XLIII

Early Saturday morning Richie finally arrived home after two weeks on tour. A draining show, an extended after party and having slept only a couple of hours on the plane in the wee hours of the morning had left him feeling beaten up. Everyone was eager to get back home and have some rest, and Richie just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep until Tuesday.

That previous night he’d been surrounded, as usual, by beautiful women tempting him, and though Richie enjoyed the attention, he could only think of Frédérique: the more he looked at other women the more convinced he was that she was really…something else. Only the possibility of having a chance at fighting for her again had breathed new air into his lungs. However, another thought popped into his mind: how unbelievably lucky he’d been that she was available when they first met…how long would it take for a beautiful, intelligent and sophisticated woman like her to be taken by another man? Richie shuddered at his own thoughts and a certain uneasiness took over him.

Thankfully enough, the box that rested on his living room table caught his attention and he set those disturbing ramblings aside. His assistant had told him she had taken care of the correspondence, but never mentioned any box. Richie checked the sender: Ms. Frédérique Balbé. And the date: it had been sent almost two weeks before.

Richie’s uneasiness level went up - he knew exactly what was on that box before even opening it: it contained the last piece of evidence of his presence in Frédérique’s life, and she had gotten rid of it. He had received a call from Gaby on Thursday informing him that she had taken over the construction stage of the Pennsylvania house. A lump formed in his throat when his hopes were undermined and Richie felt the sting again.

He took the box to his bedroom and opened it: his nostrils immediately recognized Frédérique’s subtle scent masked under the smell of fresh cleaned clothes – she had been in those clothes and the image flashed through Richie’s mind, making his body respond with a flutter in his heart and a throb in his crotch, followed by an incontrollable urgency of being able to tell Frédérique what had happened and to beg for her to forgive him. No, he couldn’t wait until Tuesday.

...

Frédérique was supervising the final details of the decoration and flower arrangements for the wedding when Richie called her, and only managed to greet him briefly before he started talking.

"I know it was a mistake what I said in the interview, but I was so happy with you...I wish you'd told me before and you'd know that it's not important to me", he got no answer so he hesitated but then continued. "You shut down and you wouldn't talk to me, Fred, I thought you just needed time to think, some space, that's why I didn't push" - he ran his fingers through his hair as he clarified – “I had no idea that you were going to Mohegan or that you saw Nikki uh...congratulating me on the show. I went to your apartment the next day to fight for you but you shut down again. I didn't know what else to do, I didn't want to hurt you anymore". Then he finally inhaled again, but realized that Frédérique had remained completely silent during his monologue, so he grimaced during the long silence: if he had fucked things up again he swore he’d cut his balls off.

“Richie…” Frédérique took a deep breath when she finally confirmed Emilie’s theory and became somewhat overwhelmed at the extent of how fucked up things had actually been. She explained calmly “We have so much to talk about I wouldn't even know where to start…and you sound really tired, so I still think it’s better if we wait until Tuesday and talk about it over dinner, what do you say?”. 

Richie sighed as if huge rock had been taken from over his shoulders. “I’ve missed you, baby”, he ventured to use his usual term of endearment and confessed, “You got no idea how much”

Frédérique let out a sigh of relief and replied almost in a whisper: "I've missed you too, Richie. But we can't deal with this right now, not if we want to give it the importance it deserves. Please? Can we wait until Tuesday?”, she pleaded hopefully.

Richie agreed with a wistful smile on his full lips and a nod of his head. “Yeah, you're right…I can wait”.

Liar.

…

A knock on her bedroom door woke Frédérique up early on Sunday morning. She opened the door and took the tray with breakfast, but only had a few sips of the coffee before showering and washing her hair. She put on the dress her mother had made for her using the crochet technique in a copper silk thread, with a nude inner lining that gave it a see-through effect. It was short and showed her toned and tan legs, but the sleeves were long and broad in the wrist. The neckline was a V that plunged down to below her breasts. Frédérique loved it: it had a hippie-retro vibe but the quality of the thread and the technique made it really sophisticated and chic. She flat-ironed her hair and parted it in the middle, venturing with a little more dramatic eye makeup than usual. She wore no accessories, except for a pair of rings in her fingers, and copper high-heel sandals on her feet.

When she was ready she checked up on Marie and after being informed that she felt excellent and was already getting her hair done, she headed for the church to make sure everything and everybody was in the right place and executing the assigned tasks. It was a warm, beautiful, sunny day. Her family lands were adjacent to a medieval monastery so there was no doubt about where to have the religious service, while the  reception was being held outdoors in the beautiful garden outside their house.

In the church she found her brother Thiage: they both shared the same love for music, so Jean and Marie had asked them to play their favorite song at the church. Frédérique and her brother had never played in public before, but this time it was special so they had conceded. Thiage had already brought their guitars and sat on a chair tuning his, deep in concentration when Frédérique joined him. Once both satisfied Thiague suggested they played something to warm up. He let his sister pick for she was doing the lead singing.

They quickly went through “Les Yeux Ouverts”, Jean and Marie’s song, and afterwards Frédérique remembered one, and smiled secretively.

“Maybe you don’t know this one, but can you follow me?”, she asked her brother and he bowed his head silently, then Frédérique let the first notes of the arpeggio sound before singing. Well into the second verse, Thiage looked at his sister with his mouth agape: he’d never seen her sing with such emotion.

…You touched my soul with your beautiful song
You even had me singin’ along right with you
You said I need you
Then you changed the words and added harmony
Then you sang the song you had written for me to someone new

Oh, but nobody sings a love song quite like you do
Oh, and nobody else can make me sing along
Nobody else can make me feel things are right
When I know they're wrong
Nobody sings a love song quite like you

The acoustics of the old church were perfect and enhanced Frédérique’s melodious and expressive voice. Thiage noticed the heartfelt expression in Frédérique’s eyes: she was in love but a veil of sadness covered it, and for some reason, whoever had her heart wasn't there, so Thiage hoped - for the guy's own sake - that he hadn't broken it. It frustrated him that she always kept her love life to herself and buried her heartbreak deep inside thinking that no one else would notice. He remembered how much pain there had been in Frédérique’s eyes so many times before, and how he had wished to be able to protect her from ever having to go through that kind of suffering again. Unfortunately, there was little he could do apart from being there for his sister whenever she might need him.

...Sing your song sweet music man
Travel the world with a six piece band
That does for you what you tell ‘em to
And you try to stay young but the songs are sung
To so many people who’ve all begun came back on you…

When she was finished, there was a long silence. Then a throaty, loud voice with a slight mocking tone made its way through to the other side of the church where brother and sister were sitting.

“It runs in the family, then”

Frédérique’s and Thiage’s heads snapped up to look at the person walking toward them from the entrance: at first Frédérique’s jaw dropped in disbelief - Richie was there, in Bordeaux. Then her face lit up and her lips curved into a wide, bright smile when Richie spoke again with mocking reprimand and a wide grin.

“None of you know how to tune a guitar”