Memories II

|20| • A Beard, a Penguin, and Horses •

It had been almost a month since the concert in Hyde Park that had ended differently than planned. They had been in the studio a lot more, finishing off their fifth album, so Brian and I hadn't seen each other all that much. I was still working as well, I had discussed it with him and told him that I wanted to keep my job for as long as possible because I needed that.

And luckily it didn't cause an argument, as I had feared. I had expected that if I told Brian that I was worried what might happen should we break up, he would get upset and be offended that I thought about that possibility. But he didn't get upset, he even agreed with me. Not because he thought we were going to break up, as he explained, but because of what had happened with his ex. They had planned to get married and broke up anyway, so he agreed that it was better to take things slow and find a compromise that worked for both of us.

I talked to my boss and managed to arrange for a flexible work schedule, where I worked more or less full time while Brian was busy, which would allow me to take time off, even a few weeks at a time, for when I would go visit him on tour. The fact that my boss was so wonderfully supportive only proved to me that leaving my job would have been the wrong thing to do. It was all coming together somehow and that made me very happy.

However, we wouldn't need to make use of this arrangement for another few months as the next tour was only scheduled for January of the following year. Until then, especially while Brian was in the studio, or busy promoting the album, I would be working as normally.

Today was the first day in a few weeks that I had taken a day off because of Brian and the band. They had a promotional event for the new album going on, and I would be joining him for that, because we both wanted that. None of them were particularly keen on the event, but it had been suggested by John Reid, and I could see why. Their new album would be called A Day at the Races, following along with the Marx brothers theme, so the promotional event was for the band to appear at a horse race - they would be having a day at the races.

EMI was sponsoring the event which - to me as a newbie in this whole music-rock star business - seemed huge. I was a lot more excited about this than the band actually, I didn't usually go to fancy events like this. Nonetheless, we were all dressed up, and if I was honest, that was a big bonus because Brian looked... well... incredibly attractive. He had grown a beard, which took some time getting used to, especially until he figured out how to control it, because just like the rest of his hair it got out of control easily. But once he did figure out how to keep it quite neat, I quickly turned into a big fan.

We were on our way to the race track, all in fancy cars and everything. The guys weren't really looking forward to this day, that hadn't been hard to figure out, but they had to do it and they were professional enough to not let their lack of enthusiasm show. The race track was about half an hour drive from Brian's countryside house where we had stayed the night before, so Brian used that time to tell me a little on what to probably expect and what to do and not to do. I appreciated that he remembered how new to this I was still.

When we pulled into the parking lot, I fixed Brian's tie, making sure he looked as good as he could. His hair was getting more and more recently, so I simply let that be because he knew best how to deal with that, but I could make sure the rest looked good. He was wearing a green suit, very classy, along with a matching chequered tie, and because he was the adorable man that he was, he had stuck a little penguin pin to the collar of his jacket. I thought he was joking at first when I saw that, but he was totally serious about it and somehow that made me love him even more. He was unique and that always showed.

Our driver parked the car, so we got and tried to find the others who were all supposed to be here at the same time. Brian reached for my hand, and then we made our way across the parking lot. "I'm not entirely sure where to go actually," Brian admitted, rubbing his beard with his free hand. "John said he'd meet us here, with the others. I'm not even sure where they are, I wouldn't be surprised if Fred and Rog were late."