JANUARY 16th, 2019, LOS ANGELES, CA
THEY BUSTLED AROUND her in groups of two and three, speaking frantically into headsets and pushing anyone aside who got in their way. The stagehands were quite obviously not putting up with anyone's shit that night. But Lindy had planned ahead; she'd sidestepped the commotion early on and was waiting in the backstage area of the Los Angeles Forum in the shadowed darkness of the stage wings, anxiously watching the crowd from a distance.
It was everything she had expected and more.
Lindy would have never insulted the memory of Chris Cornell by assuming that his tribute concert would be a small one. Aside from the star-studded lineup performing that night, the outpouring of fans in the audience was staggering. The energy of the entire forum was electric, unlike anything Lindy had ever felt. It was every possible human emotion folded into one night — sadness, longing, happiness, celebration, and even repressed anger.
Those who adored Chris had really shown up for the occasion, and they'd come with full intent to honor him.
There were obviously many lovers of Soundgarden present in the forum that evening, but Lindy had gulped when she and her family had arrived earlier in the day only to see swarms of people donning Nirvana shirts. Even the younger generation of fans who were there proudly sported the smiley face logo that had become a famous attribute of the nineties.
This was strange, considering that no one had formally announced that Nirvana would be performing.
It was meant to be a surprise. That had been decided from the start. With Chris in mind, Kurt, Dave and Krist were going to take the stage and absolutely shock the world. But the media mongers who'd been awaiting the event for weeks were smart. Someone had placed the seed of thought into the public that Nirvana would make an appearance — clearly, someone who was very good at eavesdropping — and then the frenzy had started.
Besides fans, reporters were there that night too. Most of them had been sent with the job of recounting the evening's performances, but everyone had the same anticipatory thought in mind — was Nirvana going to perform?
The only people who knew for sure were those backstage and the few family members that Kurt, Dave and Krist had invited. Somewhere in the VIP section of the audience, Kim, Beth, Trae, Allie and Hannah were waiting and watching along with Dave and Krist's family.
Lindy, Charlie and Frances were all backstage with Kurt and the rest of the band, standing by while other performances took place. Danny had first suggested that Nirvana close out the night by being the last group to take the stage, but Kurt had fought against this. He insisted that in doing so, Nirvana would be stealing the spotlight away from Chris's memory. Lindy had agreed.
Instead, they were going to be performing after Chris Stapleton, who was slated to cover Chris's song 'The Keeper.' After that, Nirvana was going to make their second debut to date.
Lindy continued to linger by the side of the stage, watching Nikki Costa and Alain Johannes wrap up their rendition of 'Disappearing One.' She gnawed on her thumbnail, feeling like she herself was about to go out there and perform.
"You haven't left this spot all night."
Having not been expecting the company, Lindy jumped as Charlie joined her. He was smiling, amused by his mother's persistence in hanging by the stage.
"I'm trying to watch the show," Lindy quipped back irritatedly. She didn't want anyone to know just how nervous she actually felt, least of all the most confident one of the bunch.
"With your thumb in your mouth?"
"Alright," Lindy griped, facing her son fully and folding her arms. "Who gave you the right to be so nosy?"
"I'm just stating what I see," Charlie said, raising his hands in defense. And then, in a classic Charlie move, he pulled Lindy into a hug and squeezed her tightly.
Lindy didn't snap any smart comment back; she was a sucker for Charlie's hugs and he knew it. Being enveloped in one calmed her down significantly.
"Don't be nervous, Mom," Charlie urged. "It's going to be great."
"I know. It's just been so long."
"Feeling nostalgic yet?"
"Kind of," Lindy admitted. It was weird to be readying herself for a Nirvana performance. She hadn't done so in years and had nearly forgotten what it felt like to anticipate seeing Kurt go on stage, guitar in hand.
"Did you realize that this is going to be the first time I've ever seen Dad perform live?" Charlie questioned.
"Really?" Lindy had never thought of this before.
"Yeah. I mean, if you don't count the mini-concerts he used to put on for me when I was kid."
"Well," Lindy said, pushing past her anxiety and smiling. "That makes tonight all the more special then."
Nikki and Alain finished on stage to the roar of approval from the crowd, waving goodbye and disappearing into the wings where they sauntered by Lindy and Charlie. Chris Stapleton was preparing to walk out, gently plucking on the strings of his acoustic in a quick sound test.
"Where's your sister?" Lindy asked, attempting to divert her mind from the fact that Nirvana was only one performance away from presenting themselves to the world again.
"Somewhere back here. Want me to go find her?"
"Yes please. I'd feel better if she was in my sight," Lindy sighed.
