Tango In The Night Part 1: Big Love

I'm Not Home, And It's Not Tara

Hollywood Hills, California
Monday, April 13, 1987
(8:00 am)
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The sound of the phone ringing beside Stevie's bed wasn't what woke her up before she was ready at eight o'clock on a Monday morning.

It was the sunlight streaming in through the windows.

I have to get some of those blackout shades in here! she thought as she rolled over with a groan. Her little yorkie, Sara Belladonna, as well as her beautiful little old lady poodle Ginny, arthritic and nearly blind now at sixteen, were scrambling along the rumpled covers and barking at the phone. Stevie took a moment to rub each of their little heads affectionately and let them know everything was okay, and then she picked up the receiver of the French-style phone at her bedside, remembering that Kelly had gone home last night so she was alone in the house. She knew Kelly was thinking of quitting. "Hello?"

"Album launch day!" The unmistakably cheerful voice of Christine McVie came through the phone. "Are you excited?"

"I'm asleep, Chris, thank you very much! Kind of makes it hard to be excited." Stevie reached into the drawer of her beside table and reached for her cigarettes and lighter. She had to wait until she was finished yawning to light her cigarette.

"Jeez...what do you do at night that makes it so hard to wake up on the morning?" Christine sounded baffled. "I know what you're not doing anymore, so..."

"It's this new medication," Stevie explained. She exhaled smoke and said, "It's kicking my ass! The psychiatrist said I'll start tolerating it more soon, but it's really knocking me out, Chris! Have you ever taken a tranquilizer before? Is it supposed to do that?" Stevie Nicks, The Nightbird, had been going to bed at ten or eleven each night and sleeping until ten the next morning.

"Once or twice years ago...I never took anything like that long enough to be tired or anything."

Stevie's next smoke exhale was a sigh. "I guess I'll adjust. It's also making me want to eat everything in sight...in fact, I'm going to go in a minute, hon...I need coffee and pancakes." Actually, I need Lindsey's blueberry pancakes but you know that's out of the question forever now.

"Sounds good," said Christine. "I was just calling to say it's album launch day and say hi. Oh, and Mick told me to tell you to call him. Something about Sara...I wasn't paying attention."

"Well gee, Christine, thanks for all your help!" she teased. She yawned audibly. "Okay, I'll call Mick when I can, like, speak English words. I have to go make coffee and feed the dogs...let them out...then stuff my face because, apparently, that's what I'm doing now." She was quiet for a moment and then said, "Is it wrong of me that the thing I miss most about cocaine is weighing ninety-five pounds?"

Christine laughed. "Honey...I miss my cocaine weight too. It's cool to say it out loud." Her laughter died down and she said, "I love you, kid. Talk to you later."

"Love you too, Chris. Happy Album Day." And she hung up.

Tango In The Night was being released in record stores today. What had begun as a simple coming together of Lindsey and some new engineer - oddly enough a friend of Joe Walsh's - to do some work on a project for Christine had turned into Fleetwood Mac's fourteenth studio album, the fifth with Stevie and Lindsey in the band. Most of the recording had occurred in Lindsey's bedroom at home 0ver the fall, and Stevie had hated every minute of it. She'd showed up drunk almost every time, not wanting to deal with Lindsey or Cheri or their home, their bedroom...definitely not their bedroom. She didn't want to deal with Mick's behavior after having been up for four or five days straight, coked out of his mind, with John sitting in the corner with his bottle of Jack and his scowl, just checking in when it was time to start playing, or with Christine trying so hard to mediate and looking as miserable as she was the whole time. She had to admit, although she'd promised Betty Ford herself she was done using cocaine, alcohol helped. And since she'd been prescribed klonopin, as angry as she was about being exhausted and hungry all the time, at least she wasn't crying about Lindsey anymore, or Joe, or anything else. In fact, she was starting to become relatively numb.

The phone rang again and Stevie let out a groan so loud it frightened the dogs. "Fuck!" she shouted out loud, and she put out her cigarette and immediately lit another before she answered, not friendly. "What?"

"That's how you're answering the phone now?"

Stevie's heart fell into her growling stomach. Lindsey.

"Only for you, baby," she said, hoping her sarcasm was apparent. "What do you want, Lindsey?"

"I was just calling to remind you that Tango gets released today," Lindsey said. "All of the press stuff starts soon, and I wanted to make sure you were up for it all. It could be pretty intense. You going to be okay?"

"Of course." She didn't know whether or not she was happy about the obvious concern in his voice. "Are you going to make it? You have to leave your bedroom for the interviews, you know."

"You're hilarious." There was a pause...a very awkward pause. Then, "It's actually Mick I'm worried about. Did Chris call you?"

"I actually just got off the phone with her," Stevie said. "Her call woke me up and I haven't fed the dogs or had coffee yet, Lindsey, so if I don't mind, I..." But he cut her off.

"Sara threw him out again." Lindsey's words stopped Stevie mid-yawn. "He called John crying and John called me...then Chris called...it was a clusterfuck last night. I thought maybe she'd have called you then...or Mick himself...for a place to stay." Stevie studiously ignored the last part of that sentence. "Where were you last night?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but I was asleep last night," she explained. "I'm on a new medication and it makes me tired."

"Oh...sorry." He sounded sincere. "Anyway, the album is out, Irving's got stuff lined up, and Mick is in bad shape and he wants to talk to you. That's the news of the day."

"Well if I could get off the phone with everyone telling me Mick wants to talk to me, maybe I could give him a buzz!" That sounded exactly as mean as she'd intended it to be. Anything to put distance between them before the tour began and they fell into exactly the same routine they'd been in so many times before. She was not going to see what it was like to fall into bed with her ex-boyfriend again when he had someone else without drugs. She was not ready for that, and she'd promised Betty Ford no more cocaine.

"And here I thought it was all the blow turning you into a miserable, sarcastic witch."

"And now you know differently," she said. "I have to go, Lindsey. The dogs need to be fed and let out. I'll be in touch with Mick."

"Of course you will." He heard her suck in a breath and his mission was complete. "Bye, Stevie."

"Bye, Lindsey." She hung up the phone, stubbed out her cigarette, and then turned to two little dogs - one young and dark, one old and white - who looked up from the tangle of blankets at her with all of the love she needed to forget the events of the last fifteen minutes...the last ten years. "Okay, ladies, time for food!" She rose from the bed and lifted both of her little girls into her arms. She brought them down to the kitchen where she let coffee brew while they went outside to do their business.

She had black coffee and a third cigarette while they ate from two little pink bowls, and she leaned over the kitchen counter and contemplated calling Mick. She wasn't ready. She wasn't ready for any of this.

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