To love a flower ~ Roger Taylor

Chapter 11

I wake up lonely, this air of silence...

The next day, Renée wanted nothing more to just call in sick and stay in her bed all day.

But she knew that her conscience wouldn't let that happen, so she decided to just go to work.

She also had some explaining to do, since she was sure that her boss wouldn't be too happy about the incident from the day before.

The hurt and agitation that the fight had caused inside of her still felt as fresh as yesterday, and Renée didn't know what to do with herself.

After another silent morning without any music, she arrived at work five minutes early.

When she walked into the back area of the shop, she already saw Mrs. Johnson sitting in her office behind the desk, impatiently tapping her pen on the table.

She looked up at Renée and from what Renée could see, she wasn't very happy.

She tried (and failed) to put on a smile and said "Good morning Mrs. Johnson."
After the older lady didn't say anything back, Renée sighed.

"Sit down please, I'd like to talk about what happened yesterday," Mrs. Johnson said in her throaty voice and pointed to the seat across from her

Renée felt her whole body becoming stiff and let herself drop onto the wooden chair. "Look," her boss began, putting on her small glasses while skimming through the stack of papers in front of her.

"You're a good worker, you have a slight tendency to be late, which is tolerable. But," she sighed, and Renée didn't dare to breathe out properly.

Was this conversation what she thought it would be? She couldn't afford to lose her job, where was she going to get money from?

"You chat too much. And I've told you that a thousand times already. If you would just talk clients into buying something that would be fine, but you generally talk with them like you're meeting up in your free time.
I don't want to see you talking to anyone here longer than a minute from now on, understood?"

Renée nodded and finally allowed herself to let the air out of her lungs. She wasn't going to get fired, and that may be the best thing that's happened to her in the last three days.

She smiled, before saying "I promise Mrs. Johnson, and I'll be on time from now on."
Mrs. Johnson lit herself a cigarette and nodded briefly before pointing to the door, indicating Renée to leave the office.

"Oh, and," she began before closing the door behind her. "I'm sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean to start a fight but, well...I'm really sorry."

And with that, Renée closed the door.
As soon as she walked into the shop, all the relief felt like it was violently drawn from her.

She looked at the counter area, where the whole situation escalated yesterday, and felt a lump forming in her throat. Without paying any more attention to it, she began sorting out the shelves in the pop section.

During her lunch break, she told Stephanie the short and less detailed version of what happened between Roger and she, but to her dismay, it didn't make her feel better to talk about it. It actually just made her want to cry even more.

After work, she decided to drive to her uncle's studio and help out for a few hours to distract herself.

As soon as she walked through the heavy entrance door, she was met with a hundred different sounds, like band's rehearsing and warming up, loud coffee machines filling multiple mugs at once, ringing phones and many more.

Renée smiled. She immediately felt at home as she walked on the dark green carpet through the long hallway, directly to her uncle's office.

She knocked on the door and opened it a bit to pop her head around the corner.
Her uncle looked up from the folder he was reading and smiled when he saw Renée.

"Ah, my favourite niece!" he exclaimed, waving at her to tell her to come in. She couldn't help but let out a chuckle before replying: "I'm your only niece uncle Andrew."

She walked over and sat across from him, dropping her bag down on the floor. As much as she enjoyed being here, she still felt uneasy with the whole situation.

Andrew closed the folder and put it to the side, looking at Renée while doing so. "Rough day?" he asked, obviously noticing that she wasn't feeling too well.

Renée nodded slowly, staring at her hands. She cleared her throat before adding "I'm okay though, no need to worry."

She tried to smile, but it ended up in something that looked like a grimace. Concealing her feelings had never been one of her strengths.

"Yeah you can't fool me. You've got the same look on your face your mother always had when she tried to hide her feelings.

I told her: 'Betty, tell me what's wrong, because that smile is scaring me.'" Andrew laughed and Renée joined him. For the first time in days, she genuinely laughed.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he continued. Renée sighed lightly, searching for the right words to explain what happened in an appropriate way.

"Well, it's just, I have this friend. And I thought that I could trust him, but then he lied to me, and it hurts more than I'd like it to."

Her uncle nodded, rubbing his chin. "Sounds like a bad friend to me. Not worth of your time." Renée slowly breathed out. She felt her emotions overwhelming her once again.

Before she could let the tears come, she cleared her throat and looked up.
"So, who's recording today?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Steven and his band are here...once again," Andrew sighed, making Renée chuckle. "They're still not done with the debut album? How long have they already been here, two years?"

Her uncle laughed before saying: "I've got no clue! At some point, I just let Peter handle them, they give me a headache.
He's with them in recording room no. 5, if you want to go and help." Renée nodded and said goodbye before leaving his office.

"Hey Renée, I've got a new idea for a band name! Want to hear it?" Steven exclaimed when she entered the recording room. She was overwhelmed by how loud he was talking.

"Sure, go on," she encouraged him while walking over to the mixing consoles where Peter, her cousin, was sitting.

"He's been all excited about everything the whole day, I think he's on something," Peter said quietly so the frontman wouldn't hear him. Renée chuckled.
"It wouldn't surprise me to be honest. Do you think they'll ever get the album done?"

Peter scrunched up his face and tilted his head to the side. "I don't know; it feels like they're stalling a lot. Steven is the biggest chicken I've ever met; I think he's just scared that no one will buy the album."

Renée nodded, watching Steven pace around the recording room, while his band mates were sitting behind their instruments, waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

Renée had a good time that evening, and even had some takeout with Peter after his shift was over.

But she couldn't deny that she still wasn't feeling her best. For now, she was glad that she was at least able to distract herself.