Buckingham Nicks A/U Series Part 1: Over My Head

Prologue: You Can Take Me To Paradise

El Carmen
Los Angeles, California
Tuesday, December 31, 1974
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She looked like a displaced character from a bygone era, and he didn't know if that was because of the flapper costume or the old soul he saw coming through in her eyes.

That was the very first thought Mick Fleetwood had as the tiniest adult woman he's ever seen almost jogged her way to the table in the silver platform shoes that matched her white and silver 1920s flapper costume, tassels swaying with her as she hurried over to the group of four who were waiting on her arriving and had already begun to enjoy a pitcher of margaritas without her.

"Hi, I'm Stevie," she said, a little out of breath and as she tossed her enormous black tote bag into the booth ahead of her next to Lindsey and greeted him with a peck on the lips. "I mean, it's Stephanie, really, but it's Stevie. I really hope Lindsey told you this is my work outfit; I don't go around looking like my grandmother did when she went out to party in 1925!" She'd been fortunate enough to have the afternoon shift at Clementine's today and not the New Years Eve dinner shift so she could meet everyone tonight...although giving up the hefty New Years tips from drunken partygoers tonight was probably not the smartest idea for their joint checking account.

The blonde woman across the table from her chuckled, holding a half-finished margarita in her hand. "Lindsey filled us in, hon...you're fine." She extended an arm towards the men on her side of the booth and began to point. "I'm Christine McVie. This is my husband John, and that's Mick Fleetwood." She pointed at herself again and then at each of the two men, saying, "Piano, bass, drums. We are Fleetwood Mac."

"Great to meet you all. I'm sorry I'm late to the party here." Under the table, Lindsey had taken her hand in his and was holding it in her lap. Their legs were touching under the table and he could feel her trembling; he knew she was more nervous about this than she would ever admit, even to him later tonight in bed, when they would debrief, as they always did, after a gathering of any kind to which they'd been invited. This one, of course, was of particular importance.

This was the meeting to determine whether or not they were going to give up Buckingham Nicks and join an English blues band because they needed a guitarist in a hurry and Mick had fallen in love with Lindsey's playing about one minute into "Frozen Love". As for Stevie, she needed to be on tonight. They band needed a guitar player, she reminded herself, not a guitar player and his hippie girlfriend...even if she was a songwriter and had a unique singing voice that she'd been wanting use to share her stories with the world since she'd written her first song in the tenth grade. My God...have I really been working for this opportunity for a decade?!

The two pitchers of margaritas - regular and strawberry - went quickly among the five people sitting at the table, as did the chips and salsa a guacamole before entrees were ordered, Stevie thanking God that Lindsey had told her that these people were picking up the tab for dinner...

"We have exactly three dollars and sixty-two cents in our bank account, Linds," she'd told him this morning. "I spent all we had at the record store so we could buy all of the Fleetwood Mac albums to figure out if we belong. These people had BETTER be paying for dinner!"

"Of COURSE they're paying for dinner!" Lindsey was still in the t-shirt and boxers he'd worn to bed that ten o'clock that morning, letting the dog back in from the patio that morning where she'd done her business after Stevie had fed her before work. She was rushing back and forth between the bedroom and the bathroom, getting ready for work, and as she entered the kitchen to talk to him, she was holding behind her neck the gathered sides of the zipper at the back of her dress, a 1920s flapper dress made with tassels that was her waitress uniform. Lindsey explained, "THEY are the ones who invited us, you told me the other day, so it's a free meal, Stevie. Don't worry about money."