ABOUT A YEAR after Pop’s death, I had the dream that made me desperate for England.
In the two years since, I’ve dreamed the same one dozens of times, without a single variation. It begins with me sitting on the damp earth in a cool, shady graveyard. It’s sunset, and I’m staring at a headstone. Trees reach toward the ground with knobby, arthritic hands. Moss grows over the tombs.
I’m alone but not afraid.
Written on the headstone in front of me:
Eleanor Rigby, beloved wife of Thomas Woods and granddaughter of the above, died October 10, 1939, aged 44 years, asleep.
There are other names listed above hers, relatives that I could never quite see clearly in the dream. But when I looked up the actual photo of the grave (thank you, famousgraves.com), I was able to fill in the blanks. Though I’d never laid eyes on that headstone until I had the dream, it exists in real life in the church cemetery of St. Peter’s in Liverpool—the church where Paul McCartney met John Lennon.
There are a string of coincidences, but here are the most significant: Eleanor Rigby shares a death date with Pop; he also died October 10, exactly seventy-nine years after her. Also in his sleep.
In the dream, as I’m trying to make out the blurry words, Pop steps out from behind the headstone and smiles. Not in my periphery like in the other dreams, but head on. Face-to-face. He’s wearing his black button-up shirt, ripped jeans, and boots. His beard is neat, his hair is combed back like a windblown flame, and his eyes glisten with some fantastic secret he can’t wait to tell me. He kneels in front of me. We are finally together, he says, and then squeezes my shoulders.
Every single time, no matter how hard I try to resist in the dream, I get so frightened by how real it feels that I shut my eyes. When I get the guts to open them again, he’s gone.
There’s something about Eleanor Rigby—the woman or the song—that I’m supposed to know or understand. It leads the way to Pop. Now that I’m in London, things are slowly falling into place. The missing shoe at the airport. The dream about singing the song.
If he isn’t in an urn at the bottom of the Thames, maybe he’s here. Tonight. And all of these clues were just leading me to this moment.
A toilet flushes behind me and interrupts my epiphany.
With Patrick’s guitar slung across my back, I lean in toward one of the tiny, dirty pub mirrors and apply a thick coat of the kohl eyeliner I bought at the drugstore on the way over. It isn’t really my style, but neither is singing in front of a crowd of strangers. I’m going for older, bolder me. I finish off the look with bright red lipstick.
Sgt. Pepper’s Jo.
A latch clicks and a girl exits the stall. She’s tall and dark-skinned, with natural hair and shimmery eye shadow. Her lips are glossed nude. It’s effortless beauty, like her makeup came standard with her face. She turns on the faucet and washes her hands.
“Nice shade,” she says, eyeing the lipstick tube, and then the guitar. “Are you playing?”
I smile and nod. She’s so pretty and put together that it has apparently rendered me mute. I try not to compare myself, but my reflection next to hers is inadequate. I look like I always do: like someone who is pretending.
“See you out there.” She exits through the swinging door.
Nobody has to know I’m pretending but me. I straighten my back and wade into the roaring cheer of the bar room. People fill the tables and barstools, but the open mic sign-up sheet fluttering on the end of the bar is empty. My hand shakes as I scrawl my name on the first line.
The last time I did something this unhinged, there was no public humiliation involved. But humiliation just the same. I didn’t tell Lexie or Maddie I’d lost my virginity. I only told my psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Aufderheide. I think half the reason I ever trusted him in the first place was because he told me to call him Dr. Robert. (You know, like the song.) At the time, I thought this was a sign from Pop that I could trust the guy.
When I confessed to Dr. Robert that I felt like I was riding a soaring wind—that lights were brighter and smells were stronger and everything that touched my skin felt like electricity so I finally let Dylan undress me—he diagnosed me with mania. He said it was brought on by my new medication. Then he changed my dosage, which made things a lot worse for a while. Go ahead and try to tell your boyfriend that sex was a one-time thing while your brain was on the fritz. Does not stop him from reminding you what’s done is done and hey, remember how good it feels, and you can’t bring yourself to tell him it stopped feeling good the moment you crossed the line. After that, I learned distance and damage control is the way to go. Also: don’t tell Dr. Robert everything.
I wonder what Dr. Robert would think if he could see me now, waiting to sing in a bar I’m too young to be in. He’d tell me to practice mindfulness. To reconcile my ideals with reality, or some other bullshit that sounds good but doesn’t make any real sense. Good thing I don’t care what he thinks anymore.