The Dance (Original Series Part 2)

I Knew I'd Never Want To Leave

*Before we start...Obviously we know this doesn't end well, but I hope you're enjoying the ride as much as Stevie did, as she once referred to the summer of 1997 as "the best summer of her life." The angst and heartache isn't far away...

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"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday, my beautiful angel Stephanie...Happy Birthday to you..."

Stevie was asleep, dreaming of Ginny the dog. It was her twenty-fifth birthday, May 26, 1973, and she was in the tiny kitchen of the house on Orange Grove Avenue, baking herself a cake. The afternoon sun shone in from the window which she kept open both for the breeze and to clear away some of the lingering smell of pot that hung in the air; Lindsey and Richard had been doing bong hits all day with a random guy named Tommy they'd found at a record store while searching for Led Zeppelin's House Of The Holy. She had gotten the best advice she could on the phone from Barbara about how to make her own carrot cake from scratch, complete with the cream cheese icing, and she'd spent more money than she could have on the ingredients at the store. Barbara had reminded her of her favorite song the year she was three, a song by Eileen Barton called "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked A Cake", which she used to sing into her mother's hairbrush standing on top of the dining room table, cracking herself up with the lyric, "Hired a band, for Goodness sake!" The icing was made and sitting in the fridge, the carrot cake was almost done and Ginny the dog was suddenly at her feet, looking bored and lonely.

"Come here, cutie pie!" She'd scooped up Ginny in her arms, and with an armful of white fluff, she began dancing around the kitchen to the radio, which was playing "Dancing In The Moonlight" by King Harvest. Ginny wasn't enjoying the dance as much as her mom, who was having a great time singing to her baby, "We don't bark and we don't bite; it's a supernatural delight...Everybody was dancing in the moonlight..."

She was careful to keep her little birthday party for two under wraps, as Lindsey was napping on the couch, his guests gone, sleeping off a day of entirely too much marijuana before they sang Happy Birthday after a dinner of hamburgers and frozen French fries, shoved in some carrot cake and headed to the the basement where they would spend hours doing their best to top Buckingham Nicks, something they had not yet figured out how to do. She had not been paying attention to the doorway, so she didn't notice that Lindsey had woken up from his nap, wearing jeans and no shirt, and taken her in his arms from behind and begun to sing the Happy Birthday song, kissing her neck from behind...

"Wake up, sweet girl, or you'll miss your whole entire birthday." Lindsey lay beside her in bed, dropping tiny kisses along her neck as she stirred awake, realizing that he'd been singing her awake the whole time. She smiled at the gentle touch of his lips on her skin, and then turned around to face him.

"Mmmm...you're lucky I love you, because I don't like being woken up before I have to on a Monday morning...or any morning." She stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. "What time is it?"

"It's about nine," said Lindsey. "It's your birthday, baby, and I want you to get the most out of the whole twenty-four hours of the day you were born...and also I'm dying to give you your presents!" Lindsey sounded more excited for her birthday than she did, she thought.

"Well are any of my presents a hug? Because I was just dreaming of my birthday when I turned twenty-five and you were holding me in my dream and it felt so warm." Lindsey heard this and immediately lay down beside her so he could hold her from behind. She pulled his arm over her and took his hand to start playing with his fingers, and he kissed the back of her head.

"You're not going to like this one bit, but I have to go back to my house for a little while today," Lindsey said, twirling a strand of her hair in his fingers.