Say You Will Part 1: Destiny Rules

Anywhere We Can, Anytime We Can

***ATTENTION, BUCKINGHAM NICKS FANS! Stick with the business talk at the start of this chapter (what actually occurred) for some hot and heavy smut right afterwards!***

Hollywood, California

Thursday, October 15, 2002
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"It's been going on all week, last week...all week long."

Karen Johnston, a consummate professional who never missed a beat when it came to her boss' business affairs, was exasperated and drained as she sat in an armchair with Sulamith lying on top of her lap, resting her tiny head against the jeans she wore with a purple top. Stevie looked as exasperated as Karen did, sitting crossed legged on the red sofa in the recording room. Stevie was wearing red leather pants, and Lindsey was actually partially grateful for the business snafu they were discussing because he had not been able to take his eyes off of her in those pants.

"What's been going on all week?" Lindsey asked Karen.

"They just want the deal memo to be signed," Karen explained. "All last week...They started trying to do this on Monday."

Stevie chimed in with, "It's true...she's telling you the...it's true."

Chris Lord-Alge, Stevie's choice for sound mixer on the album, which they had decided would be called Say You Will, was supposed to have studio time for them the following day, but without Lindsey's team signing the deal memo, there was no way they could proceed. Lindsey spoke up and tried explaining to Karen and Stevie why he was unhappy with the deal. He said, "But they wanted things from me that I couldn't give them, like, 'What are the twenty tracks that are going to be on this. I'm not even sure I'm going to use Chris...'What are the ten tracks of yours that we're going to be mixing?' I'm not going to tell them that because I don't know!"

Stevie, who did not want there to be anymore conflict over this album than what they'd already gone through regarding whether or not to have Say You Will be a double album, tried to be reasonable. She said, "Nobody's saying it's anybody's fault, but if it happened it happened. If we lost the day, we lost the day."

Karen told Lindsey, "Stevie's attorneys haven't been involved in this until today because it's the producers...it's a producers' contract."

"All I know is that they've been asking for things from me that I was not prepared to give, nor should they have been asking for! It's not relevant to what we're doing at this point. This is not about the whole album yet. This is about me giving them one of the tracks..."

Stevie understood what Lindsey was saying, but the whole point of what Karen had told him was to get the mixing done in a timely fashion, so she said, "Well it does look like it's about that I lost tomorrow, to mix my song, so it's totally about me now. I don't know what to do about this, but maybe we should go and call Chris Lord-Alge and see if they're any...like has tomorrow already been booked?"

"Why don't you call Tony and have that conversation with him," Lindsey suggested, thinking his manager would be able to smooth things over. "You and Tony can figure out what to do to get tomorrow back. Do you want Tony's number?"

"Yes." Stevie began to stroke Sulamith's little body after Karen deposited the dog next to her on the couch after getting up from the chair.

"Here, I'll dial it," said Lindsey, getting up himself. "Now what did I just do with the phone?" He looked around for the cordless phone, and when he found it, he began to dial the office number for Tony Dimitriades, his manager. Into the phone, he said, "Hi, it's Lindsey. Is Tony around?" He waited for Tony to come to the phone, and when he did, he said, "Hello. Well, the people over here are pointing fingers at us, so..."