"No, no one will hurt it." With a sigh, Bev slipped an arm around Emma's
shoulders and looked out toward the hedgerow. This time Emma didn't
inch away, but sat still, fascinated, one hand over Bev's stomach.
"I'm a little afraid of being a mum, Emma. Maybe you can let me
practice on you."
After a deep breath, Bev stood up, bringing Emma with her. "We're going
to start right now. Let's go up and put on your pretty pink dress.
We're going out to tea." The hell with reporters, the hell with starers
and gawkers. "We're going to make ourselves into the two prettiest
ladies in London and have our tea at the Ritz."
FoR EMMA iT was the beginning of her first relationship with another
female that wasn't based on fear or intimidation. Over the following
days, they shopped at Harrods, walked in Green Park, and lunched at the
Savoy. Bev ignored the photographers who snapped them. When she
discovered Emma's love of beautiful materials and bright colors, she
indulged them shamelessly. Within two weeks, the little girl who had
come to her with only the shirt on her back had a closet bulging with
clothes.
But at night the loneliness crept back, when each lay in bed pining for
the same man.
Emma's longings were more direct. She wanted Brian to come back because
he made her feel good. Love wasn't something she'd learned to define or
agonize over.
But Bev agonized. She worried that he would grow tired of her, that he
would find someone more in step with the world he lived in. She missed
the good, strong sex they shared. It was so easy to believe he would
always love her, always be with her during that calm drugging time after
love and before sleep. But now, alone in the big brass bed,
she would wonder if he filled up his loneliness with women as well as
music.
The sky was just beginning to lighten when the phone rang. Bev groped
for it on the third ring. "Yes." She cleared her throat. "Hello."
"Bev." Brian's voice was urgent.
Instantly awake, she shot up in bed. "Bri. What is it? What's
happened?"
"Nothing. Everything. We're a smash, Bev." There was a dazed and
dashing edge to his laughter. "Every night the crowds get bigger.
They've had to double security to keep the girls from flinging
themselves on stage. It's wild, Bev. Insane. Tonight one of them
grabbed Stevie's sleeve as we were making the dash for the limo. Ripped
his coat clean off. The press is calling us vanguards of the second
wave of the British invasion. Vanguards."
Sinking back onto the pillows, Bev struggled to drum up enthusiasm.
"That's wonderful, Brian. There've been some snippets on the telly
here, but not much to go by."
"It's like being a gladiator, standing there on stage and listening to
the roars." He didn't think he could explain, even to her, the thrill
and the terror. "I think even Pete was impressed."
Bev smiled thinking of his pragmatic, business-first-and-last manager.
"Then you must be something."