Every time you make a move

The Night Before...

Early March, 1986

"I'll have... that one, please" Monica pointed to a random selection on the cocktail menu, sitting alone at the bar as she ordered yet another drink.

The bartender leaned over to read the menu closely, "A Harvey Wallbanger?"

"Uh, that, yep" she hiccuped awkwardly.

As the bartender turned away and began preparing it, she turned back around and looked at her partner Freddie Mercury sitting alone on the white wooden bench across the space as he waited for her, looking broodingly handsome in his powder blue dinner jacket with his raven black hair combed back and trimmed moustache as he scanned the swarming crowd of A-Listers and event crew that she didn't even know.

She had to sit at the bar, for she couldn't stand to sit alone with him anymore; the silence between them the both was getting louder every day. Going out with him to things that they were invited too just wasn't as enjoyable as it was in the late 1970s.

Tonight, Freddie had dragged her to a private function for God Knows Whatever For that was taking place inside a large pavilion of a house belonged to God Knows Who in South Kensington. It was a party hosted by David Clark, whom Freddie had briefly befriended and was preparing for his new concept album based on his musical named Time that was opening at the Dominion theatre in the next months. He wanted Freddie to cover one of the new numbers on it for promotion, that had a title of the same name.

To be honest, the party wasn't too bad an end to a Saturday that Monica had well spent finalising her University applications for September, even if it meant her having to persuade Phoebe to babysit Johnny and Roshni at such short notice. The deadline for submissions was nearer and Monica was narrowing down her top choices, and while the thought of telling Freddie was always on the back of her mind the pressure from it was not growing significantly larger.

"September is a long way away anyway," she had been telling herself repeatedly, "Who knows where I will be or what I will be doing?"

She looked on at him as she waited, him not noticing of course, wondering if they were also going to have a silent taxi ride home when suddenly one of the famous party guests that she had watched most of the evening, a woman that she had yet to be acquainted with, went to take her waiting empty spot next to him on the bench.

"Oh?" it caught her attention.

She recognised her as the actress who played the bar-woman that she'd forgotten the name of in the Queen Vic off of Eastenders, for she knew that television show was one of Freddie's guilty pleasures. Monica didn't find her features considerably striking, but remarked that she had a nice face and warm smile that seemed to match her upbeat personality as she wafted from one group of party-goers to another. 

Freddie immediately perked up and smiled whenever he saw her, as if she was an old friend.

"That's peculiar, have they met before?" she thought curiously.

She couldn't help noticing how picture perfect they both looked as well; the fun and loudness of the Hawaiian shirt that Freddie wore under his dinner jacket matched that of the mystery woman who, like most women did nowadays, was wearing lots of hairspray in her permed auburn hair and blue eyeliner wrapped around her eyes, and donned a dress with puffed sleeves and shoulder padding.

But that playful, vibrant look that was on-trend wasn't Monica's style. Monica's style was toned-down and classy, as she was currently. She had her dark brown waves brushed and demurely slicked back with a bit of gel and hairspray, like she had seen the models wear in Vogue. And she decided to wear her silk ivory blouse with her black cigarette trousers and a simple pair of green beaded tassel earrings, a leaf that she had taken out of Giorgio Armani's book.