LVIII

Richie leaned against the kitchen counter holding a cup of coffee in his hand. He looked at his suitcase and sighed: in a few hours he’d be on his way to Zagreb to start the final leg of the tour. What a ride it had been.

Frédérique was still asleep upstairs, but he wanted to let her sleep a little bit longer. She was going to take him to the airport, but Richie hated leaving her like this - she hadn’t been feeling very well these last few days and didn’t want to travel in that condition. Though it was common for her to feel this bad when she had got period, and as hard as she tried to suck it up, this time it seemed worse. Richie convinced her to stay in New York, at least Gaby would be there to take care of her if it got even worse, which he thought hardly possible.

Richie walked into the living room and looked around, then through the windows to the green hills outside. The corner of his lips curled up a little bit with satisfaction. Home. Then, he took a step towards the fireplace and fidgeted with the lower buttons of his black cotton shirt as he stared at the pictures Frédérique had hung over it. He took a sip from his cup.

There was a “Richie-side” and a “Frédérique” side, then a column in the middle with pictures of both of them. On Richie’s side, there was one that showed him and Jon bent over a console in the studio during the recording of These Days. Frédérique had mentioned that she loved how longer hair suited him so he was thinking about letting it grow a little bit. She was the one that picked that photograph: “You both look so pretty in this one”. A much more recent one that was taken by Frédérique herself showed the band in a bar in Memphis after the last show in the last North American leg of the tour. Then a third one of Richie and his daughter that was also taken by Frédérique when they spent Christmas in California. Of course a black and white picture of Frank and Dean just had to be there.

On Frédérique’s side, there was one of Frédérique and Gaby discussing over a splayed blueprint during the construction of the house. Among pictures with Emilie and her brothers, there was one of Frédérique and Keith Urban. Sonofabitch. Richie contained a chuckle: he had never seen Frédérique so surprised as the time he supposedly took her out to dinner “at a friend’s house” in California. Of course she’d asked who it was, but Richie told her that she wouldn’t know who it was if he told her, and only advised her to “dress up” since it was someone important. Later he’d regretted it: she looked so stunningly beautiful that he feared he’d spend the whole evening imagining different ways of making love to her in that dress. Only when they were standing in front of the door of the house had Richie joked with a mischievous grin: “Promise to be a good girl…and I better not catch you laying your hands on his banjo”. Frédérique’s face: priceless. There was a minute of shock but she managed to recover and become her usual charming and lovable self, just before the door opened.

Not even Richie had imagined how productive that dinner and the Urbans’ company would be: they had also struggled to have babies and were quite experienced on the methods and possibilities, as well as the risks. Frédérique remained alert during the conversation anyway, but during a second dinner with the couple – only this time at Richie’s house – Frédérique felt more relaxed about the subject, and Richie had perceived a hint of hope in her, but he’d give her time - it had to be her call.

In the center, there was a picture of Frédérique’s family in front of the chateau during Jean’s wedding. Thiage had had it framed and given it to Richie and Frédérique as a present. She was wearing her ruffled turquoise skirt and sleeveless whit turtleneck. Richie could never stop from chuckling when he saw what Thiage had done to the picture: a read, hand-drawn arrow coming from Frédérique’s bedroom window pointed to a cloud-shaped picture of Richie that Thiage had downloaded from the internet: it showed him sleeping on a plane seat, with all his 80’s hair sticking up, his plump lips half parted.

There was another one on top of it, again with the complete Balbé family that actually included Richie in person, and also his daughter and mother when they spent New Year’s in France. Richie’s heart fluttered: he’d never imagined he’d be this happy in his life. Everything was so easy and uncomplicated when she was around. How had he gotten so lucky? Next to it he could see another picture of his daughter, him and Frédérique on the red carpet of a movie premiere they had attended in California. The other young stars on the red carpet had nothing on Frédérique that night, and the press had gone berserk over her and the clothes she was wearing, Richie admired how she’d kept her cool through all that mayhem.

Most of all, he admired how she behaved towards Nikki despite her attitude. Boy, Nikki hadn’t given up easily. He should have known that the whole album thing was a kind of trap, but he was trying so hard to do things right and prevent anyone from getting hurt that he’d gone along with it. She had been anything but discrete in her moves, explicitly trying to seduce him. And she was good at it: under any other circumstances he’d have been caught in her game - she was beautiful and talented - but Richie was in love with Frédérique, and he wouldn’t let anything or anyone have a chance at ruining what they had. He hated having to do it, but after a few days of constant pushing, he had to be harsh with Nikki, or else she’d never stop. It was a pain in the ass having to keep his guard up with her, but it was necessary at first. By the time the CD was done, luckily enough things were pretty much the same as they’d always been.

