To love a flower ~ Roger Taylor

Chapter 9

I'm a lightweight better be careful what you say, with every word I'm away, you're in control of my heart...

The following day, Renée took some time to clean her apartment.

It was a habit of hers to tidy up her surrounding when her mind was in chaos, and at the moment, she didn’t know what else to do with herself.

She couldn’t hang out with the boys, because Roger would be there, and even if he wasn’t, being with them would remind Renée of him.

Brian imitating Roger’s voice, John’s laugh at his terrible jokes, even sitting on Freddie’s couch which stood next to a little cupboard, where Roger had accidentally knocked off Mary’s favourite vase.

She needed some time alone for a while.

Renée put on her favourite record by the Beatles and made her way to the small kitchen. She looked around and decided to clean out the cupboards first.

Humming along to the soft melody of ‘The Fool On the Hill’, she began taking all of her dishes out of the cupboard and placed them on the kitchen counter.

Sometime later, she stood on a little stool, trying to reach the highest shelf, when her phone started ringing.
 
 In her surprise at the sudden, loud sound, Renée tripped over her own feet and almost fell off the stool, but she was able to grab onto the kitchen counter.

Telephones seemed to have a weird conspiracy against her these days, she thought to herself.

Renée rubbed her arm, which she had just stubbed against the cupboard and walked over to her phone. She picked it up and held the receiver against her ear.

“Hello?” she said, making it sound more like a question. “Hello? Renée, is that you?” Her heart stopped beating for a second as she recognized Roger’s voice.

She felt her breathing become erratic as a thousand different thoughts started racing through her mind.

What did he want? What was she supposed to say, should she confront him about what happened or should she just keep her mouth shut? And how did he get her number?

Her eyes darted across the room, and she opened her mouth to say something but closed it again as she was simply at a loss for words.

She didn’t want to speak to him, the whole point of distancing herself from him was to forget that this ever happened.

Overwhelmed by her thoughts, she did the next best thing that came to her mind and crashed the receiver back down onto the telephone.

Renée was met with silence ringing in her ears, as the record had ended. Trying to calm herself down, she took a deep breath and walked over to the record player to put on some new music. But even the vivid tunes of ‘honky cat’ from Elton John’s new album weren’t able to cheer her up.

Sooner or later, she finished cleaning the kitchen and went to bed early, seeing as her last week of work before summer vacation was starting tomorrow.
 
                              <><><>

Renée usually always listened to music in the morning to wake up and start the day in a happy mood, but she didn’t even look at her record player on Monday morning.

Arriving at work, she wasn’t her usual, talkative self.
However, her mood lit up a bit when the sun finally shone through the grey, heavy clouds and the smell of fresh coffee came from the break-room.

Around ten o’clock, her co-worker Stephanie arrived. She hadn’t been in for weeks, and since she and Renée got along quite well, she was eager to catch up with her.
 
“Hey, Steph!” she greeted her as Stephanie came in through the back door, placing her bag on a chair.

Soon, the two girls were chatting away in their lunch break, and Renée finally felt like she could set her mind to rest for a while.

Sometime later, she came back from her break and sold a few records. Renée sighed as she looked at the clock. Just half an hour and she could go home.

But now that she thought about it, going home didn’t sound as appealing anymore. Working kept her distracted from everything that was going on.

In her apartment, she would have nothing to keep her from thinking about Roger.

Maybe she could go to her uncle’s studio in the evening to help a bit and see how he was doing.

Wait, the studio! Queen’s studio appointment was on Friday, and Renée promised the boys to come with them. What would she do?

“Shit,” she muttered, letting herself fall onto the chair behind the counter. As she looked across the shop, she tried to think of what she was going to do.

She didn’t want to let her friends down just because Roger and she messed things up.

But then again, she didn’t know if she would be able to handle the situation if he was there too.

The doorbell tore her out of her thoughts, and Renée looked up to see who entered the store.

She felt her jaw practically drop when she saw Roger standing in the doorway.