Marisol Hemingway isn't looking for love when she meets Paul McCartney on holiday in the summer of 1963. She is nursing a broken heart, and he is on the brink of international success. But the attraction between them is undeniable. Will Paul be the...
"The first thing a good pilot does every morning is look at the sky to check what the winds will be," Nick told Marisol. "The success of an emergency landing can depend on whether you land into the wind or downwind."
"The success of an emergency landing" was evidently pilot speak for "whether you live or die," Marisol supposed.
It was the morning of Paul's concert, and Nick had taken Marisol up in the Piper Cherokee for her final flying lesson in England. She now had 20 hours of flight training and could soon qualify for a sports pilot certificate, which would come with restrictions: she could only fly light aircraft, only during daylight, and not in airspace which required communicating with air traffic control. But if she continued taking lessons in California, she would soon have a private pilot's certificate.
The wind was shifting, and Nick decided that made it a good day to practice touch and go landings. Nick showed Marisol how to determine wind direction even when there was no windsock by observing smoke, dust clouds, or even crop movement or a body of water. Marisol was so absorbed in flying that the afternoon slipped away. By the time they returned to the originating airfield and shut down the aircraft, she was hours late leaving for Paul's concert.
There was motorway construction all along the way and far too many roundabouts, where she would queue in a long line, moving forward two feet at a time, then drive around in a tight circle until she could manage to lurch out onto the correct road.
Roundabouts were one thing she was not going to miss. Thank god for American traffic lights. The light turned green and you knew it was safe to go, the decision was made for you, leaving Americans free to think about more important things, like fast food fried chicken and french fries and pizza, all of which she missed.
After a traffic snarl at a one-lane bridge, it was clear she was going to miss the concert entirely. Frustrated, she drove instead to the hotel, five miles out of town, to wait for Paul there.
It was a blow to have missed the concert, but Marisol contented herself with the fact that she'd gotten one more lesson with Nick. Flying made her forget everything else. Her problems seemed to fade away as soon as she got above them. "Ah, it's good to be back in the air again," Nick would say the instant the wheels left the runway. And it really did feel that way to her too.
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All of the Beatles and Neil seemed exhausted when Mal brought Marisol up to their floor. They slumped on the hotel furniture, legs sprawled, nibbling at plates of egg and chips and drinking whisky while they focused on a small black and white television set.
"Where the blurry hell have you been, love?" Paul pushed his plate away and pulled Marisol onto his lap.
"Somewhere over the blurry Channel, mostly," Marisol said.
"Were there a lot of roundabouts along the drive?" Paul asked.
"Um...not really...why do you ask?"
"No reason," he said with a little smile. He had ordered a bottle of Chablis for her and began pouring a glass. He winked at her as he placed the wineglass in her hands.
