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(:Echo's Paul Story:) The friendship is too sacred to become anything else. It wasn't a wild place, really. It was a feel-sorry-for-me kind of place. It's why I was there. That's why Paul was there. It was smoky... it wasn't too rough, I could handle it, but I kept feeling out of place there without Jay -or just anyone- to watch over me. It wouldn't have worked out anyway, because of my strong willed defiance.... I'd only been acting. I was frustrated and looking for a way out. He was depressed and he didn't know exactly where his life was going. I hadn't had a thing to drink... I'm far too Irish to trust myself in that kind of situation. He'd been drinking his fair share and he'd ordered another. Even when he was bogged down about whatever problems he had a spark to him. The way he dressed... those tight leather pants that he seemed to be so suave and natural in... he may as well have been wearing nothing at all. He'd have been just as comfortable... enough distractions. The point being, he was special. He had ambition, ambition that was dying. I noticed small details about him first. He was left handed. He picked up his drink with his left hand, he'd scribbled something on a napkin with his left hand. He needed to be loved in some way, and so did I. As soon as I approached him, he reached out for my wrist and held it very delicately. Although I could instantly tell what this bad boy lefty had on his mind, he was genuinely kind. He showed me without realizing it. "Would you like to go somewhere quieter?" He spoke up, my heart pounded as he looked at me. Why was he so lonely? He was as fully incomplete as one could be. I nodded in response to his question. There was a back room, with a booth, a jukebox and a table. He didn't bring his drink with him. He touched me roughly under my chin, then more sensitively and sensuously traced the outline of my lips with is finger, which he moved down toward my neck. He felt me gulp down my own anxieties. Paul was always good with whatever moments life gave him. In this case, he moved to the jukebox and tried to put a song on. A sudden crash made me jump. Broad daylight began to narrow into dark hollows. The electricity flickered. He was holding my hand. He slipped my hand into his back pocket as he used both of his hands to feel his way through the dark, to guide me. Finally he fell into the back wall and my body pressed up against his back. We both laughed as he asked if I was ok, and I said yes, I was. He said, "Watch this." Pauld the door that I had previously been too nervous to notice in the light. Lightening streaked across the sky. Rain was in a piercing downpour. The sun was in an eclipse. I knew, without even really knowing him, that he wasn't looking for someone who was like every other girl. I didn't know then how long he'd really have to wait... For that moment, however, we stood, looking into that covered sun. I decided that nothing should hide a sun. It's got to shine. He slipped his shades over my eyes as the sun came out, as the lightening cleared. We both faced the sun; he wrapped his arms around my waist. We both needed something that day, and we'd both found it. ------------ After staring at the eclipse, we'd given our introductions. He was Paul McCartney, a musician from Liverpool. I was an American studying classical music in Europe. I was due back home a week later. We remained distant friends, never nearly as close as that day of the eclipse. Perhaps the eclipse had a strange effect on the both of us. I still don't know what bothered him that day. I started to watch Paul go through life as I was going through my own separate life. We led similar lives. His life was on radio, television, records... mine was in my journals and notated to perfection as my teachers commanded. By the time I had earned enough money for college, they made hippies work twice as hard. 67 and 68 passed by more quickly than all of the previous years. I had to stay clean to get through school. I suffered because I didn't have the luxury of being high the whole time. Nothing to numb my pain. I'm too passionate; it would have killed me. So I just studied, made it to a few demonstrations. Paul and I had both been getting over serious relationships, separately. Things between he and Jane Asher did not work out. Politics divided Will and I. He wasn't drafted, he volunteered. In 1969, it was announced that Paul married Linda Eastman. I had a smile inside. He found what he was really searching for despite the everything that weighed him down. Perhaps things would work out for me. The Beatles broke up. Wings formed, they had their children. I moved to LA, married and had 2 kids of my own. It hurt, though, when I watched the events of Paul's life, knowing that we went through the same things. Knowing that he didn't remember me. -------------- I saw him yesterday in the Opera Cafe in New York City. I've been here on business, writing a score for a film. I took my flowers over to Central Park and visited John's memorial. It made for a dismal day at first. I called my husband and left a message that I was going to get something to eat before I made it back home. I wasn't even hungry. I almost bumped into a man kind enough to hold the door for me at the cafe. I look at him to thank him for holding the door.... lyrics poured into my head. He the
door.
I'm stunned. Not stunned that it's Paul McCartney, but stunned that it's
the man I went through life with.
No Paul, I want to talk to you for a few minutes..... I need to thank you. I need you to hug me again... once more.
"I... would you like to sit down?"
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