My Heart

And We Stand Alone

Santa Monica, California
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
(8:30 pm)
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"What shall we drink to?"

Lindsey was pouring the wine equally into two glasses of Waterford crystal that he remembered Stevie purchasing on a shopping trip with Christine some years back when the Say You Will tour had brought them to Ireland and Christine had driven in from England for a day's reunion. Stevie had been a nervous wreck that afternoon before Christine's arrival, he recalled, running around from room to room making sure of dinner reservations and wine lists and then bothering the hell out of poor Karen - all the while with two enormous curlers affixed to the top of her head - about a special gift from a jeweler in Dublin that absolutely had to be delivered before Christine appeared at the hotel. He thought back to Stevie's slightly tearful, slightly tipsy toast much later that night at the five-star restaurant where Fleetwood Mac - its retired piano player included - had gone to dinner without managers, assistants, spouses or children, just the five of them, together again, if not on stage.

"Here's to Chris...who agreed to join us today, proving that no matter how much time goes by, there really is a chain that keeps us together."

Stevie's eyes were fixed on Sulamith, who was twelve years old and now suffered from vision loss and was taking longer in the dark to do her business. She turned absentmindedly to Lindsey, who had poured two generous glasses of wine and was looking at her expectantly. "What?"

"A toast," Lindsey explained, holding out a filled wine glass which Stevie accepted as if she'd forgotten that's what they were doing. "To your song, and to me hopefully figuring out how to make it work."

"Oh...yes." She shook her head as if to jog herself back to reality, and then lifted her glass. "To the song...and to you, Lindsey. Thanks for doing this. I know you probably have a million things going on right now and you really didn't need one more."

"It's my pleasure, Stevie," he said with a grin, and then tilted his glass forward until it touched hers with a clinking sound. He sipped his wine, which prompted her to do the same. The silence was back in the air then, and it endured until Lindsey said at last, "Uh, Stevie...not to seem clueless or anything here but you know, you were the one who said you'd like to talk...which is why we're out here."

Stevie's eyes in the dim light from the deck and the kitchen lights through the open glass door suddenly appeared bigger and more fawn-like, and Lindsey got the impression that she felt somehow trapped, as if she'd had plenty to say to him after dinner but now found herself put on the spot. She drank more of her wine and then, swallowing awkwardly, she said, "You're right; I'm sorry." She cleared her throat nervously. "I just wanted to get you alone for a moment to make sure that you were okay with being here, that you're okay to work with us all...work with me specifically...you know...after everything."

It was unspoken yet not a secret to either of them that they had not been particularly comfortable with each other since their night in San Jose. Stevie remembered a comment from her brother Christopher after catching their show in Phoenix on the tour, telling her that the lovey-dovey performances on stage looked forced, that watching their little hugs after "Landslide" and "Never Going Back Again" were like watching two strangers thinking about the "grilled cheese and tomato soup they were going to order from room service after the show." Stevie hadn't had the heart - or the guts - to inform Christopher that the distance between Lindsey and herself was not because they were feuding again, but because one night in San Jose they'd let a trip down Memory Lane, as well as too many margaritas, reopen a can of worms that had been closed the moment Lindsey had called Kristen after The Dance during the holiday season of 1997 and informed her that he intended to make their relationship work and be a full-time father to their unplanned, unborn child. She'd never even told anyone else - her brother, Karen, Lori, Sharon or even Barbara - that the can of worms had been pried open a few times during the Say You Will tour, that their infamous night in San Jose in 2009 had simply been the long-overdue conclusion of several unfinished make-out sessions backstage, several tearful late-night phone calls with declarations of love from Lindsey that got him yelled at, Stevie shouting into the phone and alarming the dogs at her side as she told him it wasn't fair, that he'd made his choice, that if she was not willing to be The Other Woman for Rupert Hine or Derek Taylor or even Mick Fleetwood, what made him think she'd do it for him?

Lindsey remembered those phone calls, just as he remembered the stolen kisses backstage on the Say You Will tour, the unmistakable love in her eyes as he'd accepted his cheers and applause for "Red Rover", or the way she'd clung to him just a little too long the night a fight had broken out the audience as she'd mustered the courage to sing "Goodbye Baby", which she's written about the unborn child they'd conceived together from love but would never get to know. It was suddenly very apparent to Lindsey just how awful the past thirteen years had been to Stevie, and he was beginning to realize why he'd been so quick to pack up and come over to help her record a song...

Every ounce of pain Stevie had felt since Thanksgiving 1997 was his fault, and he'd be spending the rest of his life trying to make it up to her in any way he could.

"It's absolutely fine, Stevie," he assured her, his eyes narrowing in kindness as he smiled. "I wouldn't have come if it wasn't."

"I just wouldn't want you to resent me," Stevie admitted before she drank from her wine glass again. Lindsey could sense her anxiety, and he couldn't be certain of it, but he would have sworn he could see her hands shaking a bit as she held her glass.

"Resent you?" He looked at her with genuine surprise. "Why on earth would I resent you?"

Stevie looked all around the yard as if searching for hidden cameras. "Lindsey..." She lowered her voice then. "You committed adultery for me! I am the person who made you break your marriage vows! Don't think I don't realize that, okay, because I do."

"You make it sound as if there was a gun to my head that night, Stevie!" Lindsey looked around then himself, and when he was done he inched closer to her. She IS trembling, he acknowledged. "I knew what I was doing the entire time...and I wanted to do it. I wanted to make love to you that night...and the next morning." He watched Stevie's eyes lower to the ground beneath her, embarrassed. Moving closer to her again, his eyes found hers in the darkness and his free hand dropped softly to her wrist. "I don't regret a thing about that night, Stephanie. As far as I'm concerned, we shared a lovely evening with old friends, we had a great time together afterwards just talking...and then we decided to continue that great time together and enjoy each other's company even more. We're okay, Stevie."

"We are?" Stevie looked up into his eyes as if searching for confirmation. "Are you sure?"

"You never have to ask me if I'm okay after spending a night beside you, angel." He smiled, the hand on her wrist slipping downward until he held her hand in his. "It was a great night," he added. "Best night I've had in a long time, in fact."

"It was," Stevie admitted, looking down again and then back to him. She was beginning to feel the effects of the wine, which was her fourth glass of the evening, but just as she began to wonder if her dizziness was the fault of the wine or the touch of Lindsey's hand, her thoughts were interrupted by the sudden high-pitched bark of a little dog who had found her way back to the deck and was ready to be brought inside. They both laughed, and Lindsey took the glass from Stevie's hand so she could pick up Sulamith and carry her into the house.

"Let's go inside," Lindsey suggested. "It's chilly out here now...not to mention there's a group of people in there wondering what happened to us."

"Dave has to go home soon," Stevie said. "He promised his wife he wouldn't spend all night in this house full of hippies and stick her with the kids." She jostled the dog in her arms to hold her more comfortably. "Maybe then we can look at the song?"

"You bet." Lindsey smiled at her again, and as Stevie turned to walk back toward the sliding door, her dog in her arms, she realized with a shudder that it was not the wine that was making her dizzy.

She was dizzy because the touch of Lindsey's hand just then had reminded her of the way he'd touched her in San Jose the year before, and knowing he didn't resent her for that night made her wonder if working together so closely would open the door to another night of being touched by him in that way he had, that magical way he had of touching her that made her feel like the last thirteen years had only been a bad dream, and she was finally allowed to come home.

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