Do You Want To Know a Secret?

11. Twist and Shout

Saturday night.

It's the night where I'd usually be out with Minnie either having a really great time, or putting myself in life threatening danger. One way or the other I'd at least be getting out of the house. Not tonight. Minnie's attention for the past week had been had been consumed on her new boyfriend. Rory.

I now owed Minnie fifty pounds (that I do not have) on a stupid bet that we'd made back at the begging of last year. How was I supposed to know she would actually end up with Rory?! It was quite possibly the biggest twist of the century.

So while Minnie was out, I was at home watching Ed Sullivan reruns to distract myself, at this point I was trying to forget about George completely, but since he's under the management of my uncle it seemed impossible.

I was humiliated for thinking what he said to me that night was true. Trying to put the puzzle pieces together of why he now seemed to resent my presence, I'd realized it had to have been something I'd done at the Cavern. I thought for a moment he'd maybe even been jealous of Ringo, but I quickly dismissed it, that couldn't possibly be it. Nothing romantic even had happened between Ringo and I.

Paul had been calling me on the phone every hour on the hour to apologize for Iris's outburst the other night and to apologize for what she'd done with my ex boyfriend. I'd told him he didn't need to worry, but he still kept ringing whenever he could throughout the past couple days. When I had gotten a chance to ask Paul about George, he had told me he hadn't a clue what was going on with George, but it didn't seem good.

"Hello, Epstein residence." My uncle picked up the phone with a sigh from having just given up his spot in his book to pick up the phone. He glanced over at me after a moment of listening to the other end of the line.

"Yes, she's right here, one moment please." He held the phone away from his ear motioning for me to come over.

I pried myself up from my spot on the couch with my only hope being that George would be on the other line to talk and not another one of Paul's apologies. I took the phone from my uncle's hands and could feel my heart rate quickening with a false sense of hope that made my hand shake slightly with excitement.

"Hello?" I watched as my uncle left the room to give me some privacy.

"Poppy!" Ringo's voice unexpectedly called from the other end of the telephone making a wave of wonderment crash over me.

"Ringo?" It came out confused from not hearing George's or Paul's voice.

"Oh please, don't act so happy to hear from me." He retorted sarcastically making me giggle. There was lots of background noise so I assumed he must've been at a gig.

"I'm sorry, I thought it was going to be Paul, he's been calling all day." I sighed playing with the telephone cord as I spoke.

"About him, he's on his way to pick you up right about now." Ringo spoke quietly making my eyes widen in fear.

"W-What? Why? I-" I looked down at my nightgown suddenly feeling panicked. I wasn't ready to leave my house and did not plan on having Paul see me anytime in the near future being dressed like this.

"Oh come on Poppyyy, it's our last gig before Hamburg. You'll see George. His birthday is coming up y'know." Ringo spoke suggestively obviously unaware of how those words actually stung. I cleared my throat and continued to talk trying to brush off the pit forming in my stomach.

"So, h-he's co-" The sound of a car horn interrupted my sentence. My eyes widened. He wasn't joking.

"Oh, that must be him then." Ringo laughed awkwardly. I sighed deeply. "Alright-then-I'll-see-you-here." He mumbled quickly and hung up.