Above Us Only Sky (Paul McCartney/Beatles Fan Fiction)

Chapter 12 - Exactly Where You're Meant to Be

"Excusez-moi belle femme."

The voice was male and French, and so close to her ear that Marisol nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled to face whoever was invading her space and took a couple of steps back.

"Je viens d'arriver dans cette ville. Pourrais-tu me montrer le chemin de ton lit?" the French stranger continued, and he stood there with one dark brow arched over the top of his large round wire spectacles.

Her gaze traveled from the top of his carefully parted, slicked-back hair, over his long blue overcoat to the tips of his Charles Jourdan leather oxfords. She recognized the eyebrows. And the shoes, because she'd just flown across the Channel next to them. She had to admit, the mustache was a bit of a shock.

"I have no idea what you just said."

He gave her a "mwaa-mwaa" air kiss next to her right ear and then her left. His mustache tickled and she shivered a little.

"I said 'hello beautiful lady, care to accompany me in France'?"

"I'd love to, Monsieur, but we must be quick. My fiancé will be back any moment."

"Very funny."

Marisol reached up and touched the authentic-looking facial hair sprouting above his lips. "How did you grow a mustache in the ten minutes since we did our passports?"

"Because I'm just that virile and manly. Ça ne fait rien. You already know this."

"I didn't even know you spoke French."

Paul lifted her carry-on bag from her shoulder. "Lennon taught me a few useful phrases."

"This is going to be the best holiday ever."

"The best honeymoon ever. Let's find the car."

They'd been on the road since before dawn, driving Paul's Aston Martin DB6 to Lydd airport where they boarded a Bristol Superfreighter to Le Touquet in northern France. The cars went in the belly of the cargo plane and the drivers went upstairs for a drink during the bumpy 45-minute flight. The other passengers, mostly French executives, seemed oblivious to the presence of a famous Beatle. The moment they cleared Customs, Paul had ducked into a restroom to don his disguise.

"I just want to be normal," Paul said. That was their goal on this holiday, or honeymoon, as Paul described it. To be normal. As normal as you can be driving through France in an Aston Martin DB6 fitted with the latest and best speakers and a new top-of-the-line floating record player that stayed level even when the car hit bumps.

With the windows down, they blasted the latest hits from England and America and sang in their bluesiest voices along with Spencer Davis and friends. "Cause no, no, nobody knows you, nobody knows you when you're down and out."

Paul added his own percussion and played mock piano on the steering wheel and Marisol took the new 8 mm movie camera from around his neck and filmed him. Camera shy he was not. In fact, if he was ever blue, Marisol suspected that the sight of a camera pointed in his direction would instantly cheer him. He made exaggerated faces and generally hammed it up for her as the countryside passed in a blur through the viewfinder.

"Right side of the road," Marisol reminded him as the car veered to the left. She turned off the camera, for the sake of their safety. "We don't want to be frog-marched down to station the by the local gendarmes do we?"

"No local gendarme can catch this baby."

"But if they did, you wouldn't get off with an autograph this time. They'd never recognize you."