this point in my journey. Because the really intense stuff was just around the corner.

  * * *

  “Can you take me to Malibu tonight?”

  Abernathy, who apparently was our round-the-clock driver, was sitting in a chair in the lobby of the Sheraton, reading Rolling
Stone, when I approached him. He hesitated for a moment, then said, “It would be my pleasure, Miss Bloomsbury.” When I told him we were going to the P.C.H. set at a place called Paradise Cove, he seemed pleased.

  “Have you ever seen that show, Abernathy?” I asked as he held open the door of the limo for me.

  “Never miss it.”

  “Terrific. Maybe you could fill me in on the story line on the way.” I felt like I should know something about the show, seeing as Bradley probably figured I watched it all the time.

  “I’m surprised you don’t watch your own boyfriend’s show, Miss Bloomsbury,” Abernathy said—kind of echoing my thoughts—as he negotiated the ridiculously long Hummer into the stream of traffic on Sunset. He had put down the window between the driver’s seat and the back of the limo, and I sat as close to the front as I could so we could talk.

  “Please, Abernathy. Call me Regina.”

  “Will do, Regina. Anyway, it’s good we have some time before we get to Paradise Cove. ’Cause there’s lots been goin’ on, on P.C.H., let me tell you.”

  “I’m all ears,” I replied, and settled in for the ride.

  By the time Abernathy was driving, appropriately enough, along the Pacific Coast Highway, I was hopelessly confused. “Wait a second,” I said, interrupting Abernathy’s revelation that Sean was in love with Lindsay. “I thought you said that Sean was in love with Janie.”

  “He was. But not anymore.”

  “But Janie’s still in love with Sean?”

  “Always and forever.”

  “OK,” I said. But not very convincingly.

  “Complicated, I know.” Abernathy smiled from the front seat. “But let’s cut to the chase here. The main thing you need to remember is that Zane doesn’t really love Stephanie.” Zane was the character played by Bradley.

  “Right, right. He’s just dating her because her father is a big-shot producer.”

  “Exactly. He’ll use anyone he has to, to get where he wants.”

  “He’s such a bad boy.”

  “Juiciest part on the show, though. Everyone loves a good villain, after all.”

  I nodded, then settled back in my leather seat and looked out the window at the beautiful scenery. I couldn’t believe I was actually in Malibu. To get to the place, we had to drive through a range of mountains. The sun had been low on the horizon when Abernathy steered the Hummer along the twists and turns of the mountain road, making the hills glow with all kinds of colors. It felt like we were leaving the ordinary world behind and entering a fabled land, going through that mountain pass.