Note: I mention a song later in the chapter, so that's it at the top of the page. You don't NEED to listen to it, but it is a nice song that sets the mood for the end of the chapter. Just a suggestion. :) (Plus, the intention of the movie with this song is a little different than what I wanted to convey, so the song, not the plot, is the part to pay attention to, FYI.)
Joe went to set every day for the rest of that week. When Saturday came around, he was given his first day off. He got one day off, and then they would finish the Live Aid scenes in three days, and then he would have a couple more days off. I was simply focused on making his first day off as relaxing as possible. When we woke up Saturday morning, neither of us had set an alarm, but we still woke up at about 8.
"Good morning, Joey," I said to him as I played with his curls.
"Morning. What are we going to do today?" He asked me. His voice was still hoarse from just waking up.
"Well, we can do whatever you want to do." He brought his arm around my shoulders as I adjusted myself closer to him.
"Let's see," He said. He thought about it for a little while and then looked back at me. "You haven't walked around London yet, have you?" I shook my head. "Well then, I'm going to take you to a couple places." I smiled at him and gave him a quick kiss on the lips.
"Sounds good. But, are you sure that's what you want to do on your day off?" I didn't want him to feel pressured in any way.
"Yes, of course. I just want to have a nice day with you. I missed those." I smiled at him before giving him a quick pat on the chest to signal that I was going to get ready. About an hour later, we were ready to go. I grabbed my purse and my camera, ready to conquer this fantastic city. We climbed into the rental car, and I was still very uncomfortable sitting in the front. Everything was backwards to me. And it still freaked me out a little bit.
Joe drove us to downtown London. We parked in some garage for the day and we walked down to the street. Joe had ideas of where to take me, but I had no idea what those were. He led us into a nice park. We walked on a cobblestone path next to a small lake and we watched the ducks splash around in the water. It was peaceful and private. There were a couple older people and couples sitting on the benches as we walked past them, but this park still felt very private. I liked that.
Joe walked us until the cobblestone path ended. We came upon a road that was moderately busy with cars. Joe stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and looked both ways down the street.
"Now which way?" he muttered to himself.
"Lost?" I asked him.
"Ah! Nope, not anymore." He got a big smile on his face as he dragged me along behind him. We walked for a little while until we came upon an intersection. He stopped me before we crossed the road. "We're here," he smiled. I looked around. I just saw trees lining the streets and apartment buildings. Nothing special.
"We're here?" I asked. He just stared at me.
"Think," he replied. I did. I hadn't thought before I spoke. We were at an intersection...in London...surrounded by trees lining the streets. We were at Abbey Road. It wasn't long before this thought clicked into my head and I turned to look at the half stone wall in front of a building kitty-corner to us. It has a big sign that said 'Abbey Road'. People had signed it and written all over it, but it was there and I knew, for sure, where we were. My mouth dropped open and my hand rose up to cover it. "There you go," he said with a smile. Happy that I had finally put two and two together.
"I haven't been here in years!" I said. I turned to look. There was a group of teenagers walking up to the crosswalk. They looked like they knew what it was and they were going to take pictures on it. We crossed the street and came face to face with the crosswalk. My eyes never left it causing me to almost trip over Joe in the process. "I think I was 16 the last time I was here. That was so long ago," I said, still entranced by the black and white pattern on the ground. Although I knew that the road had been reconstructed since the Beatles walked on it, it was still such an important spot in music. Just being in its presence was mind-boggling. Joe wrapped his arm around my shoulder.
"While I was gone, I had to cross this every day to get there." He lifted my chin up to look at Abbey Road Studios. A beautiful white building that housed the recording place of so much amazing music. It looked pristine and almost heavenly. The sign above the door was lit and the cast iron gate out front kept out the crazed fans who might want a look inside. I looked back at Joe, he looked at the building and the road. "And every time I walked across this road, I couldn't wait to take you here. I couldn't wait to be here with you. Now, I can't take you inside the studio, but I can let you cross this street." He looked down at me. I wrapped myself around him and gave him a hug.
"This is perfect," I whispered. We ended up walking back and forth on the road a couple times. Some together and some apart just to have a new experience. Every time I finished crossing, I would grin and giggle like a school girl which Joe found absolutely hilarious. After that, we decided to walk down the street to Sherlock's House in 221B Baker Street. We took a couple of pictures there and just kept walking aimlessly down the streets. We walked for a while until we came upon this war memorial. It was absolutely beautiful and stunning. But, it felt familiar.
