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I crouch in the field, scrambling for the wildflowers I dropped. Grass blades tickle the backs of my thighs and the touch makes me suddenly aware of myself in the space. I look up, toward the table where you and the band are gathered for lunch. You are watching me. I can tell even in the bright sun that your eyes, squinting from the light, are on me. I wave one of the blue flowers in the air and you gesture me forward. I rise with full hands and make my way to your table.
I stop by Jonesy first, offer him a flower and kiss him on the head. Then, John, who thanks me and laughs at my whimsy. And Robert, who kisses my cheeks in greeting and places the flower behind his ear. You're last. I come around to sit beside you and offer you my final flower, cerulean and wispy. You take it gently. You grin.
The table has cheeses and meats and little Swiss chocolates that I let melt in my mouth. We have tart orange juice and Coca-Cola to drink.
I am communal with you and the band. We share food. We giggle at Jonesy's story: he always tells them with such a straight face. When you reach for me under the table, touching my kneecap, I look to you. Sunlight falls around you. Montreux is cool all year round and a breeze from the lake picks up the curled ends of your hair.
I tell you slowly, in our secret language (two fingers to the apple of my cheek) that you are beautiful.
Your eyes crinkle. You mirror my touch, then place your thumb to your bottom lip. I understand immediately and lean to kiss you. Your mustache and beard rough my face. The soda you've sipped sweetens the inside of your mouth.
Robert jokes of our ability to engage without words, but I'm never wounded. On stage, the two of you seem bounded by some otherworldly force.
You pull me close to you, until I'm sitting in your lap and you put your mouth to my ear. The closeness of you, the public, intimate touch make me woozy. You murmur. Your breath touches me, invades.
Later, you tell me, after the show, you will take me to the lake for dinner. Then we will retire to the room and you'll pull me close under the sheets.
I tell you I want this, that I cannot wait and that my stomach tumbles at the thought of time alone with you.
I touch your chest and the fragile flower you've placed in your shirt pocket. I remember Headley Grange. Few blooms grew there in the chill, but you were truly natural. We slept in the upstairs room. We warmed each other as candles flickered and threw wild shapes across the floor. In the morning, I'd lead you to the basin, where we could wash and clean like Degas' pastel women.
But time catches me. Richard gathers everyone from the table and we're moving through the town to the venue. No time for wishful thinking. You are all business, long steps beside Peter. As we file backstage, he grins at all of you.
I don't follow all the way. Instead, I watch the people lined up waiting. Some barefoot, some stoned. They sit on the street curbs and talk or smoke. I wonder what it would be like to be them, on the other side. To not have met you when you were in The Yardbirds. That audience seems a generation away.
I get an urge to sit with the women and men on the curb and blend in. I wonder if you would see me in the crowd and feel the same if I was somewhere, someone else.
Suddenly, Richard calls my name from the back of the venue and comes to find me. He tells me you're looking for me.
In a cowboy shirt, you look cool and long. You're about to go on stage for rehearsal. You ask me for a goodbye kiss, for a good luck embrace: a concert ritual.
You're warm from the day. Your lips are blood-flushed. I ask your shoulder, where my head rests momentarily, if we would have fallen in love if we met another way.
You say yes. And that in other lives we've fallen in love many times. You take my hand and sweep your fingers over my palm before leaving for the stage.
The presence of you remains on my skin: a perfume I've worn a thousand times.
