Chapter Eighty Five

There was no way to back down on this one, so I bit my own butt and stood and just sang out a couple of verses from Living on a Prayer... the sound of clapping and cheering filled my ears as I sat down again, marking Jesse and Stephanie within ear shot I warned them we would be talking later, each caught my stink eye and hung their heads in shame. Mara on the other hand was delighted and was happily chatting to everyone that came over to say hi, she was polite, and respectful, and the smile that was a mile wide spoke of how proud she was of me, and despite my misgivings with the kids, I had to admit that it sat good in my heart too.

Leaving the Hardrock however, was a chore in itself, given, I had now been recognised, and everyone either stood as we tried to exit, and stuck out a hand towards me, or a tirade of bodies rushed over as we reached the stairway asking for autographs, it took some time but we did make it to the sidewalk. Immediately I held up my arm in the air signalling for a black cab to stop; Mara tugged gently at my sleeve as we stood waiting,  my arm already beginning to ache from being held in the air so long, funny, it always worked in the movies, but they were all evading my arm that's for sure. "Don't be too hard on them?" half concentrating on keeping my arm raised I looked down at my wife, I tried playing the dumb, "hard on who?"  but it was no dice,
"You know very well who, Don't try to be such a smart ass, you know exactly what and who I'm talking about...
a little too sarcastically I replied " Oh you mean, the part when my kids could have got me arrested again and locked up in jail?"
"Yeah, ok putting it like that it sounds bad, but they were just having fun, and nothing bad happened did it?, other than you made some very mediocre lunch exciting for a lot of people...including me.."
"that's alls good Mara, but it could have been a different story, I'm not gonna holler at um, but they need to know that doing dumb ass stuff like that can be serious..."
"Yeah, but please, go easy they didn't mean no harm really," she looked up at me with her liquid chocolate eye's and I couldn't stop the smile that spread across my lips, and defeated I agreed.

After an age, and with my muscles all but seized in my arm a cab stopped, it was a tight squeeze but we all got in, "where to guvnor?" I stared at the driver, not sure what he was saying, he looed at me as I answered,  "what?"  Hearing my accent he asked again, "Where to?" I shook my head, and turning to Mara I asked,
"Where do you wanna go next?"
"Harrods," Mara's eyes lit up as she almost squealed her reply,  looking at the driver he shook his head and started the meter and we set off ,to one of the worlds most famous stores.
"who owns that store dad?" Steph asked a question, before I could answer Mara took charge, "a man called, Mohammad Al Faed.." she spoke it in a very factual voice and seemed proud of herself knowing the information. I was puzzled too seeing as Mara's idea of shopping back home was either Walmart, or regular run of the mill clothes stores, she had never been one for designer clothes.
I had to know, " so how you know?"
she sat looking smug, "Cause I know loads about London, its one of the top places I have always wanted to visit, so you do learn don't ya?"
"I guess," then I caught the London book peeping out of her purse, pulling it out I waved it in front of her eye's, "and having a read helps too right?" she flushed bright red, "Ok you got me..."

The distance to the store from The Hardrock, was not far, but the uptown traffic was horrendous and paying the cab fare at the end £30.00, told me walking is gonna be another option, or I was gonna be bankrupt if we kept up using cabs.

The kids stood on the sidewalk, and we all looked at the man stood by the door, he was dressed in green and gold livery, he looked like something out of a story book, as we all neared the door he opened it for us to enter.  "Steph whispered up close, "OMG he's a doorman..." I shook my head in acknowledgement, as she sided next to Jessie and they walked inside. We all stood in a fantastic marbled lobby area with escalators to both left and right, and directions to different floors.

Jake noticed that the toy department was to the left and tugged so hard at my arm I thought he'd pulled my arm outta my socket. "Pop, toys, PLEASE!!!" I looked at the rest of the guys, "You all ok with that?" all shook there heads, so we got on the moving escalators and headed up to the third floor.

Jake couldn't believe his eye's as there were life size stuffed toys everywhere, with price tags costing thousands, he was really impressed and drawn to the life size horse, his eye's were gleaming... he looked over at me, I knew what was coming.
Walking over I picked at the price tag, staring back at me was a price of £1,000 pounds, quickly converting the exchange rate to dollars, it was $1,500, kneeling beside little man, I spoke, "Jakey, do you realise how much money this is?"
puzzled he looked at the tag too, then looking back at me he replied. "a whole heap?"
"what's a whole heap to you?"
biting his lip, he answered, "more than I can afford."
"ok, so what can you afford,?"
he dug his little hands into his pocket and brought out his spending money, slowly he counted it out into my hand, as we both stood looking he had £100.00 pounds, or $125.00.
"so how much more do you think you need to buy that horse?"
he looked at the money then at me before he answered. "a years allowance?"
laughing, I answered him, "your not far off son, and looking at it, do you really think its worth all that money?"
he looked at the horse, and then back at me, shaking his head he replied, "nah" and then took off to find something else to wish for, and that took like seconds, his little legs and body darted in and out of the other shoppers, and he came to stop at a robot game. there was an assistant demonstrating how it worked. the robot was only miniature and stood on a mirrored platform, with the magnet located underneath as you moved it around you moved the robot on the mirror too, what he found cool was the toy was filled with coloured sand and you could make shapes and patterns as it moved and write things too, an cause it was sand it could be re used in the toy over and over. he pulled my arm, I bent down next to him, "pop how much is £25.00 in our money?" quick to work out the cost I told him about $30.00, his next question came fast, "cool can I get it?"
"sure if you really want to, but don't you wanna look around a bit more first?" he thought for a millisecond and took off again, Jessie followed him and said he keep his eye on him, Steph was looking at the teddy bears, as Mara and me sided up beside her. Mara spoke, "He's cute"
Steph looked round at her and smiled. "he is, I'm thinking of buying one for my room, but I'm not sure how much it is?" I looked at the tag, £40.00, then I noticed the tag had other currency's shown there too, one of which was our money. $65.00. Steph quickly put it back. "This shop is expensive... not sure I can really afford anything here pop.."
Mara slipped her arm in Stephs and she moved over to the book section, I looked at the bears and as a surprise I picked up two medium sized bears for both Mara and Steph, then slipped over to the demonstrator with the Robot game and bought that for Jakey too. Jessie was into his sports so I was planning on treating him to something special too, but that would have to be later as we moved from section to section.
I moved across to the checkout operator and paid for the items I had, then with them in a Harrods bag I made my way back over to the girls. They were deep in conversation about a cook book and making novelty cakes. As I reached the girls my cell rang, reaching in my pocket and juggling the bags I had I answered, "Yo?"
"Jon, its Calum, you made it to London then?"
"Yeah, got here couple of days ago, sightseeing and stuff..."
"so where are you now?"
"Harrods"
"Liking it?"
"yeah, but man its not a poor mans shop and that's for sure?"
Calum laughed, "got that right my man so we cool for the meeting in couple of days?, its a great opportunity for you?,
"Yeah alls good, time same as you wrote me?"
"Yeah, no changes, anyway, just wanted to touch base, see ya Friday."
Ending the call Mara stood in front of me, arms folded across her chest she looked at me, after saying nothing she asked " who was that, and who are you meeting in a couple of days?, what's going on Jon?"
Time now to share the surprise, and I was praying she'd be happy....