He lifted his head up just enough to look at the picture on top of all the others, his favorite one. How could he forget that day? When he first thought about it he knew that there was a possibility that Frédérique would kick his sorry old ass for doing it so publicly, but he just couldn’t help it: he wanted to see her face when she read what he’d written on the back of his guitar.  It was scorching hot in New Orleans during Jazz Fest, and Richie knew Frédérique was in the crowd but he could hardly tell one person from the other because of the sweat that clouded his eyes. There were a bunch of girls in the front rows wearing T-shirts with different phrases: a brunette wore one that read “NEXTEX” – another unfortunate slip of his tongue -, then another one “RICHIEGIRL”, a third one with short hair wore one that read “RICHIE MARRY ME”, and there was even a blonde one wearing one that read “MRS. SAMBORA”. Ha. Yeah, he’d seen it before, on another blonde.

He secretly smiled to himself: those girls always cracked him up, their fans were definitely the best, and he couldn’t deny he enjoyed their attention. The next time he looked their way, he noticed that the girl wearing the “RICHIE MARRY ME” T-shirt was gone. Suddenly at some point during the encore in the middle of Wanted, someone lifted a girl up on their shoulders and Richie looked her way, if it hadn’t been because his fingers could play that song by themselves even if he was in a coma, he’d have fucked up. Big time. There was another girl wearing the “RICHIE MARRY ME” T-shirt this time, a long-haired girl: Frédérique. He blinked quickly a couple of times to make sure the heat wasn’t making him imagine things. He wasn’t, it was real. Richie grinned and nodded, then blew her a kiss and after the final chord, when him and Jon raised their fists in the air, Richie turned his guitar over to show the back: it read “Epouser moi, Frédérique”. When Jon saw what was written on it, the expression on his face surprised Richie: even if he hadn’t told him, Jon should have seen it coming, why was he so startled?

They shared a tight hug and Jon congratulated him against his ear. Over Jon’s shoulder Richie looked for Frédérique’s face and she smiled back at him, then blew him a kiss, too. Then the other members of the band quickly signaled, thumbs-upped him or slapped his hand to congratulate him. All Richie wanted was for the show to end and meet Frédérique backstage, but they still hadn’t played Prayer, so he conceded and saw how she was lowered and then disappeared before the final chorus. Jon understood, and didn’t push the encore further. After the final bows Richie ran to his dressing room, where he found Frédérique waiting for him, with a Tiffany box in her hand.

“Were you looking for this?”, she had asked mischievously with a sideways smirk.

“You just can’t quit the habit of stealing my things, can you?”, Richie had asked before he took her in his arms for a kiss. At that moment he felt the universe was going to implode: it wasn’t possible for someone to feel so happy, it just wasn’t fair.

And there they were in the picture that David had taken of them backstage, Frédérique wearing her T-shirt and a wide smile with sparkly eyes, Richie showing the back of his guitar, his face all dimples.

Richie finished his cup of coffee and looked at the time: he’d wake Frédérique up in a few minutes. As he was washing the cup, however, he heard the bedroom door open.

“I’ll be right down in a minute, baby!”, Frédérique yelled from upstairs. Only a few moments later he heard her steps down the stairs, a delicious cloud of coconut and vanilla preceding her. He poured her a cup of coffee with three full spoons of sugar and waited at the landing, when she arrived, he took her hand and kissed the back.

“Good morning”, she said with still sleepy eyes and a smile before encircling his neck with her arms and pulling him for a soft kiss.

“Mornin’, gorgeous”, Richie replied tenderly as he offered her the coffee cup. She took the it and had a couple of quick sips, they quickly went through their plans for the following weeks as she finished it and washed the cup.

“Ready to go?”, she asked with excitement to try to disguise her sadness – she thought that one day she’d get used to letting him go, but she missed him as much – if not more – every time. He’d see him again in more than a month, in Athens, but then she’d stay with him until the end of the tour.

“Let’s go, baby”, Richie gave her a smooch and a pat on her butt, “or I’ll just never leave”