Home Memphis, Tennessee #2
With a firm grip on the steering wheel, I inched up the Fosters’ pencil-thin driveway and parked underneath their porte cochere. I leaped from the car, then flew to the trunk to grab my stuff.
“I love you, honey,” Mama called, scooting over to the driver’s seat.
Normally she would have accompanied me to the door, even at seventeen, but this day decided not to.
Relieved, I leaned in the window and kissed her cheek, dropping the keys inside her palm.
I ran up the porch steps and watched her back down the driveway.
The Foster home was the one place I could forget about the rules in my life.
My finger had barely touched the doorbell when their housekeeper, Lorraine, opened the door. I greeted her with a friendly hello, then noticed Mrs. Foster heading my way.
“Suzannah!” she cried, stepping onto the porch to wave at Mama, who was waiting at the base of the driveway. She took the Parcheesi board from underneath my arm, and we walked inside the foyer. “What’s this for?” she asked, shoving the door closed with her hip.
“Mama thought we could all play tonight,” I said, my cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
With a tilt of her head, Mrs. Foster gave me a saucy smile. “We can do that. You girls just stay in.”
“And miss Katy’s party? No way.” I hadn’t told my parents about Katy Collier’s party.
They would have called her parents to make sure they would be home, which would have humiliated me to no end.
It was yet another reason to lie. Livy’s mom would cover for me, though.
I knew that as well as I knew my own name.
She patted the guitar case. “I’d rather hear you sing than play Parcheesi, if you wanna know the truth.”
The Friday night before, I’d played her two of my favorite Beatles songs, and she’d loved both. The whole Foster family knew singing was my life’s calling. Whenever I sang for them, I felt good about myself. And dreamed about my future as a folk-rocker.
She pointed up the grand center staircase. “Livy’s in her room. Need help toting your stuff up?”
“No ma’am. I’m okay.”
“Dinner’s at six. We’re having spaghetti. And there’s Ro-Tel cheese dip ready in the kitchen.”
Ro-Tel and spaghetti were my favorites. “You’re so good to me,” I said, throwing my arms around her. The smell of her signature scent—Chanel No. 5 mixed with cigarette smoke—reminded me I was in a safe place.
Mr. and Mrs. Foster were much younger than my parents.
He’d grown up in an Irish Catholic family in Massachusetts, but she’d been raised in the house where we were standing.
Ten years earlier, when her parents had died in a tragic car crash, she’d inherited the home.
Dad and Livy’s grandfather had been dear church friends since they were boys.
Fortunately for me, that was all it took to gain my parents’ approval of Livy.
They knew nothing about Mrs. Foster’s new lifestyle, though. Or Livy’s.
I bounded up the stairs, two at a time, then burst into Livy’s room, where I found her on the phone, propped up on her bed. “Hey,” I whispered, not wanting to interrupt. I dropped my stuff down in my corner.
After a finger wave, I thought I heard her say “I better go,” like she was hiding something, but the hum from the window unit made it hard to know for sure.
She placed the handset into the cradle of her pink princess telephone resting next to her on the bed.
She was the only friend I had with a phone in her room.
“Who was that?” I asked, not to be nosy. We knew everything there was to know about one another.
Livy hesitated, then reached up to twirl her hair. “Marianne.” I looked at the floor, instead of her, so she changed the subject. “Did you bring your money?”
“It’s in my suitcase.” We’d been saving for Revolver, the new Beatles album, due in record stores the next day.
As thrilled as I’d been to get my hands on it, the mere mention of Marianne Gentry took away my joy.
Livy knew how I felt about that hussy. It really teed me off that they were still friends after Marianne had spread the rumor about Livy and John Dearing going all the way and blaming it on me. The betrayal had nearly killed me.
In her usual authoritative manner, she sat up straight, swinging her legs off the bed.
The trail of smoke from her cigarette circled underneath her bedside lampshade.
“I called Pop Tunes. We need to get there by seven in the morning if we want a prayer of owning the record. The manager suspects a really long line.”
“Then we should get there at six,” I said, heading straight for Livy’s closet, where my go-go boots were tucked safely inside.
Last February, when Nancy Sinatra had introduced the world to her tall shiny white boots, Mrs. Foster had taken us out to buy pairs of our own. She’d even bought a pair for herself.
