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

You Can Take Me Any Time You Like

Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Saturday, February 1, 1975
(2:30 am)
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"Hey Stevie! I have a great idea! Come here!"

Lindsey was stretched out across the bed of their motel room, the television displaying an image of the American flag and playing the "Star-Spangled Banner" because of the late hour. Stevie was in the adjoining bathroom, taking off her makeup and looking at her exhaustion in the mirror. Earlier that night they'd performed their last engagement as Buckingham Nicks, the last of three Alabama concert dates, and whatever Lindsey's great idea was, she would probably be shooting down. She was weary to her bones.

"What?" Stevie emerged from the bathroom, peach hand towel still in hand, already dressed for bed in a pink cotton nightgown. She saw Lindsey reading the brochure from the motel.

"Apparently this place has a hot tub!" Lindsey was all smiles. "We have to get in there...even just for a little while."

Stevie thought it over. She was exhausted, she'd just showered, she had planned on crawling into bed and sleeping off three concert engagements they'd done since landing in Alabama before heading home to keep recording with Fleetwood Mac. She did not want to get undressed now and get into a hot tub. She'd made a pact with herself since they'd joined Fleetwood Mac to try her best to be kind to him, to not give her knee-jerk reaction when his temper flared, when his jealousy came out, when he took on the know-it-all attitude about music that he technically had earned with his talent but really shouldn't have been using against people the way he did. Fleetwood Mac - or at least, the new Fleetwood Mac - would never get off the ground if she did what she'd been close to doing so many times since Aspen and the big fight - cut her losses and leave the relationship if her spirit was going to survive.

She wished she didn't love him so much. She wished he wasn't so sweet to her when he wasn't being possessive and controlling. She wished he'd just do something unforgivable like cheat on her or hit her - anything that sounded like a good enough reason to leave a man she'd loved for so long she didn't know where he ended and she began.

But there he sat cross-legged on the bed, brochure one hand, smiling at her so hopefully...she shrugged and said, "My mother always told me to pack a bathing suit no matter where I travel no matter what...thanks, Barbara." She smiled back at him on her way to her suitcase to get the plain black one-piece she'd packed.

Sometimes, even when she was tired, being nice to Lindsey was easier than usual.

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"When we get rich, hot tubs will be so common in our lives we won't even think about it."

Stevie was sitting in the hot bubbling water, warm against the cold Alabama night and watching Lindsey take to the hot tub as much as she was. She had to admit, the problems they'd been having at home seemed to have been left behind in California; he'd been so sweet since they'd been in Alabama. Even Waddy, who'd joined them on stage and had known them both long enough to know their problems, had pulled Stevie aside and asked if Lindsey had taken his "nice guy pills" on the trip. He was having his own fun playing the hot water through his fingers and back, and that made Stevie smile and drift over closer to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

"Mmmm what was that all about, angel?" He held her close under the water.

"I just love you," Stevie said. "We are going to have a bunch of hot tub nights like this in our future, baby...you and me...and pools and houses with cool chandeliers and grand staircases...whatever we want." Beneath the surface of the water, she had wrapped her legs around him as the water made them both weightless and the steam rose between their wet bodies. "I know you're sad because Buckingham Nicks is over, baby...but it's not...we are Buckingham Nicks, and it's more than the music."

"It's going to be awesome, angel," he said, and his lips brushed against hers just enough to elicit a small moan from her. "When this album is done and we go out on the road for real...there'll be no stopping us." He kissed her again, longer this time, and he felt Stevie pressing herself against him closer. They were completely entwined now, all limbs around each other, heartbeats in sync as was their breathing, and he looked into her eyes, suddenly serious. "Stevie...I never really thanked you."

Stevie's nose crinkled slightly in confusion. "For what, sweetheart?"

"For years of toiling away like a chambermaid, for going out to work every day and staying up nights to record, for keeping me fed and happy and safe for all that time...it didn't go unnoticed, you know. You did that, baby...you made Buckingham Nicks work. All I did was play some chords...we would have starved to death without you and don't think I didn't see that."

Stevie had to try not to cry. Suddenly, almost five years of working hard to make ends meet flashed before her eyes - trays of beer mugs, screaming drunk men around tables calling her "sugar" and "toots", smelling like French fry grease, scrubbing Keith Olsen's oven after a dinner party his toilets after a New Years Eve party...and that line of cocaine she'd found at his desk and never knew if he'd left out on purpose as a test, which she passed as a housekeeper but failed as an honest friend when she'd cleaned up by snorting it. She remembered the night the raccoons got into his trash on the hill in the pouring rain, the night some drunken customers had followed her out of Clementine's to her old Toyota and she'd thanked God it had no reverse because she'd had to speed away...shaking like a leaf the whole drive home and listening to the old Song To A Seagull tape Lindsey had given her for her birthday in 1968 to calm down and vowing never to tell him she'd been followed - and realizing she didn't know if she was worried he'd feel guilty because she'd been working late at the club to support him or that he'd chastise her for being too open and attractive so she'd led the three drunken middle-aged men on. She forced back her tears, but Lindsey knew her like a book. He saw them.

"I love you," she said in barely more than a whisper, and they kissed again. Her memories disappeared with the heat of the water bubbling around them as well as the heat generated from their bodies pressed tight together, and with the tender caresses of his tongue to hers as the kiss lingered.

"Stephanie..." Lindsey's voice was but an exhaled breath against her neck as he began to suckle gently at her hot, damp skin. "My beautiful Stephanie...let's get out of here and go back up to bed, baby...I'll dry you up and wrap you in a big towel and lay you down in the bed and touch every inch of your body...with my fingers...with my lips..." His promises were panted against her skin as he continued to kiss, even bite, at her moist flesh and she moaned again softly in the quiet darkness of the Alabama night.

"Mmmm...baby..." Her hands were in his long damp curls, fingernails raking through his hair as their mouths reunited through the dark steamy scene. "Take me to bed...let's be Buckingham Nicks, sweetheart."

Much later, dried off and still naked beneath the motel bedsheets and turned away from Lindsey as he held her close in his sleep after making love just as he'd promised, Stevie finally let the tears flow. She was crying for the end of Buckingham Nicks the music team, crying for the end of an era, crying tears of relief at both the end of her work as a waitress and housekeeper just to put food on the table and gas in the car and tears of joy over Lindsey finally acknowledging it all...

But she was also crying because after this night, this unexpected night of tenderness and love and connection in the hot tub as well as for hours in bed after they were back upstairs and dry, she had no idea how to tell him that when Fleetwood Mac began paying them the new salary of eight hundred dollars a week, she was going to move into her own place.

She cried herself almost to sleep before turning in towards Lindsey and feeling him reach out and hold her closer as he dreamed. Her head tucked away into his bare chest, she closed her eyes and listened to his heart beating, and it was all she could do to put her guilt over wanting her own place and her own life apart from Buckingham Nicks to finally fall asleep in his arms.

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