Buckingham Nicks A/U Series Part 1: Over My Head

Your Mood Is Like A Circus Wheel

Los Angeles, California
Monday, January 27, 1975
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"We have to get 'I'm So Afraid' in the can before we leave for Alabama."

Lindsey was standing in the bathroom doorway, shouting slightly to Stevie over her hair dryer. They had to be at the studio by ten, finally able to have full days of recording since she had finally left her job at Clementine's the week before. Stevie was using a round brush to straighten her hair under the heat of the dryer and flip the layers of her shag haircut, which she'd been wearing some version of ever since Lindsey had taken her to the movies four years ago to see Jane Fonda in Klute. She wore jeans and a little lemon yellow sweater, and yellow socks peeked through the toes of her enormous platform wedges. She'd already done her makeup and her hair was all that remained in her routine, loving the way that this new blow dryer - relatively new technology and so much better than the old vacuum dryer she'd stolen from Robin when she'd moved to L.A. with Lindsey - worked on her naturally curly hair. Fleetwood Mac had already paid each of them four hundred dollars, and this hair dryer had been her first extravagant purchase once all the bills were paid.

"They know that," Stevie said over the sound of the hair dryer, now using the brush to tame her bangs in the right direction. "We'll get it done between now and then, Linds. Don't worry."

"I just don't want it to turn out like when we did 'Monday Morning'," he said. "I'm going to tell John to go easy on the bass line in the middle for the guitar break."

His last sentence sounded unnecessarily loud; Stevie had turned off the hair dryer. She said, "Do you think that's a good idea?" She was looking at his reflection behind her in the bathroom mirror, fixing her bangs with her fingers.

"Yeah, the bass line can't overpower the guitar break," he said.

"That's not what I mean." Stevie turned around to face him in the doorway. "I mean telling John what to play and how to play it. We're not seasoned veterans here, Lindsey. They are."

"I've been earning a living playing music since 1968, Stevie. I'm no novice."

Actually, before Fleetwood Mac you hadn't earned a dime playing music since Polydor dropped our album, she thought, hating herself for the bitterness she felt about that. Try earning a living scrubbing Keith Olsen's toilet after a New Years Eve party and we can talk seriously about earning a living.

What she said was, "I know you're not, baby. Just...proceed with caution, okay? John McVie is a sweet, harmless man who means well...and he's been at this since, like, we were in Fritz."

"Sweet and harmless, huh?" Lindsey leaned against the open door with his hand. "And here I thought it was Mick that you couldn't get enough of."

Stevie rolled her eyes and said, "Jesus Christ, Lindsey, this is like 1971 all over again. I talk to Waddy and his brother at a party and suddenly you think all this underhanded bullshit!" She made a move to leave the bathroom, but Lindsey blocked her path. She said, "Oh don't be an asshole, Lindsey...let me by."

"Not until you tell me which one, Stevie." He held his position in the doorway.

"Which what? We're going to be late!"

"Which one you have your eye on," he said. "Mick or John?"

Stevie took a deep breath and tried hard not to cry. Her tears would have been of anger - she was growing more furious by the minute - but she wouldn't cry now because he'd think it was sadness or weakness or guilt. Why does he do this? Why is he the sweetest man alive until he pulls this jealous bullshit? Goddamn it, I changed my whole life for him and that's not enough to prove I only want him.