Ringo couldn't decide where exactly he should start. There was so much food he had no idea what he wanted to eat first. He decided that he'd need at least two plates to get a bit of it all.

    He had learned long ago that if he wanted to polite, he should eat everything that everyone had brought to the party. So that meant that he'd eat Linda's green beans, no matter how much he despised them, Yoko's weird Japanese food that had some really long name, and he'd have Olivia's quinoa, which kind of looked like rice but was different. He wasn't exactly sure what the heck it all was, but he'd eat it all the same. Most of the time, polite actions like this gave him an express trip to the bathroom because everything seemed to go through him after having his appendix removed when he was a child.

    His plate was literally a mound of food when he finally sat down. John looked at him with amusement. His plate only had quinoa and green beans on it.

    "Are you on a diet, John?" Ringo asked politely, beginning to dig in.

    "Oh, you know. I just thought that I should cut back a little," he said, shrugging.

    "Oh," Ringo said, shoveling green beans into his mouth.

    "That's all you're eating?" Paul exclaimed once he'd come to the dining room table. He set his plate down but wouldn't take a seat.

    "Um, yeah," John said, sounding unsure.

    "This won't do," Paul said. Linda came to the table and set her plate down, sitting down next to Olivia. "Linda, look what John has on his plate!"

    "Oh, that won't do," Linda said, shaking her head.

    Ringo looked between them incredulously. That was a telltale sign of being married way too long.

    "John, I'm going to get you some more food," Paul said, snatching John's plate before he could protest.

    "You couldn't have just had that," Linda continued after Paul had left for the kitchen. "It's Christmas! Splurge a little!"

    "Yeah, splurge," John said, appearing to roll the word around in his mouth a little like he enjoyed its taste. That was probably a new word added to his vocabulary that he'd used in an obnoxious way in his latest book.

    Yoko smiled slightly. Her tiny smiles reminded Ringo of Mona Lisa. You know, that slight smile that was just a ghost of an actual smile. He studied her for a few moments, wondering what Mona Lisa would look like with Yoko in it instead.

    "John, where's your plate?" George asked once he'd arrived at the table.

    "Oh, Paul took it. Said that 'it won't do,' " John said casually.

    "Ah," George said, appearing to have lost interest. He sat down and promptly began inhaling his food. Across from him, Dhani was also inhaling his food. Ringo looked between them, counting all the similarities he could see, kind of like one of those Find the Difference puzzles. He couldn't find many differences.

    James started bouncing around in his seat, telling Dhani an exciting story about being at Walmart and knocking over bra racks. Ringo was trying to listen because the story was entirely too entertaining, but he couldn't really hear over the other dinner table chatter.

    "James, sit still please," Linda said softly, but he didn't stop bouncing.

    Paul came hurrying back with John's plate, which didn't even look the same anymore. It looked like Ringo's; a smorgasbord. "There you are, Johnny." He set the plate down and sat down beside Linda, placing the napkin in his lap.

    "Uh, thanks . . . Paulie," John said sheepishly, picking up his fork. Ringo was abruptly struck with nostalgia and blinked quickly. He was too sentimental sometimes, and he knew he was emotional more than he should be, but he couldn't help it.

    "How about a story?" George said after some silence.

    "Ooh, yes. I've got one," Paul said, shifting in his chair, straightening, getting geared up. "How about the time we had a meeting with Brian Epstein and I was late because I was taking a bath?"

    "That's a good one," John said, smiling. "Okay, so here's how it goes . . . "

* * *

Lee really wasn't listening to the story, only caught a few parts about Uncle Paul taking a bath and being late to really big meeting with someone really important. She was too busy mentally checking things off her list. She thought she packed everything that she and Stella needed. She still needed to make sure she'd brought it all. If she'd forgotten one necessity, the whole operation would be sent into the fan.

    Once she'd finished dinner, she helped clean up and then managed to snag Stella and pull her out of the madness. They immediately went to one of the hundred bathrooms in the "castle."

    "I'm kind of nervous about this," Stella said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

    "It's fine, it's fine!" Lee said, pulling her things out of her skull backpack. "You'll look great."

    "I'm not too sure about that."

    "Have more self-esteem!"

    "I probably won't look as good as you."

    "Oh, hush! You'll look great," Lee said again, lining everything on the counter neatly. The bloody bathroom was huge! It was about as big as a bedroom! It also smelled wonderful . . . kind of like someone had sprayed some sandalwood air freshener in there. The towels even looked nice and soft . . . and suddenly Lee wanted to tell Stella to get out so she could take a shower.

    Stella didn't say anything.

    "Don't be nervous, Stell. I've got this."

    Stella didn't say anything, just watched as Lee prepared her things.

    "Hey!" There was a knock on the door. "What are you two doing in there?" It was Dhani.

    "Nothing!" Lee called back innocently. "No boys allowed!"

    "Oh, just forget it, Dhani," she heard Julian say. "Whatever they're doing is probably boringly girly. Let's get out of here."