"I think I've seen this before," I said.
"You're not sure?" he joked.
"No, I'm-" I turned to survey the area around us. I had remembered seeing this memorial before, but I couldn't remember why. Then, I saw it. I gasped. "The Hard Rock!" I yelled. "Yes, I have been here before. I came here after I went to the Hard Rock," I turned to him. I looked at my watch and then back at him. "Let's go! It's almost lunchtime. We can get something to eat there. It kind of matches with the Rock and Roll theme we have going." I shrugged at him. He rolled his eyes.
"Okay, if we must," he replied with a sigh.
"Yay!" I replied. I wrapped my hand around his upper arm as we walked across the street to the Hard Rock Café. It was very crowded, but thankfully we got a table in the middle of the restaurant. The music from the televisions was blaring and people were trying to talk over the loud sound. It made the place roar with an excitement that I loved. We ordered our food, both burgers, and looked around at all of the memorabilia on the walls. Clothing, instruments, memorabilia, and trinkets that all belonged to rock stars that I adored, now hanging on the walls around us. In a strange way, it felt like home.
"So, what's so special about this place? I mean, you've mentioned Hard Rocks before, but you never got as excited at this." He placed his arms on the table and leaned closer to me, trying not to lose his voice by screaming over the other people in the restaurant.
"This is the first one. The first-ever Hard Rock." I looked around again; trying to find a specific guitar. There it was, hanging in all its beautiful red glory above a booth near the bar. I pointed at it. "That's the guitar that started it all," I said as if I was about to tell a fairy tale. In fact, it did play out like sort of a fairy tale. "Eric Clapton used to come in here a lot, you know, before it became the Hard Rock. It was just a regular bar and burger place. The owners hung up his guitar as a marker for his favorite table. Well, more rock stars came in and got jealous that Eric's guitar was hanging, so they began giving the owners their own instruments." I looked over at Joe. He seemed enthralled by my story. But I couldn't tell if he was actually interested or he just liked seeing me talk about something I was passionate about. Either way, I kept talking. "Pete Townsend was the first to give up his guitar after Clapton." I spun around and looked at the other side of the bar and pointed it out. "There it is!" I spotted. I turned back to Joe. "Anyway, the owner kept getting things to put on the walls and then people started coming to see all the stuff that they put up. And he capitalized on it. The rest is history." I laughed as I gestured around the room.
"Fascinating," he replied. "Why do you know all that?"
"I like interesting stories. True stories often have the best endings. Or at least the most practical ones anyway. That's why true story movies are always so amusing. Plus, if you made this one into a movie, there would be a romance plot to it too, which Hollywood just eats up." I joked.
"Romance?" he questioned as he raised an eyebrow. "You didn't mention anything like that?"
"No, I didn't." I paused. "Do you want to hear it?" I asked. He nodded aggressively with wide eyes.
"Okay. Well, Ringo Starr's first wife was named Maureen. And they ended up getting a divorce, I don't know exactly when off the top of my head, but Ringo was an alcoholic and Maureen really couldn't take it anymore. So, some years later, she met and married the owner of the Hard Rock. And he said that she was the best piece of memorabilia he ever collected." I looked at Joe and laid my arms on the table. "Isn't that sweet?" I asked him. Joe reached his hand out and took mine. He raised my hand up to his face and kissed the back of my hand.
"Very sweet," he said. We sat there and waited for our food. I told Joe all of the strange stories I knew about all the rock stars whose stuff was surrounding us. This continued through our meal. But, I didn't care if I was boring him. I was pretty sure that our relationship was solid and I wouldn't scare him off with all my random facts. He would laugh at some of my anecdotes and it just made me love him even more.
We finished up our meal and Joe paid the bill. Something I didn't like since I would always offer to pay half, but most of the time, he would refuse. I got lost looking at all of the memorabilia that I didn't notice we were ready to leave.
"Wait," I said, grabbing Joe's arm as he was walking up next to me, about to tell me we were ready to go. "We have to see the vault."
"The vault? Okay, now you're getting hard to believe." He cocked his head at me and raised an eyebrow.
