Stars in Your Eyes (Queen/Roger Taylor)

33. Skylar

Girl, you really got me goin'
You got me so I don't know what I'm doin' now

An old song by The Kinks blares from the radio of the taxi as we zoom towards through London. We're at the end of a 60-day heatwave, so the cool breeze coming through the open window is a welcome treat.

"You going to the concert?" the middle-aged taxi driver asks, looking at me from the rearview mirror.

"I am," I reply loudly, fighting to be heard over the music and ambient noise of traffic.

"It's starting soon," he replies. I know, I respond in my head. I'm really fucking late.

"My daughter is going," he continues. "She wants to see the bloke with the glasses and the feathers-- Elton Whatshisname."

"He's not performing," I reply.

In the background, The Kinks continue to sing You really got me! You really got me! and the music seems to get even louder.

"What?"

"Elton John isn't performing," I reply. "Queen is."

"Her Majesty will be there?" he shouts, turning around halfway to look at me with disbelief. "What sort of concert is this?"

"No, the band called Queen," I reply before realizing that he can't hear me and that he probably doesn't care just so long as his daughter makes it home in one piece. Giving up, I look out of the window and try to control the nervous feeling in my stomach.

Roger is going to kill me. Things had been awful since our fight a few weeks ago. We'd barely spoken and had masterfully avoided being at home at the same time. He'd left the backstage pass on the counter yesterday morning with a hastily scrawled note: If you still want to hear us play.

And now I'm so fucking late that he probably thinks that I'm not coming at all.

In my mind, I recite the perfectly legitimate reasons why I'm late, all of which have to do with emergency procedures and tardy colleagues. But it doesn't matter. Nothing changes the fact that I hadn't even told Roger that I'd be there.

I'm lost in my own thoughts when the taxi comes to a halt outside of Paddington Station.

"No, I said Hyde Park--" I say, momentarily confused, but, slowly, I process the fact that the streets are swarmed with literally thousands of people headed to the same destination.

"This is as close as I can get you, miss," the driver says somewhat apologetically. "The police have blocked off the roads." As you can bloody well see remains unspoken between us.

Mumbling thanks and shoving a wad of cash his way, I leap out of the taxi and get my bearings. I look with dismay at the crowds of people, all young and beautiful, and skimpily dressed. Of course, I'm thrilled that they're all here to see the boys perform, but this makes it much less likely that I'll see them perform.

Right, I'll just have to make a run for it.

Twenty minutes later, I arrive at the VIP entrance. My white camisole is plastered to my skin, and I can feel the damp tendrils of hair stuck to my forehead. In other words, I'm a hot, sweaty mess.

"General entry is that way," a security guard says to me sternly as if he's said the same thing a million times today, which he likely has.

"I'm with the band," I pant, fumbling in my pockets for the VIP pass and praying that it hasn't fallen out of my pocket during my sprint here. 

"That's what they all say, sweetheart," he says with an eye roll. I retrieve the pass and triumphantly brandish it in front of his face. With a surprised grunt, he waves me through the makeshift barrier to the small village of white tents that have been erected behind the stage.