Buckingham Nicks A/U Series Part 4: The Dance

Once In A Million Years A Lady Like Her Rises

Santa Monica, California
Saturday, January 26, 1997
(10:00 am)
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Whenever Julia thought of her mother, the first thing that came to mind was her hair.

Stevie's hair had been a dark blonde mess of curls when she was very little, then blonder and wilder and very layered in the later 1980s, but as she'd entered her teens she'd noticed her mother trying to grow it all out, having it ironed straight almost all the time, opting for a more sophisticated look. It was much lighter, much longer, and cascaded like golden silk down her back and swished around in the wind like the capes she wore on stage that Julia had tried on a million times as a little girl...particularly the Bella Donna one which seemed indestructible.

Her mother's voice was the next thing that came to mind. Not so much her singing voice but her speaking voice - it was husky and squeaky all at once, grew even more squeaky when she told a story with enthusiasm, grew darker and more emphatic when she yelled at her father and her Southwestern girl accent came out. To keep her singing voice in shape her mother drank all kinds of teas, inhaled all kinds of things from vaporizers, worked with a special coach and played his tapes while locked away upstairs in her pink jacuzzi tub...when she wasn't listening to Joni Mitchell's Blue or Court And Spark in the tub.

Stevie's voice was the first thing Julia heard when she came downstairs on Saturday morning, accompanied by the piano. Stevie was seated at the piano in her old black silk robe, her hair falling across her shoulders as she bent over the keys and played "Rhiannon" and sang along. She smiled at her daughter but did not stop to wave for fear she'd lose her place; after all these years, Stevie still played the piano only by ear. "Rhiannon" was the song she played around the house to keep in shape, Julia knew, and she deduced by her mother's morning serenade to the household that she was practicing because the reunion concert was going to happen.

"She is like a cat in the dark and then, she is your darkness," Stevie sang, burying her head back into the piano again as Julia passed by, yawning in her N.Y.U hooded sweatshirt and pajama bottoms on her way into the kitchen, smelling coffee and bacon courtesy of her father. She knew where there was weekend bacon there was also weekend blueberry pancakes - the Buckingham tradition.

"She rules her life like a fine skylark and when the sky is starless," Stevie went on. "Once in a million years a lady like her rises...Oh, Rhiannon, you cry, but she's gone and your life knows no answer...your life knows no answer..."

"Hey, kid. Pancakes coming soon." That was how Lindsey greeted his oldest child when she came into the kitchen a poured coffee into one of the matching mugs her parents had had made up when she was little as a joke. One read Don't say that you love me! on one side and Just tell me that you want me!" on the other. The other mug read Don't say that you love me! on one side and Just tell me that you need me! on the other. They had been a Valentine's Day gift from Stevie to Lindsey while they were on the Tusk tour when Julia was a baby, and for some reason she'd always gravitated towards them.

Stevie was up to the part of the song where your dreams unwind and love's a state of mind when she took a seat at one of the barstools that sat around the kitchen island. Lindsey was tossing blueberries into a ceramic bowl of pancake batter when she said in half-kidding, "Stevie Nicks came out to play pretty early today, huh?" It had been a long-running motif in their family that there was a difference between Stevie Nicks and Stephanie Buckingham...although not much of one. They were both flamboyant and loud and dramatic and constantly singing and loved with her whole heart, except, as the family joke went, Stevie Nicks had a tambourine.

"She's been at it for awhile this morning," Lindsey said, stirring the batter. "We're going to say yes to the reunion concert for MTV. We have a meeting with Warner Brothers next week."