Say You Love Me (Double Love Trilogy Conclusion)

I'm Begging You For A Little Sympathy

Penn Castle
Dorset, United Kingdom
Monday, February 13, 2023
(12:30 am)
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"Stevie, it's freezing out here. Please come in and talk to me."

Lindsey had been trying unsuccessfully for half an hour to cajole Stevie back into the house. He could see her from the doorway, standing outside in the bitterly cold, damp night, dressed only in her usual black leggings and sweater and gray Uggs - no coat or jacket of any kind. She was standing under a tree, pulling the sleeves of her sweater over her hands and hugging herself tight in her own folded arms. She had finally stopped crying. He could see that. Still, she stood visibly trembling beneath a stark, bare tree in the moonlight, and he had to bring her inside.

Grabbing a cashmere throw blanket - her Burberry one - from the sofa, he went out into the yard, Christine, John, Mick and Waddy all watching with heightened interest. They couldn't hear what was being said, but they could see Lindsey draping the blanket over her.

"You can't just stand out here in the cold, Stevie," Lindsey said as he wrapped the Burberry throw - the very cashmere blanket they'd picnicked on in December, when they'd been here for the holidays - around her. "What happened? What made you so angry with Karen tonight, baby? Talk to me." He held her close in the blanket, feeling her trembling.

"It's just going to make you mad too, Linds...just forget it, okay...never mind." She hid her face in her hands.

"Stephanie..." He used his stern voice with her now. "We are getting married in a day and a half...what hurts you hurts me, okay? Tell me what happened."

"I was looking at the email the florist sent with pictures, and my list of emails was right there in front of me," Stevie's explained. "A lot of people had written to me congratulating us..." She took a deep breath, and began to cry on the exhale. "One of those people wrote twice...that person was Joe Walsh."

Lindsey said nothing for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he looked at her tear-stained face, looked into her eyes, and asked, so calmly it frightened her, "What bothers you about that, Stevie? Is it the fact that she hid the messages from you in general...or the fact that you didn't get a chance to see them and know what he said?"

Stevie looked up at him, a single tear rolling down her cheek. "After everything we've been through...not just in these past few months but these past five years...the past fifty-five years...you still need to ask me that question?" He remained silent. "Lindsey!"

"What do you want me to say, Stevie?" He folded his arms and took a step back. He was still calm...and now she was terrified. "Do you want me to say I never heard you telling an interviewer that Joe Walsh was your one great love? Do you want me to tell you I never heard you say you'd change your life for him if he asked you to, that not even your music was more important...when you said the complete opposite to me years ago...long before you and Joe ever met...when I wanted to marry you? Do you want me to pretend I don't know you wrote your damn moonlight vampire song and built a whole album around it because you saw one of those ridiculous Twilight movies and decided you and Joe were the star-crossed vampire lovers in the movie? We're getting married in thirty-six hours, Stevie, just as you said...so I'll ask again..." He took a deep breath. "Are you more upset about Karen not telling you Joe emailed you, or that you might have missed your chance to respond?"

"Lindsey." She took a tentative step towards him. "I want to tell you a story. When I'm done, you'll have my answer. Okay?" She took his hands in hers, and he nodded. She took a deep breath and began.

"One night in 1991, weighing in at one hundred and seventy pounds - and on so much klonopin I didn't even realize I had gotten that heavy to begin with - I went out to dinner with Joe and his girlfriend - her name was Kristin, if you can believe it, but with an I not an E. After dinner we went back to his house, a small group of us...some friends of theirs I guess. There was cocaine being passed around...of which I did none, just as I'd promised Betty Ford herself when I left treatment five years before...and we hung out at all piano. We played some songs, talked about old times...and at about four in the morning I heard the sound of my limo driver telling me it was time to go home...just as I heard Joe telling his girlfriend and his tour manager he couldn't believe how fat I'd gotten...and that he had - and I'm quoting - really dodged a bullet. Joe Walsh, the man it took me years to get over, was openly mocking me to the new woman in his life. I went home and cried for a whole day because I knew that part of my life was over...and that door was closed to me forever. I never looked back after that night...not even years later when he went on the damn Howard Stern show and told Howard he loved me...like a sister."