XXIV

The day of the first concert was on a weekday and Frédérique went to work as any other day. Richie would go to the venue early in the afternoon for soundcheck and they had arranged to meet backstage before the show started.

Frédérique was at her office near mid-day when her intern phone rang.

“Aló?”, she hadn’t been able to kick the habit of answering in French.

“OK, I was waiting to see if you said anything to me first…” Gaby spoke teasingly and secretively, without introducing herself, ”… but the day’s come and you haven’t said anything yet, so I figured I might as well ask”.

“About what, Gaby?” Frédérique frowned.

“I hear a certain client of yours is playing tonight…”, said Gaby with mock mystery in her voice, hinting for Frédérique to speak.

But Frédérique already knew what Gaby meant: of course she knew. Richie had told her to bring someone with her to the concert, but Frédérique had hesitated – after all, Gaby was a recent friendship and although she had grown fond of her, she still didn’t trust her when it came to really personal matters. If Gaby went with her to the venue, she would find out about Richie, and Frédérique wasn’t in the mood to be worrying about hiding her relationship – at least not in his environment, so she had avoided any comment on the event. At her friend’s request, however, Frédérique changed her mind.

“Yes, I hear that, too…but I’m also watching at the time and thinking we could maybe have something to eat delivered to my office and talk?”, Frédérique answered making sure that Gaby understood that she couldn’t talk about it over the phone, and Gaby humoured her.

“Sounds great, say…12.30?”

“I’ll be right here”

During lunch, in the privacy of her personal office, Frédérique told Gaby what was going on, and Gaby could hardly contain her excitement.

“Oh.MyGod, Frédérique” said Gaby when her friend finished, after chewing her last sushi roll.

“So what do you say I pick you up at 5? That way we both have time to change after work” Frédérique suggested, and started cleaning up the boxes and chopsticks from her desk and throwing them into the trash bin.

“Fine by me!” Gaby agreed with a grin and stood up to leave. Before she left, and in response to Frédérique’s pleading look she clamped her lips and made a gesture of turning an imaginary key into an imaginary lock on the corners of her lips, then throwing it away.

…

Frédérique absolutely enjoyed live music and this promised to be the mother of all live shows. Seeing the people lining up and the buzz around the stadium had her excitement starting to build up. After parking the car, she followed Richie’s previous instructions as to who to contact to let themselves backstage, and in a matter of minutes she and Gaby were already being led into a big room were the band was still hanging out in their plain clothes on a number of sofas, but Richie wasn’t there.

Before she could open her mouth to ask, though, she was surprised by two strong arms encircling her waist from behind. When she realized it was Richie, she turned to face him and kissed him soundly on the lips.

Frédérique then introduced Gaby to the rest of the band and she in turn, was introduced to other members of the crew that were present in that room at the time. She didn’t get any of the names anyway.

“Sorry you just missed my mom, she’s already out there”, said Richie.

“All your relatives are out there Sambora”, Jon shouted from the back of the room while he followed his assistant to the dressing room to get himself ready, “they sold out the stadium”.

They were still laughing and teasing each other at Jon’s comment when Nikki arrived with Richie’s wardrobe for the show. Richie motioned Frédérique to follow them to his dressing room, but Nikki said it was better if Frédérique went outside to wait for the show to start, since getting Richie ready for the show may take a while. Frédérique agreed that it was a good idea on the grounds that, in fact, she couldn’t see any of the band members’ families there, and thanked Nikki for the suggestion before asking for directions from the crew members as to which was the way to their seats. Gaby followed and approached her to comment secretively next to her ear:

“I see were Jon gets that Superman thing from”, and giggled, “his hair AND his ass definitely defy gravity”.

Frédérique burst out laughing at her friend’s more than accurate statement and after greeting the other band members’ wives and children that were gathering near the stage, she and Gaby finally settled down. Frédérique was already past the excitement point: she was at the verge of euphoria. She started to get goosebumps and looked around  with her lips parted in awe of what she was witnessing. All those thousands of people…So amazing.

The moment before the show started she was so worked up already that she felt her heart was going to fly out of her chest. And the lights came out. And thousands of people roared. And the band took the stage. And rocked the hell out of that stadium.

Some of the songs Frédérique recognized, but couldn’t quite sing along - except for the endless repetition sessions like the itsalrights of “Who says you can’t go home” - so she just banged her head a little bit. She had to admit though: she was a sucker for a good love song and when it came to that, these men were the best.

Frédérique couldn’t help but laugh when the sound went out and the guys kept playing unknowingly of the fact. Richie saw her – that distinctive way of covering her mouth with the back of her hand when she laughed - and frowned questioningly. She signaled and mouthed to him but he was too much into the song so he didn’t get it. Richie then saw her  frown and look around - she was wondering why the hell wasn’t anybody informing them of what was happening.

During the show, Frédérique came to other conclusions: Jon was charming and regal in real life and his wide, warm smile could melt down an iceberg, but onstage he was a king, and his smile shone with the light of a thousand suns. And Richie…as sweet as he was at home with his acoustic guitar, onstage he was a true Rock God.

Yes, that was the man she was…in love with.

Frédérique’s heart skipped a beat at the realization.

When the band were taking their final bows and the fireworks were going off, Gaby felt Frédérique take her hand and put the car keys on her palm, then ask her, screaming over the deafening sound of the fireworks:

“Can you find your way back out?!”, and as soon as Gaby nodded, she continued: “Take my car then! I need to go!”

Gaby didn’t understand Frédérique’s words at first, but after a few moments it sank in her and she smiled: judging by the look on Frédérique’s face they probably wouldn’t see each other until the next day…or maybe not.