Cavern Days | A Beatles Fan Fiction

Cry For A Shadow

“Sorry about John,” Paul told me as we walked down a long, dark alleyway, “he can be a real pain sometimes.” He sighed, then there was a long pause as we continued to walk. “By the way, what’s your name?” He said after a couple of seconds.

“Gloria,” I responded, lifting my head to look at him.

“Gloria,” he repeated to himself, “that’s a beautiful name.”
I smiled as we continued to walk, until finally arriving in front of a small diner.

“Come along,” he grabbed my hand again, leading me towards the door. He opened it and let me in, soon following behind me.
We walked in front of the place where the food was being served. We looked at the menu that was pasted to the wall, scanning it with our eyes to see what we wanted to eat.

“So, uh, what are you thinking?” He asked, “I’m thinking for me, umm…” He looked back at the menu, “maybe chicken with a side of fries. What about you?”

“I’ll get the same as you, please,” I answered, pulling out £10, “here,” I said, handing it to him.

“No, no, It’s on me.” He smiled, pushing my hand away.

“Oh,” I said quietly, putting the money back in my purse, “thank you.”

Paul went up to the counter and ordered our food before taking me to a table, where we sat and waited for the food to be served.

“So,” he broke the awkward silence, “have you, uh, came to one of our shows before?” His face turned red.

“Yes, actually,” I responded, “I went once before with my friend Celia about a month ago.”

“Oh,” he looked out the window, “that’s nice.” He nodded slowly before looking back at me. He sighed and grabbed a mint out of the little bowl in the middle of the table. He quickly ripped the paper open and tossed the mint into his mouth.
For the next few minutes, that awkward silence came back again. He’s the one that asked me out, and I had no idea what to say. I knew that I liked him, but by his actions, he either didn’t like me, or was too nervous to say anything. ‘Impossible,’ I thought to myself, ‘He doesn’t not like you, he’s the one that asked you out.’ I then came to the conclusion that he was just too nervous to talk. If I wanted something more than a brief friendship with a rock and roll singer, I, of course, had to talk to him. I was too nervous to speak, too; so now, we were both in trouble.
Now, it had seemed as if 10 minutes had passed and we hadn’t said a word to each other, until he finally broke the long silence.
“Look,” he started, causing me to lift my head to make eye contact with him, “I really like you, but the truth is, all night I have been too nervous to speak, for some odd reason.” He chuckled softly, his face turning red again.

“I felt the same exact way!” We both laughed, “By the way, is this food taking long to arrive?”

“That’s what I thought! Wait here, I’ll be right back.” He got up and walked over to the counter where food was being served.
I sighed. It was great to get that off my chest. I really hoped that we continued to talk like this, and hopefully we could get to know each other better.
I put my elbows on the table and ran my fingers through my hair while I waited for Paul to return. I saw him walking back towards me with food in his hands, struggling to carry both plates. I got up and walked towards him, taking one of the plates out of hand.
“Thanks.” He said as we placed the plates on the table. We both sat down again and started to eat. I looked at his face, which was in total disgust. I didn’t know why he looked like that, until I took a bite out of my food. Yuck, it was disgusting! We both took a napkin and spitted our food out, quickly grabbing a mint from the little bowl.
“We might as well ditch this place, huh? The food stinks!” He adjusted his tie a bit before we both stood up and left.