Livy was already wearing her go-go boots and a baby doll dress that flared at the hem. Her hair was cut into an adorable bob. She looked just like Twiggy. My father hated the new bob, so he commanded that I keep mine in a Gidget flip.
After zipping up my boots, I picked up her teasing comb and primped, all the while watching her drag on her cigarette through the mirror’s reflection.
“I just hung up with David,” she said, trying to mimic Twiggy’s British accent. “He’s meeting us at Katy’s party.” David was Livy’s latest crush—captain of the football team. He’d never given me the time of day.
I put the comb down, then dived onto the bed next to her, propping myself up on my elbows. “David’s such a hunk.” I said it in my British accent, which sounded much more authentic than hers.
“So is his friend, Jack.” She lifted her brows, like she wanted the two of us together.
But I wasn’t interested. My heart belonged to someone else. “Both skuzzes compared to my Paul.” I loved saying Paul’s name like I was a Brit. It sounded sensual.
A stack of teen magazines lived on Livy’s bedside table.
I reached over and grabbed the whole lot, then plopped it down on the bed.
I sorted through till I found the one I wanted—the June issue of 16 Magazine with the headline: McCartney: His Hidden Life Top Secret Pix.
Having read the article a hundred times, I flipped right to it.
My heart exploded at the sight of Paul’s baby face.
I held up his picture, pressing my lips against his.
Almost every night after my parents had gone to bed, I had the same ritual with my own photos.
Paul was my imaginary boyfriend. I wasn’t allowed to date.
From the magazines, I knew his real girlfriend was Jane Asher, so I pretended to be her. I even got bangs like hers.
Livy pulled another magazine from the stack, the February issue of Tiger Beat with giant color portraits of the Monkees and Davy Jones on the cover.
She smashed her lips on Davy’s face, then shifted a squinty-eyed gaze toward me.
We both cracked up. Me kissing Paul, her kissing Davy.
She vacillated between wanting to marry Davy and wanting to marry George.
At first, she’d wanted to marry Paul, but she decided to let me have him. Only a best friend does that.
“Two. More. Weeks!” she squealed. “Will it ever get here?”
“I’ve never wanted time to pass so fast in all my life,” I said, grasping her arm. “Don’t be surprised if you look over during the concert and I’m gone.”
Livy put the magazine down. “Gone where?”
“I’m thinking of jumping onstage with them.”
“The police would never let you do that,” she said.
“That doesn’t mean I won’t try.”
Livy sat up straight, gaping at me. “We should go to the airport when they land!”
I scrambled up to face her. “Yes!” Why hadn’t I thought of it first?
Girls in other cities were doing it, walking away with autographs.
The idea of Paul a foot away from me was enough to drive me wild.
With a hand on my heart, I leaned in close to Livy.
“Please don’t let me scream in Paul’s face. I must talk with him calmly.”
“I wouldn’t dare let you scream in his face.” She pointed a finger at me, even though she knew it was rude. “And you better not wet your pants.” We’d read all about the girls who’d left their seats wet at Beatles concerts.
“Ew, Livy. I’d never do that.”
“Just making sure,” she said, then went back to reading the magazine.
Memphis was the only Southern stop on the Beatles’ USA tour.
We had tickets to the four o’clock show.
Good seats to the eight-thirty concert had gone in a flash.
It had taken me forever to convince my parents.
Anything normal people thought to be groovy, they were against. The Beatles were no exception.
My parents were afraid I’d lose interest in the Bible and worship the Fab Four instead.
Their hairstyles didn’t help. Young men weren’t supposed to have long hair.
But all the kids from school were going to the concert, even several from church.
So I decided not to take no for an answer.
My parents endured months of me leaving little notes in their drawers.
Some in my mother’s purse. More in my father’s shoes.
“Please Please Me,” I wrote. Send Suzannah to the Beatles concert for her birthday, “She Loves You.” Or “Help!” I need Beatles tickets for my seventeenth birthday. “P.S. I Love You.”
After begging and pleading for months, I won. Although Dad didn’t approve of rock and roll, he made an exception. He bought good seats too. On the floor. One for me, and one for Livy. He even paid for a third ticket for Mrs. Foster, who had called Mama and volunteered to “chaperone.”