    Lee waited until she heard their footsteps go down the hall. "Here, wrap this towel around your shoulders so you don't get any dye on your shirt."

    "Okay," Stella repeated slowly, wrapping the towel around her shoulders like a cape. Lee handed her a hairbrush and told her to brush her hair thoroughly to get any tangles out.

    Lee slipped on some plastic clothes that came with her hair dying kit and began to mix the dye ingredients in a bowl. "You have no idea how much money you're saving just having me dye your hair," Lee said as she mixed the dye. "You could spend a fortune having a professional do it!"

    "Yeah," Stella said nervously, looking at her light hair in the mirror.

    "The dye is mixed," Lee said, grabbing some clips. "We'll need to separate your hair in a bunch of different directions, so I don't miss any spots. You wouldn't want to have multicolored hair, would you?"

    Stella just shook her head.

    Lee finished clipping her hair up and grabbed a bottle to dispense the dye onto Stella's hair. Okay, she thought. This will be a cakewalk. She took a deep breath and began. Stella's shoulders immediately tensed up when she started and was biting her lip so hard Lee was afraid it would start bleeding.

    "How long does this take anyway?" Stella asked.

    "Oh, probably an hour and a half or so."

    "Do we really have that much time?" Stella cried.

    "Relax. We've got plenty of time."

    Stella's brow crinkled and she didn't appear to be convinced. About ten minutes went by of coating Stella's hair with dye when Lee stopped and stepped back.

    "Now we need to wait about thirty minutes." She pulled out her phone and began the timer.

    "Then what?"

    "Then you get to rinse your hair off in that lovely looking shower," Lee said, nodding to it. "And when you're done you'll have beautiful new hair!"

    "I shouldn't have done this," Stella said quietly.

    "It's all right," Lee said, rubbing her shoulder. "You'll look great! And what are your parents going to do anyway? Dye your hair back to its old color?"

    "Maybe."

    "I think they'll come to like it."

    "How long does this last?"

    "Well, if you want to maintain the color, you'll have to do this again in two weeks."

    "I don't think that's going to happen, so I only have to deal with black hair for two or three weeks." Stella sounded relieved.

    "Don't sweat it!" Lee said, trying to sound reassuring. They sat in silence for some more agonizingly long minutes before Lee's phone's timer beeped. "Time to get in the shower! I'll leave so you can have some — "

    "Girls? What are you doing in there?" Oh, no. It was Barbara.

    "We're playing with our Malibu Barbies!" Lee said, panicking a little. "We're having them swim in this luxurious bathtub. Have you seen it? It's beautiful!" She bit her lip and looked at Stella for an idea.

    Stella shrugged.

    Lee heard Barbara pull on the doorknob, but the door wouldn't budge. "Why is the door locked?"

    "Oh, is the door locked? I didn't even know I locked it!" Lee laughed nervously. "Habit. Just a second. I'll open it." She gestured wildly for Stella to get in the shower. The other girl hurried off to the shower and pulled the curtain back. She threw her clothes out from behind the curtains a few moments later and then Lee heard the water start.

    She opened the door and came out into the hallway, shutting the door quickly behind her. Barbara was looking down at her suspiciously.

    "Where's Stella?" she asked, raising her eyebrows and crossing her arms.

    "She decided that she needed some privacy," Lee said, trying to sound sincere. "Too much food. You know." She flapped her hand in an attempt to look casual, but she ended up just looking jittery.

    Barbara was quiet for a few moments, head cocked to the side, obviously listening. "Why do I hear water running?"

    "She must be in the shower now."   

    "Lee."

    "Hmm?"

    "What's going on?"

    "I don't think anything's going on."

    There was silence between them, the gears in Barbara's head turning. She was obviously trying to decide what it was that the girls had done. Finally, after some terrifying moments she said, "You dyed her hair, didn't you?"

    "I don't know how you could get that from this!"

    "I know you did. Stop lying."

    She knew she was caught. Like a rabbit in a trap. Fessing up was the only thing she could do. "All right. Fine. I dyed her hair." After a few moments and intense silence, she added, "Black."

    Barbara let out an exasperated breath. "What do you think her parents are going to think?"

    "They'll probably really like it?" Lee said helplessly.

    "No. Why did you do that?"

    "Because she wanted to look goth like me."

    Barbara looked at her hard. "Give me your phone. You're not getting it back for a few months."

    "A few months?" Lee yelled.

    "Don't yell at me," Barbara said, putting Lee's phone in her own pocket. "You knew better, young lady." She walked off down the hall to the living room where it was getting noisy. Lee could hear laughter and loud clapping, and she suddenly felt like she had made the worst mistake in her life.

    The running water stopped and Lee heard Stella get out of the shower and begin to dry off. There was a few moments of silence where she was probably looking at her new hair in the mirror. Lee waited patiently until the door finally opened and Stella stood in the doorway, her hair much, much darker.

    "It's looks amazing!" Lee cried, proud that she had done such a good job.

    Stella gave her a small smile. "Yeah."

    "Now," Lee said, "let's go show everyone the new Stella McCartney!"