Twisted (Original Series Part 1)

The Gypsy That She Was

The first thing Lindsey noticed when she walked into the room was her long, golden hair and the way it almost entered the room before she did.

He had, admittedly, not known what to expect when she arrived, how she would look, what state of mind she'd be in, or even how to greet her. The last time he'd seen her, she had looked so fragile, kind of stricken, graying roots growing into her once-blonde hair, still about thirty pounds heavier than she had been for most of her adult life, and definitely not the Stevie Nicks that the public knew...nor the Stevie Nicks he had known since he was in the eleventh grade in Atherton and he'd seen her sidle up to him - all five feet one inches of her in a flowered mini dress and singing "California Dreamin'" ten times better than Michelle Phillips - and immediately capture his heart. He had taken one long last look at her the last day he'd seen her, the day he'd driven her home from rehab after the forty-seven-day stay that had nearly broken her, not sure if he should leave her, even upon her insistence that "Karen was all over it" and that she needed to stand on her own two feet now, without him hovering over her. Walking down the driveway to his car that day he'd felt terribly uneasy leaving her, both because she still looked like a full recovery was a long way off...and because he had no idea when and if he'd ever see her again...and that was why he'd cried on his drive home, purposely listening to "Silver Springs" on repeat.

But there she was, walking into the room on a Friday afternoon all smiles and Dior sunglasses and golden hair out of place that she was struggling to smooth with her hands after getting caught in the wind outside. She was dressed all in black and carrying a big black tote bag spilling over with everything from cassette tapes to sketch pads to pink yarn with a crochet hook sticking out of it, and Lindsey knew all too well that what she was carrying was her "studio kit", her name for her bag of tricks that she carried to a recording studio when she knew she would be there for the long haul. Karen trailed behind her, rolling a big Louis Vuitton suitcase behind her that belonged to Stevie and was personalized with engraving into the leather - SLN. Stephanie Lynn Nicks. And she was Stephanie...his Stephanie...and she was back. Back to the gypsy that she was, he thought, trying not to grin like a lovesick teenage boy.

"Oh, man, what've you guys got going on in here?" she said as she stepped over wires for headphones and amplifiers that were strewn across the floor like so many guitar strings and pads of paper, clearly reflecting the weeks of hard work that Lindsey and Mick had been experiencing there in the studio, which was actually a rented house in Santa Monica not far from the pier. Both Mick and Lindsey rose from their seats when they saw Stevie and Karen enter the room, and Lindsey pretended not to be crestfallen when Stevie went to greet Mick first with a kiss and a long hug.

"Hello, my love," Mick said as he held her, Stevie barely reaching his shoulders because she was not in her usual high-heeled boots and Mick having to bend himself considerably to embrace her. "You're looking absolutely stunning, my dear, but what else is new?"

"I've missed your English charm, Mick," Stevie said with a slight giggle as she pulled away from him. After about two years in battle over the rights to "Silver Springs", which Mick had not let her add to Timespace,  her retrospective album, they had finally found their way back to being best friends, actually toasting to their friendship at a restaurant in West Hollywood a few weeks earlier with glasses of Coke, as neither were drinking these days, shouting, "To the chain that keeps us together!" Mick has admitted over dinner that he'd been selfish the whole time, and told her how breathtaking he'd thought she looked on the cover of her retrospective album when he'd seen its release. (She only called it a "retrospective album, as she loathed the idea of a "greatest hits" compilation!) As she turned away from Mick's embrace, that was when her wide brown eyes found Lindsey's and held there for a long moment, both of them frozen, Stevie unable to escape the crystal blue eyes she hadn't seen in so long. "Through the crystal-like clear water fountain," she sang in her head before forcing herself not to go there. Instead, she extended her arms and said, simply, "Hey, Linds."