Landslide (Original Series Prequel 2)

Can I Handle The Seasons Of My Life

Los Angeles, California
Tuesday, March 26, 1974
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Stevie sat on the little cushion she'd placed on the window sill in the kitchen and watched daylight come in over the relentless sheets of rain that poured down over Orange Grove Avenue. She had been awake since four, finally leaving the bed and the comfort of Lindsey's arms at about five-thirty, slipping out of the comforter that had been Barbara's joint Christmas gift to them as gently as possible so as to not disturb her sleeping dog. Ginny wasn't due to have breakfast until seven, and if she woke up now she'd demand to be fed, throwing her off schedule and making her hungry for dinner too early, before she got home from cleaning Keith's house after her shift at Clementine's. Ginny was sound asleep, pressed to Lindsey's side as Stevie got up to use the bathroom and put coffee on, and she looked down at the mattress on the floor that cradled her sleeping family and all she thought was, Must be nice to be a poodle...or Lindsey Buckingham. Everyone thinks you're cute and loves you to pieces and you don't even have to lift a finger or go outside in the cold, dark rain.

She pulled a heavy black cardigan on over her pajamas - an old pair of silk bell bottoms from The Velvet Underground that were worn out and a little loose now - she'd recently dropped below a hundred pounds again - and the precious Rolling Stones t-shirt. It had become her prize, at least temporarily, ever since they'd come home from Arizona after the holidays and Lindsey had watched her go off to her first shift at Clementine's...almost a peace offering. She couldn't help but smile down at the shirt with the trademark tongue logo before pouring black Folgers coffee into a mug that, ironically, said Polydor on it, most likely swiped from the office or part of one of those stupid gift bags they'd received with the terrible cheeses and the tasteless crackers, which she and Lindsey had actually eaten - devoured, really - one night last winter when there was no food in the house except for Ginny's and they were both ravenous, watching Hawaii-Five-O stoned. Coffee in hand, she returned to her seat at the window looking out on Orange Grove Avenue.

It was going to be a full day. She was due at the restaurant at ten to set up for the lunch shift, and when she finished up at around four, she'd be heading out to Keith's to clean. Then she'd come home and clean up whatever ridiculous mess Lindsey and Richard had made - with Richard living downstairs since January she had her work cut out for her every night she got home - and then she'd let the dog out and make dinner and try to catch the new episode of Maude in the middle of it all before she and Lindsey went down to the basement where the Ampex was set up and get some work done. All that in the pouring rain, she thought. And in a car with no reverse. Should make parking in the rain a barrel of laughs today.

Sitting on the embroidered cushion she'd sewed one Saturday night alone while Lindsey was out with Richard and she'd watched The Mary Tyler Moore Show with the dog, Stevie remembered her father's out-of-character toast over pancakes on Christmas morning. 1974 is your year...Well, they were three months into 1974 and all they'd accomplished was more bills, more tears, more fitful sleep and one particularly harrowing afternoon when she'd come home and found Lindsey and Richard sprawled out on the floor, higher than she'd ever seen either of them and complaining they were nauseous...only to discover that the grass they'd smoked that day had been laced with opium! Lindsey had spent most of the night sick in the bathroom and she had made him eat chicken broth and put him to bed, hoping he hadn't used their "house money", a term she used because that's what Barbara called it, on the weed. Sure enough, it had been given to Richard free of charge, and she'd breathed easier and gone to the grocery store the next day after work.

They hadn't had sex in a week. Between late nights in the basement recording, her exhaustion after work and Richard really not able to take a hint at night when they were all sitting together in front of the television and Lindsey's arm draped over her and she wound up with her head in his lap, sex had become almost impossible. When she'd finished her coffee she went back to the bedroom and slid between the covers beside Lindsey as if she'd never left, Ginny safe and sound on the other side. She actually loved these mornings, their little oasis before the reality of her day set in. Lindsey would roll over in his sleep and call her angel as he held her, breathe little kisses into her hair, promise her little rewards for her hard day ahead when she got home, whisper that he loved her and was so thankful she was by his side even now. She could almost forget the fact that they had no money, that she was constantly putting band-aids in her feet - when she could afford them - that they were so far from the dream now that she didn't know if they'd ever get that house on the hill in Hawaii.