“You’ll sit through all that screaming?” I heard Mama say to her on the phone. “That’s well worth the extra five fifty.” What Mama didn’t know was that Mrs. Foster wasn’t offering to chaperone. She wanted to see the Beatles herself. With her daughter.
I scrambled off the bed and over to Livy’s record player. Her albums were kept in a messy pile, so I shuffled through till I found Meet the Beatles!, then gently placed the needle down on the first song.
As soon as she heard the first chords of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” she yelled, “Turn it up,” then joined me on the dance floor in front of the bed.
Using our fists as microphones, we sang along, knowing every Beatles song by heart.
During the second verse, we shook our shoulders and leaned into one another.
Smiling and laughing, we leaned back, shaking even harder.
I held my nose and twisted to the floor.
Livy held her nose and crawled across the room.
We were masters of every dance move, having learned everything we knew from watching American Bandstand and Shindig!
—at Livy’s, of course. But it was Talent Party, the local Saturday-afternoon dance show, that had turned us into pros.
Our fondest dream—besides marrying a Beatle—was to become a WHBQutie on Talent Party.
The Quties wore go-go boots and miniskirts and darling hairstyles.
They were the envy of every Memphis teenager.
When “I Saw Her Standing There” played, we ponied all over the second floor and into Livy’s little sister Kim’s room.
During the slow song, “This Boy,” we rested.
But as soon as I heard the opening chord of “All My Loving,” I fell back onto Livy’s bed, slipping into my fantasy world. Paul was singing about me.
Through slits in my eyelids, I happened to notice Livy’s mom in the doorway, holding the evening newspaper.
Normally she would have bopped in and danced along with us, but she moved over to Livy’s record player with an odd look on her face.
She turned down the volume and sat on the edge of the bed.
“I think you girls should read this,” she said, holding up the paper.
Livy yanked it out of her mom’s hands. “Read what?”
Mrs. Foster pointed to the front-page headline, and Livy read aloud. “‘DJs ban the Beatles for Lennon remarks.’”
A strong sense of foreboding flooded my veins.
“‘Dozens of rock ’n’ roll disc jockeys have banned the Beatles from their turntables because of John Lennon’s comment in a teenage magazine that the mop-haired foursome is more popular than Jesus.’”
I gasped. My heart slipped down into the cavern of my belly.
Livy continued. “‘The Beatle Boycott was begun last week in Birmingham, Alabama, by two disc jockeys who took umbrage with quotes attributed to Lennon in a Datebook magazine article.’” She pointed behind me. “Hurry, Suzannah. Find my Datebook. We must have missed it.”
“It just came out, honey,” her mother said. “Keep reading.”
As my body turned to ice, I read John’s quotes over Livy’s shoulder. “‘Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right, and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first . . . rock ’n’ roll or Christianity.’”
Livy peered at me with a forlorn glance. “Maybe we shouldn’t read any more.”
“Finish it,” I said.
“You sure?”
“Yes. All of it.” This news had the potential to steal my happiness, kill my fondest dreams, and, most of all, destroy my heart. I nipped at my fingernail, pressed my knee against Livy’s. “Go on. Read it.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears, then picked up where I left off. “‘The Birmingham disc jockeys are calling for a mass burning of all Beatles records and all Beatles items. Then they will be delivering the ashes to the Beatles in Memphis when they step off the plane.’”
While glancing around Livy’s room at all the Beatles souvenirs and the cutouts of magazine pictures pasted on the walls, I thought about my own Beatles collection—Beatles dolls, Beatles trading cards, Beatles buttons, magazines, Paul’s pictures.
Livy peered at her mom. “We aren’t burning my Beatles stuff. No way.”
Mrs. Foster hesitated before answering, though I knew Livy had no reason for concern. “John’s words were probably taken out of context. I’m hoping the whole thing blows over in a day or two.”
It might blow over for other families, but not mine.
As the newspaper slipped from her fingertips, drifting to the floor, Livy wrapped an arm around me.
Her mom moved over to my left, stretching an arm across my shoulders as well.
The only sound that could be heard in the room was the prophetic scratching of the record player giving warning that Meet the Beatles! had reached the end.