Charlie grabbed her by the shoulder, peering into her eyes with excitement shining brightly in his own. Nothing could have ruined the way he felt that night, not even Lindy's unnecessary worrying.
"Like I said, don't be nervous. This is going to be awesome."
Lindy touched her son's face, proud to see him be so supportive of Kurt. He truly had no fear of how it would all pan out. In Charlie's mind, Nirvana had already sealed the deal and taken everyone aback with exuberant surprise.
He bounded off, slipping into the mass of backstage crew and musicians all piled into one gathering. As Lindy watched him leave, she caught sight of Kurt, talking casually with Buzz Osbourne. It was no shocker that they'd already been chatting for awhile, with this being their first time to catch up in a few years. Lindy had always had the impression that Kurt was a little nervous around Buzz, but he appeared to be anything but while standing next to him then.
He must have felt her stare, for his blue eyes found her brown ones and he turned to Buzz, saying goodbye before walking over to Lindy. He looked the same as he always did in his shabby jeans and sweater that was pushed up past his forearms. At Lindy's request, he'd kept his beard scruff; she liked it when he neglected to go clean-shaven.
"Hi," Kurt greeted her. Immediately, he took her in his arms, knowing without question that it was her safe place.
"Are you here to tell me to stop being a nervous wreck too?" she frowned.
"No," Kurt said. "I'm here to tell you that you turn me on."
Lindy pushed his chest playfully and he grinned, not looking anywhere near as anxious as Lindy felt. He grabbed her again, wresting her back into his embrace.
"No, seriously. You look really good."
She was predictably draped head to toe in black. Lindy's ensemble consisted of her usual, which was black jeans, black heeled boots and a black, long-sleeved off the shoulder shirt. Her hair had been done just the way she knew Kurt admired it best. Half up, half down and wavy. The same as it had been on the night of the MTV Unplugged performance.
"That makes me feel a little better," she jested, sliding her arms around his waist.
"Good. I don't want you to throw up back here or anything like that while we're on stage."
A round of cheering and applause caught Lindy's attention, and she looked over her shoulder and out onto the stage where Chris was crooning into a microphone while strumming his guitar. She felt herself tense up.
"A lot of people out there are hoping to see you," she murmured.
"So much for surprises. Hey, my condition is good and ready to go right?"
Lindy resisted rolling her eyes. Kurt had been holding his 'condition' over everyone's heads since December, always reminding them that Nirvana would in no way be partaking in the tribute concert if his 'condition' was not met. He'd nearly driven Danny crazy.
"Last time I checked, yes, it was."
Chris finished his song and bid the audience goodbye, leaving the stage empty once more. The lights were slightly dimmed and crew members rushed the stage, re-organizing it in preparation for Nirvana. Several stools were set out at the front of the stage, close to the first row of excited audience members.
Dave and Krist joined Lindy and Kurt in the wings, Krist having momentarily traded in his bass for an acoustic, and Dave carrying his drumsticks in one hand and an acoustic guitar in the other. He handed the acoustic to Kurt with a nod.
"You ready?"
Lindy gripped Kurt's arm, almost unwilling to let him go. In moments, he would be taken back to a time he had already lived in. He would feel the glow of stage lighting on his face, hear the sound of thousands of screams and put his guitar strings under the precise fingers. He would still be the Kurt she knew and loved, she'd always been confident of that. But now was his second chance to thrive.
"Kurt," she whispered tightly. The audience was beginning to cheer as the crew left the stage.
"I love you," he said quickly. He bent his face down to hers and kissed her, closing his eyes and remembering a time in his life when he'd had to memorize her kiss because he never thought he'd feel it again. Now, it was a token of luck for him, something he'd never have to worry about forgetting because she would never leave him.
And then all at once, the three of them were walking out onto the stage and into the bright white lights shining down from above. Lindy held her breath, but she barely had time to focus on her lack of breathing before the screams started. They were deafening, ricocheting off of every surface in the forum as Kurt, Dave and Krist reclaimed the spotlight.
It felt like it went on for hours. The clamoring of the audience never died down in light of the revolutionary turning point in rock that was taking place. Lindy could feel it all around her. With both hands, she covered her mouth.
Kurt adjusted the microphone in front of him, casually looking back at Krist and Dave and mouthing words to them. If he were to speak, his bandmates would not have been able to hear simply due to all the yelling. Lindy was surprised a full-blown riot had not broken out over their reunion. The truth was finally out.
Once his mic was in place, Kurt brought it to his mouth, hesitating as he surveyed the scene spread out before him. The smallest of smirks formed on his lips as he waited, the screams hardly dying down.
"Hi there," he said, the sound booming outwards from the microphone and over the heads of the crowd. Kurt's greeting was met with more screams of approval.
