Say You Will Part 1: Destiny Rules

If I Can't Get You To Dance

Hollywood, California
February 15, 2002
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Lindsey was wearing the necklace again.

It was the morning of their meeting with Warner Brothers, and Stevie had woken up early, which she hated to do, to be around when they played their songs for a few executives from the label...which she also hated to do. It wasn't the sharing of her songs she had a problem with, nor was it the guys who'd be hearing it...it was that she had to sit there and watch as Lindsey got deeper and deeper into the weeds artistically and pushed for this to be a double album, reminiscent of Tusk back in 1979, and she had to sit there and watch Lindsey be Lindsey and not grasp the idea that this was not solely about art; this was a business. Whenever they'd had a disagreement about art and money over the years, she would watch a tiny piece of Lindsey's soul die because he was, deep down, a true artist and his commitment to his work was almost too pure to even be involved in the recording industry. She hated watching that happen every time because she loved the artist in Lindsey and she had ever since their first-ever jam session with Fritz in 1968. Watching Lindsey's eyes light up over music was as beautiful to her as watching him deal with the business end was painful. And as Fleetwood Mac gathered at the house that morning to prepare for their meeting, her heart tore in two for him the way it always did when these things came up. He sat on the sofa cross-legged and explained himself to her about it and all she could think was, My God, I love this man. I love that pure, giving, creative soul, that part of him that almost doesn't exist in the real world that makes him uniquely himself, that makes it so hard to walk away every time I know it's the right thing to do.

He was wearing the necklace, and he had been wearing it every day. It was a short black rope that ended in a heavy silver medallion, very much his style, and she still remembered him opening it in Cincinnati, Ohio on his forty-eighth birthday, late at night after one of their shows on The Dance tour among a few other gifts, alone and naked in their hotel room before he thanked her for his birthday presents and then kissed her all the way back against the pillows so he could get his favorite of all of his gifts from her - to bury himself as deep inside of her as he could and spend the rest of the night there, playing her body as expertly as the six strings of a guitar until they both collapsed, exhausted and happy and still tingling all over, in each other's arms until morning.

She forced that memory from her head to deal instead with the matter at hand - the meeting with Warner Brothers.

"I don't know; I think that with those kind of people, I don't know that you can play them five hours of music before they start to sink into the couch." He had been taking all morning about playing them everything they had, showing them the different avenues they could take the album to, not realizing that this meeting was not about art; it was about record sales.

"The range of material that I have to offer..." Lindsey was using dramatic hand gestures as he spoke. "...certainly represents where this album could be seen in terms of style - if it's going to be a conservative album, if we're going to play it safe, or if we're going to go out there and really redefine ourselves in the most credible way possible...I don't think it makes a lot of sense just to try to limit what he's hearing." Lindsey clenched a fist, closing his eyes, and she knew he was going to that place, that creative genius space which was where she'd fallen in love with him over thirty years ago.

"Well I would have only said that you might want to limit it only because this is the first time you've ever met them," she said on her way out of the room to go get something to drink. Stevie had been trying to save Lindsey from himself this way for most of her adult life.

"Well let's see...let's see what happens," Lindsey said. "I'm mean, if he's coming over here wanting to hear music, and that's the basic premise, then we should play him music. That's his job." The cordless phone in front of him was ringing as he spoke, and as Stevie disappeared to the kitchen, she heard him say to the person on the phone, "No, not too late. I'll be home around dinner time...I haven't forgotten what today is."