Stevie felt like she was losing her mind, the past week a nightmare that refused to end. She gazed out the limo, for once content to keep to herself as Christine and Mick discussed what exactly awaited them at the press conference. Organized at the instruction of their management, the unhospitalized members of the band would be available to the press to discuss the multiple cancellations they'd faced on account of the complications following Lindsey's procedure. Of course, that meant Mick would drone on for an hour as journalists asked more and more invasive questions and the other three would sit there and interject when necessary.
"What am I allowed to say to these people exactly? Can I say that Lindsey has epilepsy?" Christine queried.
"Absolutely not." Mick responded firmly, "We aren't volunteering any information about medical diagnoses. We're to deal in solely immediate relevancy. He's in stable condition, not seriously sick, on the mend etc."
"Well then I honestly don't know why we're doing this, Mick, if we can't tell them anything! Might as well have taken care of it in a press release than sit in a stuffy room for an hour." Christine pushed back, sunglasses falling to the tip of her nose as she stared down the man in the seat across.
"It's very simple," Mick patronized, clearly irritated, "We are doing this conference so they don't assume we're blowing off the dates for no reason to have dinner and drinks down the street! I meant it's been a week already, for God's sake."
Christine rolled her eyes, clearly done with the conversation.
"Whatever you say, Mick."
"I just don't understand why they would think that?" Stevie couldn't help but interject. "I mean, Lindsey is in the hospital, with an open wound down to the bone that refuses to close up. His doctors won't let him leave for good reason, what are we supposed to do? And we have to sit there and deal with these nosy people pointing fingers at us like we did something wrong–"
"Stevie, listen to what I am saying! This entire thing has been an utter shitshow from the beginning! We've gone through this completely in the dark, cancelling shows one after another with no clue in hell when exactly we can reschedule them! I mean, for fuck's sake, let's just go in there, sit down, and tell them as much as we can. If you two don't know what to say, then just keep silent for god's sake. Would be doing us all a favor quite frankly..." Mick pressed a hand to his temple, at wit's end.
Stevie turned back to the window as Mick finished his tirade. What they'd initially hoped would be a single day of rest and recovery post-op before resuming their tour schedule had snowballed into four cancelled concerts within the week as Lindsey's wound from the operation refused to heal. Facing near constant phone calls, Mick was in continuous communication with the label, event organizers, and Lindsey's doctors. The news Lindsey likely did have a mild form of epilepsy had taken a backseat to the scheduling disaster slowly unfolding before their eyes. Not to mention, Lindsey had been in terrible pain, physically and emotionally, repeating again and again just how badly he felt about everything. Knowing him as someone who hardly ever complained about discomfort or illness, it'd been awful for her to witness him in such obvious agony. All in all, it'd been awful, and when they finally left, Stevie would be glad to be rid of this city.
Their car slowed at a traffic light, allowing her a better glimpse of their surroundings. A historical church sat just beyond view, the rough grey stone peeking through black steel spiral fencing. The car began to pick up speed again, her view of the church slowly transitioning into that of a graveyard, headstones unkempt and clearly left to waste away.
"Oh, I love graveyards. You know who else loves graveyards? Lindsey. Lindsey loves graveyards." Stevie spoke aloud, suddenly thinking of the times she'd gone with him to visit his father on trips up to see the Buckinghams. Lindsey once told her, holding her hand tightly on the drive back to his mom's house, that visiting the cemetery was now a strangely sacred experience for him, that sadness became a kindred feeling among strangers there. Stevie had squeezed his hand lovingly, telling him that they'd make a poet of him yet, and she remembered the flicker of joy in her heart as he'd cracked his first smile of the day before lifting her fingers to kiss them, eyes returning to the road.
