The date was December 20th. In less than twenty-four hours, Mary, Veronica, Chrissie and myself would be greeted by the boys whom we hadn’t seen since October. I chomped away at my nicotine gum while rapping my fingers together, staring in my closet. The truth was, I couldn’t wait to see Roger but I was on edge. I was nervous and a little irritated for reasons I couldn’t understand. I knew Roger would arrive jetlagged and exhausted from California and part of me felt very guilty that I didn’t have the house more hospitable for him. The last show to conclude the American leg of the tour was in Inglewood and they would be flying out that night upon conclusion of the show. I was so proud of myself because I hadn’t thrown up in six hours! I had been in close contact with the doctor, keeping my appointments and following all ‘the rules’. I relayed everything to Roger each time I talked to him so he wasn’t at all in the dark about things. One item of concern was my frequent sickness. It was unusual to feel so miserable this long and Roger, the doctor and I had come to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to hire a nurse midwife to stay with me until my complications had subsided.
I stood there in the closet, leaning my nose over to Roger’s clothes and inhaling the residual smoke and cologne that lingered in them. That smell was better than cocaine itself. I looked in the mirror in the corner of the room where Roger and I kept most of our clothes that didn’t fit into our walk-in. The room off our bedroom was perfect for all the clothes we didn’t wear on a daily basis. I stood there in one of the Veronica Deacon loaner nightgowns and began to flip through my closet. I pulled out a shirt I fancied very much, stripped myself of the nightgown and tried it on. The last too buttons were very tight on it. I couldn’t determine why. This shirt had never been tight on me. “Hmmm.” I said out loud and took it off, hanging it back. I then pulled out a brown sweater dress that I had only worn one other time. I knew this would be a good choice and so I put it on, already visualizing what shoes I would wear. The only problem was that I looked in the mirror and it didn’t fit the way I had remembered. It was far too tight around my breasts and I couldn’t wear the belt with it because my slightly pouched out abdomen made me look…I shook my head.
I sighed and pulled it off, hanging it back as well. After flipping through a few garments, I stumbled upon a classy black jumpsuit that I had nearly forgotten about. I stepped into it, zipping up the back and scowling. This thing fit me like a glove last I wore it....not this time. I unzipped it, letting the black polyester fall to the floor. I stood there and stared at my nearly naked form in the mirror. My heart began to beat faster and I chewed on my thumbnail for a moment. I looked back to the closet, flipping through a few more items.
My favorite things. None of my favorite things fit. I started to flip a little faster through my clothes, pulling a few things off the hangers only to hold them up to myself and toss them in the floor. My heart beat faster, and I was feeling miserably anxious. Nothing fit. Nothing fit. Nothing fit. My face was streaked with tears as I began pulling my clothes off the hangers and throwing them in the floor in a tizzy. I was feeling so overwhelmed, so very out of control, spiraling and suddenly sick. My shirts, my dresses, my pants…I couldn’t wear anything! It was all too tight. It was too tight. Fucking bloody hell, all of it was too tight! These were my clothes! I loved my clothes! An now...they were all at least a half-size too small. By the time I had I had ravaged through my closet, I stopped at one outfit in particular and that was when I lost complete control of myself. I laid into my fashion graveyard and began to cry. It was the kind of crying when you’re so hysterical that it’s silent sobbing, and then you let out a long, otherworldly-like wail. In my wake of shaking and hysteria, something dawned on me. A long time ago, I sat on the couch of Roger’s horrible flat and he asked me to never change. My heart raced even more because I couldn’t keep that promise anymore. Pregnancy was changing me.
In a much less melodramatic home in London, Mary tapped her pencil against a tablet while she held on the phone. She had been surrounded by books and notes, phone numbers and diagrams. “Hi, hello?” she answered, switching the phone to her other ear. “Hi, yes. I’m calling in regards to scheduling an appointment for some testing? No, no it’s not for me. Yes. Um…Freddie…” Mary paused. “Fr…Freddie Bulsara. My relation? Mary questioned. She swallowed hard. “I’m his wife.” She blatantly lied, of course. But she couldn’t access the information she needed without doing so. As she talked with the woman on the other end of the phone, she nervously paced toward a drawer in the hutch that sat just around the corner of the dining room. She opened the top drawer and pulled out a small, slightly yellowed box. The woman on the other end of the phone placed Mary on hold once again as she balanced the phone against her ear and opened up the small box to reveal a black velvet box within. Once Mary opened it, she pulled from inside it, an oblong over-sized green-colored stone set against white gold. She pushed it onto her fourth finger of her left hand, admiring its green brilliance, which was just as beautiful as the day when she had received it.
Any time that Mary found herself in a situation where she was acting on Freddie’s behalf in a way that felt went deeper than the surface value of their relationship; she always slipped the ring on her finger that Freddie had given her almost nine years prior. She peered down at it as the woman’s voice came back on the line. “Yes. Yes, sure.” Mary answered. As she spoke with the woman, giving her information that she needed regarding Freddie, Mary fumbled with the ring on her finger. It was like a security blanket to her even though the ring on her finger never made it down the aisle. She had been so young when Freddie asked her to marry him. In fact, she hadn’t even met her three dearest friends when he had asked her. However, by the time she did meet them, she already knew the ring wasn’t the same kind as when it had been given to her.
“December 26th?” Mary questioned. “Okay, December 26th at 9:30? And where should we report?” Mary wrote down the instructions provided to her. “Approximately how long will the testing last?” she asked, nodding her head. “Okay. Okay, thank you and thank you for the prompt appointment. We’ll see you then.” Mary hung up the phone and stared at the notes she had taken, darting her eyes back to the ring on her finger. She took her own fingers in her hand and examined her ring again, taking a break from the telephone and all the research she had done. She needed to occupy her mind with something else. As she gazed down at the ring on her finger, Mary realized that it meant more to her now than it ever would have had it actually been an engagement ring. She sighed and stood up, shoving all her notes, names, articles, and phone numbers aside. It was the only way she could put this project aside for the time being.
Now was the time to focus on Christmas and getting to spend time with Freddie. New Years would come. 1979….1979 was a very apparent truth. As Mary gazed out the window, shifting her focus to the sky, she thought about Freddie. He was up there in the air somewhere…on his way back home. “Hold on, Fred…” she said out loud. “Just hold on…” her voice trailed off as she anticipated the next twelve hours.
