Stand Back (Mirage Era: Part 3)

Said No To Him Again And Again

The Record Plant
Los Angeles, California
Tuesday, December 21, 1982
(Afternoon)
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"And the summer became the fall...I was not ready for the winter...It makes no difference at all, 'cause I wear boots all summer long..."

Stevie stood in the recording booth, headphones on, trying to keep an eye on Matthew, who was lying in the control room in the navy blue coach carriage and being fawned over by Lori and Kellianne, Brian Murphy's daughter, who had been attached to Stevie ever since he'd joined the touring team of Fleetwood Mac a few years earlier during Tusk.

"Nightbird" was the sequel to "Edge Of Seventeen", she'd told Jimmy when she'd first brought it in to record. The death of her uncle and John Lennon within days of each other had been the inspiration for the first song two years ago, and now, here she was inspired again...wondering if Jimmy or anyone else knew what she meant about keeping her boots on. Robin had been dead for two months and sixteen days - she didn't meant to keep count, but her brain did it for her every night - and now nothing shocked her. Anything could happen. The studio could cave in and kill them all, Jimmy Iovine could become a vampire, Matthew could sprout wings and fly away...Stevie was prepared for disaster to strike at any time now. It already had once.

"We'll get the girls on the track and then we're good," Jimmy told her when she was done singing. She had stolen Matthew back from Lori and held him over her shoulder. Jimmy watched as she ever so gently swayed back and forth and wondered how she had become such a natural mother overnight. She looked like she was born to do this...Where was this nurturing side of Stevie when they were together? If it was a baby she'd wanted, he'd have married her in a heartbeat.

"Good, because I have to get home," Stevie said, her hand rising from the baby's back in his little blue zip-up suit to his little head for support. "I don't think I brought enough diapers and the tree still isn't decorated." She had convinced Kim to her a Christmas tree over the weekend and Christopher, staying in town with Lori until the new year, had driven her out to Venice to get her boxes of ornaments out of the garage. She'd looked through a box last night and cried with a little green striped elf in her hand and a glass of wine in the other at the kitchen table, remembering that she'd bought him in the tenth grade at a school holiday sale with two quarters from Robin's purse because she was out of cash twenty minutes in. She'd simply had to have him...and they'd named him Bob. She still owed Robin the fifty cents.

"Don't rush right out of here, Stevie...come on." Jimmy came closer to her, holding out his hand in invitation. "We're all going to knock a few back in the green room in a bit...sort of an impromptu Christmas party with some of the engineers." He looked at her holding the baby, saw the dark circles under her eyes and said, "You, over anyone, need a little Christmas cheer. Bring the baby; he's already famous around here!"

"At least with Lori," Stevie said with a small laugh that surprised her. "Man...my brother's in trouble!"

Kim was not going to be home until at least seven. Stevie looked at her watch and saw it was two-thirty. She smiled at Jimmy and said, "Let's party. Just don't let anyone play 'Silent Night'...I'll start crying."

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Marina Del Rey, California
Tuesday, December 21, 1982
(Evening)
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Lindsey sat behind the wheel of his Mercedes and cursed the rush hour traffic on PCH. He'd fiddled with radio stations a bunch until he caved to the Christmas songs that were ubiquitous on every station with the holiday three days away, and let the sound of Elvis Presley fill the car as he sang a song Lindsey remembered playing for Stevie on his guitar a hundred years ago, it felt, sitting together on their mattress on the floor the first Christmas they lived in L.A., Stevie holding the dog in her lap in her fluffy white nightgown and looking like a snow angel as she listened to him sing with a smile on her face...that smile she had that was only for him, the one that made her eyes dance and made him almost forget the words because he couldn't believe he got to sit beside the most beautiful girl in the world on Christmas Eve.