Landslide (Original Series Prequel 2)

I'm Getting Older Too

Aspen, Colorado
Friday, September 13, 1974
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"You have an absolutely beautiful home! I mean...just look at that view!"

Stevie's friend Teri grabbed her hand and began to drag her along as she headed straight for the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room of the enormous house that must have cost about five million dollars, they'd both thought as they'd been driven up the winding driveway. They hadn't met these people before, but the guys they were staying with apparently knew them, and somehow the entire group, Stevie and Teri included, had wound up in their home for drinks before going out to dinner. Stevie was already regretting the fact that she'd lugged her guitar with her...I mean, what did I think I was going to do with it? Write a whole song right here in a rich stranger's living room?

"Thank you so much," the girlfriend of the guy whose house it was said. Stevie had heard her say her name earlier tonight over the raucous sounds of Alice Cooper playing where they had been in the crowded living room of their new friends, with whom they had been staying since Lindsey had packed up his guitar and been taken in a long black car up the snow-covered hills to Don Everly's home studio two months ago and Stevie had taken one look at the motel room, one look at Teri and then one look at her little white poodle...and said, "Fuck this place! Let's network the city!" She hated the fact that she hadn't heard the woman's name clearly...Was it Charlene? Shirley? Something like that. The woman went over to the brass bar cart in the corner of the living room beside the long curved white sofa and began mixing a pitcher of something, while Ron - Or was it Rob? - went to a nearby desk drawer and pulled out a little black velvet bag.

"So I figure we'll hang out and have some drinks and all, and head out to dinner," Ron/Rob said as he sat down in the middle of the sofa and began extracting things from the bag and onto the glass coffee table that Stevie slowly realized were the items needed to do cocaine - a vial of cocaine, a little mirror, a razor blade. She recalled being in Keith's bathroom with Lindsey and Richard on New Years Eve two years ago, the energy she'd had once the little bump of cocaine she'd done had kicked in. Ron/Rob said to his girlfriend, "Put on some music for everyone, angel," and Stevie felt her heart immediately tighten. Angel. She hadn't seen Lindsey in almost a month, not since he'd sneaked her into his room and Don Everly's house one night after a month of rehearsal and they'd just about torn each other to bits in the little dark bedroom, pawing hungrily at each other like lion cubs, Lindsey's hand across her mouth for the last half of it to muffle her screams as he'd whispered hot into her ear that he'd missed his little dirty girl. In some ways, she felt so free without him, not having to dodge ridiculous questions about where she'd been and who's been there, but she had to admit, she aches for him in bed every night in the little twin bed she slept in beside her dog at their new friends' place, Teri in the other bed beside her. She had even begun to pull the covers up tightly around her - freezing in Aspen and wondering why anyone in their right mind would volunteer to live in constant snow - and pretend it was Lindsey's arms around her, holding her tight and keeping her warm against the snowy air, that her head on the pillow was her head on his chest. "I'll always keep you warm, Stephanie."

"Ah, snowing inside and outside," said Jimmy, one of their new friends with whom they'd been staying. He had seen Ron/Rob carefully constructing lines of cocaine on the mirror on the coffee table and sat down beside him. Stevie had just watched this happen as the room became filled with the sound of Led Zeppelin's "Since I've Been Loving You", and she felt another tug at her heart as Robert Plant opened the song with, "Working from seven to eleven every night really makes life a drag...I don't think that's right..." She had been so caught up missing Lindsey these past few weeks that she'd forgotten to enjoy the fact that she was away from the drudgery of what her life had become lately - working at the restaurant by day, cleaning Keith's house in the evening, recording with Lindsey at night, and somehow managing to take care of her dog and budget their money and clean the house after a day's worth of stoned musicians messing it all up in her absence...and yet still managing to look halfway decent and give Lindsey what he needed when they turned off the lights at night so he didn't go find it with another girl, one who wasn't so exhausted and stressed out all the time and never bothered him about money.