14 Years [GNR/Mötley Crüe]

86. Language Barrier

Axl:

The scent of her perfume hit my nostrils when I entered her empty office. I inhaled the sweet mixture of vanilla and coffee. It had to be Black Opium or Si.

I didn't expect her to call, to be honest. I didn't expect anything when she gave me radio silence after I told her to think and decide. I thought she had made her decision and decided to respect that and stay out of her way like I've been doing for a year now, but then she called me.

Five days later, she called, and we kept in touch. It took about two weeks for James to recover enough to go back on the road. We hung out twice before the tour resumed. Now we once again had a short break, 5 days, and here I was, instead of going house hunting in LA. I still couldn't wrap my head around the fact that she reached out after hearing about Montreal; moreover, she trusted my version of what happened, unlike so many others. A part of me wondered why she even called me back, why she let me back in, even as a friend. Was it pity? The worst possible reason. Or did she just harbor no hate?

I looked around her office, the sleek interior, the gray and brown palette, glass and wood. She had changed so much, so much since I first saw her. Youngest female partner in the firm's history, I knew she had the drive, but goddamn!

I didn't expect to find her entire record collection in her office; instead of books, a major portion of the shelf contained records. I knew what I'd find in her collection, yet I looked through them.

To my surprise, I found The Yardbirds and Jeff Beck. I remember her complaining a long time ago about how her dad was obsessed with them and how she listened to them so much growing up that she hates them.

Guess she's evolving, I chuckled and continued scouring through her collection. I went through it, all agog, trying to see if Guns N'Roses was a part of her collection. I had already found all the Bon Jovi ones by the time I realized she only had Appetite and Illusion-II. No lies or illusion-I.

I would be lying if I said I was completely alright. The absence of those two records left me feeling dejected. I felt the same when she said back then, November Rain wasn't her cup of tea, I poured my everything into that song. It was her song, even if I started writing it long before '87.

I sighed out a deep breath, hoping to get rid of the disappointment I felt along with the stale breath. I decided to leave the record collection alone and headed towards the floor-length window that looked out into the street, the lights from the other buildings and advertisements lit up Manhattan.

"Wow, you're on time!" Maria exclaimed, suddenly entering the office. "God, are the pigs flying?!"

She rushed to my side by the window and pretended to look at the sky in search of flying pigs. I rolled my eyes.

I like Maria.

Of course, the two times she and I met last month, it wasn't just us. She brought Maria along. I was originally hesitant about the idea that her legal secretary would accompany us to lunch. The same person who answered the call and told Nadia's having a medical emergency, and then asked me to erase that from my memory. I wasn't comfortable with having lunch with strangers, but then I met Maria and realized she was everything that Dee wasn't.

Maria was Dee's complement.

"Yes, they are!" I laughed, "One of them is standing right next to me. Probably flew all the way to the 20th floor."

She glared at me for a second and rolled her eyes. "I'm not the pig, you're!"

"I didn't call you a pig, Maria." I shrugged, "You assumed it! Because, even you know you're a pig."