"I'm serious, this place was a part of a bank before it was a restaurant, so they have a vault in the basement. They keep all the best memorabilia down there." I stood up next to him. I looked over at where the steps down to the vault were. Joe wouldn't have been able to see them before from where he was sitting.
"There's stuff better than what's up here? They're hiding it from us?" I hit his arm. I knew he was joking, but I was just so focused on getting down there.
"Come on," I laughed. We walked over to the stairs. They were guarded by a red velvet rope. There was a worker standing a couple stairs down.
"Would you like to come down here, love?" The older gentleman asked.
"Yes, we would," I replied with a toothy grin.
"Alright," He unclipped the rope and gestured his hand for us to go in front of him. We walked down the stairs. I was holding onto Joe's arm as we slowly made our way down. The older gentleman moved in front of us once we got to the bottom of the stairs. He unlocked the bars that separated us from the memorabilia. He opened the door and let us in. There were glass cases with pictures of the stars and descriptions of the memorabilia. It was a very small room. No more than five people could have fit in that room. There were items from Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, and John Lennon. We were reading all about the items until I moved over to an item that wasn't surrounded by a case. I gasped.
"Joey," I whispered. "Joey, look." I pointed at the ornate chair sitting in the corner of the room. Covered in red satin and had trims of gold and Asian writing. A black and white photo of the owner sat below it. Joe walked over to me as I put my arms around his waist. "It's Freddie's," I whispered. I laid my head on his shoulder. "Hi, Freddie," I whispered even softer.
Whenever there was a piece of memorabilia from a deceased legend, I felt like a piece of that person is still with the item. It sounds crazy, but when you think about everything you own and love, there's a little piece of you that stays with the item. You have memories with that thing. So, to see Freddie's chair sitting there in front of us, it felt like a little bit of Freddie was in the room with us. Watching over us. Loving us. It sounds crazy, but it makes me happy inside to know that little bits of these legends live on in their possessions and in the hearts of fans. And to me, at that moment, I felt Freddie's presence.
We left the vault and the restaurant. Joe told me he was tired and asked if we could go home. I agreed and we drove back. We parked the car in the back of our building and ended up back in our apartment. I changed into another oversized sweater and kept on the soft shorts I was wearing. I found my way to the couch and laid down with my head on the armrest. I grabbed the remote and started flipping through the channels, hoping to land on something even slightly interesting to watch. While flipping through, I landed on a great old movie, Holiday Inn. A movie that you could watch at any time of year and it was acceptable. Joe came into the living room. When I saw him, I began to sit up to make space for him on the couch.
"No, no. Don't. I want to lay down too," I laid back down and Joe laid on top of me. I leaned my upper back on the armrest as Joe curled up on top of me. His arms snaked around my torso until they were completely surrounding me. His head gingerly placed on my chest. I watched the movie as we laid together. He listened to my heartbeat and I watch his head rise and fall to my breathing. I brought my hand up and started running it gently through his chemically curly hair. I smiled at the ridiculousness of it, but he needed it for work.
While watching the movie, I noticed that Joe wasn't responding to the jokes or songs, and he wasn't moving as much. I carefully reached my head around to look at his face. He had fallen asleep. I'm sure he was tired from those days of intense filming and needing to be up at such an early hour to film. Especially when he was so used to sleeping in with me back at home. I kept lightly playing with his hair as he slept. I was only watching the movie at points, with my focus being mainly on the handsome man sleeping on my chest.
Then, the perfect song came on the movie. They play a song for each holiday and the scene was about Valentine's day. I loved the song. I had always imagined slow dancing with someone to it.
Be careful, it's my heart,
It's not my watch you're holding,
it's my heart,
It's not the note I sent you,
That you quickly burned,
It's not the book I leant you,
That you never returned.
Remember, It's my heart,
The heart with which so willingly I part,
It's yours to take,
To keep or break,
But please before you start,
Be careful, it's my heart.
I looked down at Joe lovingly the whole time Bing Crosby sang the song in the background. The lyrics rang true for me. I had never loved anyone as much as I loved Joe. And the fact that he fell asleep on me so easily was a sign that he trusted me wholeheartedly. I never would have followed someone halfway across the world on practically a whim if I hadn't loved them this much. The song ended and I smiled from ear to ear. He looked so peaceful sleeping there and it made me happy that he was getting some well-deserved rest. I wanted to kiss him so badly, but I didn't want to disturb him. Instead, I stayed as still as possible and watched the movie.