Summer was over and Paul and I had become firm friends, having gotten to know one another better and we had dined together often, sometimes going to see a play or a movie. I had been to his home many times and he had taught me how to ride horses. He had come over to our little house often and I played piano while he strummed his guitar and I wrote while he read some of my other works.

These warm, happy memories of my English summer were all in my mind as Paul drove me to the airport, as I was going to fly out to my college.

"Now, mind, Lynne," he said to me as I boarded, "I'll be up in Oxford at the end of the month to take you home."

I grinned at him and he hugged me.

"See you in a month, luv!" he said, with a cheeky, wonderful smile.

I had a small apartment close by the college, on the banks of a branch of the Thames River. It was private, guarded, and the other local celebrities lived around me. I didn't want to make the few hours' drive to go home or fly there every weekend, so the apartment was my little home away from home until vacation began. That changed inadvertently with a conversation with Paul. He'd asked me about my college plans and asked when I would be home so we could "hang out" again.

"It's too long of a drive for me to come home on the weekend," I said.

"So fly, then," he answered.

"No, that's just a waste of money. I can live in the apartment I have there until the break."

Paul looked disappointed.

"Why? Was there something you had planned?"

"No, not really; I guess you've got to be such a habit with me that I can't do without you." He said this lightly and laughed, but I couldn't help blushing. "Lynne, I like seeing you all the time and I guess I've gotten used to it. I forget that you're going to college." He was quiet for a minute, thinking. His expression brightened: "Lynne, how about at the end of every month I come and get you? I'd have the pleasure of your company and you'd have the displeasure of mine."

He was laughing, of course; he sometimes spoke to me with a flirtatious cheekiness that I just loved. Then he got serious, seeing me laugh with him, and said, "Lynne, I really will come for you. Will you let me?"

This was an unexpected twist. Me let him? I smiled in his face and replied,

"Paul, I can't ask you to do that."

"But you didn't ask. I offered," he answered, an arguing note in his voice, which I'd already encountered a few times during the summer.

I threw my hands up. Hadn't we had an argument like this before?

"I don't care. You can't do that."

"Yes I can. I can and I will." He smiled back at me, plainly saying, So what have you got to say to that?

So that is how I ended up on the plane to Oxford, in a tight embrace with a light kiss brushed on my cheek, almost shyly.

Of course, I didn't stay in Oxford the whole month. I went to parties all over the place, saw plays and movies, had a couple other writer-friends drop by, not to mention actors, actresses, and model-friends and generally had a good time. Paul rang me every other day, it seemed; he had the most impeccable timing. He managed to catch me before parties or after them and after I'd finished college work and studying. I'd sit, relax, and we'd chat for hours.

One day, he said, "Lynne, how is it that I always ring you, but you never ring me?"

I twisted the phone line, flushing.

"Lynne?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"Well?"

"I guess it's because I don't want to bother you. And I have nothing of interest to say, anyway. I don't want to call you up and just babble about nothing. I mean, nothing. I can't think of anything."

"Lord, Lynne," he said and I heard a smile in his voice, "you think I ring you up with a specific topic on my mind burning for expression? You think I plan what to say to you?"

I didn't, but I twisted the cord even more in my embarrassment.

Paul was enjoying himself.

"You think I sketch out diagrams, blocked off by the minute, with something new to tell you?"

"Okay, okay!" I said, laughing. "I'll call you. I won't plan my conversations! Spur of the moment, that's me!"

"That's more like it!" he responded, laughing as well. "Well, Lynne, I got to go. I'll be waiting for your call!"

We rang each other fairly often, catching up with each other, and I would discuss all the new things I'd learned and the people I'd met and he'd tell me about the work on his new album and all the creative things he was doing with it.

"This album is looking pretty good, even though I say it myself," he told me. "I got George---Harrison, you know---to play on a couple tracks, just for old times' sake. Ringo drummed on one too---God, it sounds good. I thought about getting all three of us on one track together, but that would too much of a "Beatles reunion" kinda thing."

"But you guys have already had a reunion---the Anthology, remember?"

Paul snorted. "You call that a reunion? Hell no! That was just us getting together, hanging out---okay, I see what you mean; we played as the Beatles on "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love"…but I dunno. I talked to them about it, and they wanted to, but they feel the same way. George's got a new album coming out soon, and I think he'd rather not have "Beatles reunion" shit hanging over its release."

I nodded, but you can't hear a nod over the phone, so I said, "Yeah."

He told me more abut the production and was so enthusiastic about it that I started laughing.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"You," I replied, still chuckling. "It makes me happy to hear that you're so happy."

I could almost hear him smile.

"Well, I could be happier," Paul said. "I could be a lot happier, but…"

"Well? Why aren't you, then?"

"'Cause you're not here," he said softly.

I didn't even blush. I gripped the phone tightly, my stomach knotting in nervousness and my throat tightening. God, I wished he would start laughing, as he was making me very…very…

He did laugh and my stomach and throat loosened.

Sometime later in the conversation, I asked him, "So are you really lonely without me?"

"Of course not," he replied sweetly. "There's a nice young lady at the office who's great to talk to---and another very interesting girl who's just quite breathtaking."

I laughed and said, "I can't think of why you try to make me jealous anyway. It's not like I'm----" I stopped, eyes wide with horror with what I had been about to say.

It's not like I'm yours.

I didn't let the rebounding question surface within me, though I knew perfectly well what it was.

What if I was?

I felt myself, little by little, beginning to belong to him, even though he seemingly didn't want me.

And how would it work out, anyway? I was nineteen and he was nearly sixty.

I began to laugh at myself to relieve the tension; I'd never really given a thought to anything being between us. Never, never!