Stand Back (Mirage Era: Part 3)

BONUS EPILOGUE: Do Not Turn Away My Friend

Shoreline Amphitheater
Mountain View, California
Sunday, June 12, 2022
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"Where is everyone?"

Stephanie Buckingham, still Stevie Nicks to her fans, opened her arms wide in relief and happiness to the cheering crowd at the Shoreline Amphitheater when the lights went on and she was able to see. There was a very special little girl in the audience tonight and she was not going to do the rest of the show without acknowledging her. She laughed to herself when the crowd became visible - She had just turned seventy-four on May 26 and her eyesight, if possible, had worsened with age. On stage, she relied on Waddy to be her eyes. At home, that honor belonged to Lindsey.

"Thank you! Now I can see you all, sort of...I can sort of see you," she said. "Um...I want you to know that this is the Shoreline. This is the house of Bill Graham, and this is where we began...I went to school at San Jose State...while I was in a band, playing every weekend, practicing every day...trying to keep a C average, just barely...not even." The cheering crowd laughed at that. "And um...so, when I'm here, like, I'm going, this is definitely my hood...I'm just so happy to be here!"

Out in the audience somewhere, her parents seated on either side of her, sat Robin Anderson, the seven- year old granddaughter of her best friend. She and Lindsey had been on tour with Fleetwood Mac when Matthew had called her in 2014 with the news that Amanda was pregnant, and she'd cried herself to sleep in Lindsey's arms, Sulamith the dog between them, in a hotel suite the night he'd called her again and told her the gender reveal cake had been pink on the inside; they were having a girl and naming her after the mom he'd never had the privilege of knowing outside of photographs and home movies and stories from his father and his Aunt Stevie and everyone who'd loved her. Stevie had told Lindsey in bed that night as he'd kissed her hair and rocked her gently in his arms as he had for decades that she was so blessed to have their Robin in her life - their firstborn - and now she'd be blessed to be Grandma Stevie to Matthew's Robin...but every once in awhile, even now, in a wave of agony she never saw coming, she ached for the one girl named Robin she couldn't see.

Lindsey and the kids were backstage, watching her talk about being in Northern California and feeling at home, and they knew she was going to single out Little Robin, as she was called.

"So I want to say one thing to one little girl before all down the line I have all my dedications to everybody...but this one little girl who happens to be the granddaughter of who was once my best friend. Her name was Robin. And um, she is the granddaughter of my friend Robin but I...because Robin...went away...I am the grandmother. And she calls me Grandma Stevie. Her name is Robin..." She looked out in the audience, trying to locate Little Robin with her eyes. "Robin? Are you out there? I know you are!"

The audience was going wild, everyone who'd seen the little girl trying madly to point and direct Stevie's gaze in the right direction. Stevie said into the mic, using the voice she used on children, "Where is she? She's this big!" She held out her hands to indicate how tiny Little Robin was. Then she said, "Alright, I'm going to let this one go, that she didn't just run down...She's only that big so I get it. Anyway..."

It was Waddy who found Little Robin in the audience. He told Stevie she was "over there" and pointed and she said, "Over where?" She finally found her, and the audience cheered for the little girl sitting in between her mom and dad with bright blue eyes and auburn hair, the spitting image of her grandmother and waving shyly on the big screen. Stevie was able to catch a glimpse of Matthew on the screen next to his daughter and she smiled...I don't care if you're going to be forty in October, kid, she said to him in her head. You're still my sweet boy.

Stevie told the audience during her show, as she dedicated "Landslide" to her Northern California family - the Snyders among them - that because of Covid and time constraints, there was no time to get together. She was only telling part of the truth...a late dinner and a modest family day at Golden Gate Park, the place where Stevie had stood the night before Thanksgiving 1969 with Lindsey the first moment she realized she loved him, was planned for tomorrow. Stevie couldn't wait to see Little Robin playing in the park with her best friend in the whole world - Stevie and Lindsey's first grandchild, Stephanie. Both little girls were seven years old, and to say that Stevie Nicks and Robin Snyder had cloned themselves would have been an understatement. She had talked about that on stage a bit before the pandemic at the MusiCares event in 2018, when the girls were tiny, and when talking about Tom Petty and his own daughter had made her nearly break down on stage that night, it had been her granddaughter Stephanie backstage at the event that had cheered her up...