"I know this is unexpected," Kurt began, as if he were speaking nonchalantly with Buzz again. "But when we were told this was going to be for Chris, we knew that we had to come."
Everyone cheered in response. Lindy's hands remained covering her mouth, though she had no idea why she was surprised. The reaction had been ever better than she'd imagined.
"We're gonna . . . we're gonna do two songs for you," Kurt explained, pausing in between his sentence to adjust himself on his stool with his guitar. "But for the first one, I'm actually going to need some extra help."
Lindy had not even processed that both Charlie and Frances had edged up next to her. She had been too enthralled by what was going on in front of her to have noticed both of them waiting calmly for their cue from Kurt.
"Wish us luck," Charlie told her as Kurt looked to the side of the stage, making eye contact with his children.
Together, with Charlie holding his own acoustic in hand, Charlie and Frances joined Kurt and the rest of Nirvana on stage.
Kurt's condition had been fulfilled.
If the first round of the audience's shouts of encouragement had been loud, then the ones that occurred as Charlie and Frances appeared were absolutely thunderous. Not only had they gotten Kurt, Dave and Krist, but now also Kurt's kids, the very reason for his existence as Kurt liked to proclaim. The listeners had the brilliant talent of Dave, Krist, Kurt, and now two extra Cobains who were just as capable as their father was.
Charlie and Frances sat on the two stools provided next to Kurt, Frances taking the spot in the middle. They both perched themselves happily, smiling at Kurt with an even mixture of pride and love.
"I'm sure these two don't need an introduction," Kurt said, grinning at his kids. No one had ever seen him smile so big while on stage.
"Ladies and gentleman, the new Nirvana!" Dave crowed from behind his drum set into his own microphone, standing and clapping towards the three of them. A scattered outcry of laughter sounded through the audience, though Lindy was sure they would have definitely preferred the original Nirvana to Dave's idea of a new one.
"Temporarily," Frances said into her mic, wearing one of her beautiful, buoyant smiles.
"Don't be fooled," Charlie added, accompanying the banter. "Bean plays guitar better than me, but she's also the better singer, so we had to settle for this."
There was another promising reaction from the audience that preceded the few passing seconds of silence as the members of Nirvana, along with Charlie and Frances, prepared to launch into their first song. As far as Lindy knew, they would play an original Nirvana track before using one of Chris's songs to top off the set.
"This is called 'All Apologies,'" Kurt announced. "And tonight we'd like to dedicate it to Chris."
They all applauded and shouted once more; everyone knew the song, and some were probably keen enough to know that Kurt had once dedicated it to his infant daughter, who now sat fully grown beside him.
They had not even played the first note, yet Lindy could feel her tears pooling in her eyes and blurring her vision. It would be something she had never heard before. Three acoustic guitars, one played by her son, a drum kit, and Kurt and Frances's voices singing the song that she most loved out of anything written by her husband.
Softly, they began, Krist, Kurt and Charlie tackling the opening chords to 'All Apologies' with fixed concentration. Frances looked at Kurt, and together, they started to sing.
Lindy had imagined heaven many times.
At the start of her life, heaven had been any place where her mother was. She would have given up living just to be in that version of heaven solely for Hannah. Later on, after she'd met Kurt, heaven was the ideal setting for forever happiness between them both. Lindy had dreamed of that heaven often, usually already present in it when Kurt had been around.
When they'd broken up, and also when Kurt had almost committed suicide, heaven had been a dark place, one Lindy had started to doubt even existed.
But as she stood to the side of the stage of the Los Angeles Forum, Lindy was hit with the abrupt awareness that heaven was none of the things she had once thought of before.
Heaven was right in front of her. Heaven was, without a single doubt in her world, listening to the sweet sound of Charlie's guitar playing and Kurt and Frances's voices fusing together in song. Heaven was seeing the future Lindy had once prayed for when Kurt almost died -- it was a future with his kids, his babies. Heaven was knowing that she'd been just in telling Kurt to go ahead and live, because one day it would be worth the struggle.
Now she knew how very right she'd been.
Lindy Clayton had been through it all and paid the price for love and happiness. Lindy Cobain had lived off of that paid price, remembering every day that she would have never been wholly herself if it weren't for the soulmate she'd found within Kurt.
What had started out as a crush, a distraction from the difficulty of the reality Lindy had lived in as a teenager, had turned into Lindy's one true source of bliss.
The man she had cried over, slept with in her childhood bedroom and watched smash guitars without a care in the world was her life. It was the same man who she'd held in her arms as he had nearly slipped away, the same man who had come back to her, and the same man who had gifted her the best gift of all; Charlie.
Kurt had been right all along, though he had been right about many things in his lifetime.
Kurt and Lindy were soulmates.
And they always would be.