My Interview with Eleanor Rigby

In my short stint as an employee at Long and Winding Road Matches, you never knew who might walk through the door looking for love.

"Name?" I asked.

"Eleanor Rigby."

I looked up.

"The same Eleanor Rigby? I thought you lived in England. And I thought you were dead."

Eleanor had moved across the pond about the time of the British Musical Invasion. At first it was for the better availability of dental care, but then she liked the old colony, and stayed.

She and Louise Harrison, George Harrison's sister, used to hang out in downstate Illinois. Eleanor even worked at the "Hard Day's Night" Bed and Breakfast for a while.

Some people come in and they are all business, filling out the forms and answering the questions. But Eleanor was a talker. She wanted to make sure that I knew that she was looking for just the right person. She had a list, in fact. A long, long list. I'd seen many lists before, people that had very specific wants and desires. That is how we got our name: because it's a "Long and Winding Road" to the right person.

"You know, Eleanor, I have to be candid with you," I said. "If I take your entire list and plug it into our data base, how many matches do you think I'll get?"

Eleanor, shrugged. Her face looked expressionless, like it was pressed against the side of a jar.

She insisted. Here at Long and Winding Road Matches, the customer is always right. Even if they are wrong. We just laugh and swear at them after they leave.

The next step was our short "Love Me Do" video, where Eleanor told the world a little about herself. She started by saying that sometimes she "thinks she lives in a dream".

I next interviewed her about her past relationships.

"I understand that you and Father McKenzie were tight."

Eleanor nodded.

"I have to ask this, Eleanor, were you two...did you two--"

"No. Never. I mended his socks, is all. He let on like he did them, but I can tell you better."

"I see. It's just that you spent a lot of time there."

"He also read his sermons first to me, he did," said Eleanor.

When Eleanor got to the US she lost track of Father McKenzie, and she went on with her life, not knowing the Father McKenzie had never forgotten her, and missed her so much that he "buried" her. We do our research at Long and Winding Road Matches.

While Eleanor was recording her video, I stepped outside for a smoke. With a job like this you need to smoke. And drink. There was a older man in a tweed jacket smoking too. Turns out he had driven Eleanor to Long and Winding Road Matches.

"Who are you, then?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm the bloke who took the rice from Eleanor after the weddings, back home." He nodded East. Way East.

"So you've known Eleanor a long time?"

"Oh, I have. Yes, I have. She's always waiting at the window when I get there, to drive her here and there."

"Who is she waiting for?" I asked. "You?"

"No, sir. Not me. Beats me who," said the gent. "Whoever she belongs to. I just do the driving. Been for years, since that 'orrible song. Suspect I will for years to come."