Tango In The Night Part 2: When I See You Again

You Touched My Hand, I Played It Cool

Hollywood Hills, California
Tuesday, August 18, 1987
********************

"Now you're here like you've been before and you know just what I need...It took some time for me to see..."

Whitney Houston's voice filled the silence with the most poignant lyrics possible for the moment. Stevie looked at Mick and, when she could catch her breath, replied to his proposal.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?"

Mick's eyes dropped to his plate as his smile faded. When he looked up again, he said, "You know I love you, Stevie. I always have. You don't have to do this alone." He took her hand again. "And I do love you. The reason we aren't together isn't because I don't love you...I loved you then and I love you now."

"The reason we're not together is because you told Lindsey on a Friday night that we were having an affair, and on Monday morning Sara moved into your house and never left." Stevie pulled her hand away and banged on the edge of the table. "Damn it! You just told me right now, sitting right here, that you're getting clean because Sara will marry you if you do! What about Sara?"

"I do love Sara..." Mick searched for the angle and looked into her eyes. "...but nothing like the way I love you sweetheart. You're the love of my life, you know. Please marry me, Stevie. Let me in...let me help you raise this baby. Let me love you."

"Mick..." Stevie looked into his warm, inviting blue eyes. Mick Fleetwood was a charmer; he'd been charming her for over a decade. She had known, too, that there was something special between them since the beginning, since he'd gifted her the Edith Piaf albums and told her she was the same strong, sad, willful, talented and tragic woman inside and he knew it, knew her.

"Just think about it, okay?" He smiled, looking hopeful and not yet defeated. "You don't need to answer me now. A lot is happening...the baby, the tour, the new guys...not to mention the grief you must be feeling..." Mick knew it was like a death; Stevie had lost the person who, at one time, was the closest person to her. Lindsey was like her family, like Robin...he'd known Stevie but he'd also known Stephanie. And he'd loved them both since they were kids. He knew the enormity of her loss as he sat there at her kitchen table and held her hand, stroking his thumb lightly over her knuckles and saying, "I'm here, you know. Even if your answer is no. Aside from Johnny you're the best friend I ever had, sweetheart."

She knew he meant that. She knew that if Mick cleaned up his act, he'd be her support system marriage or not.

But Mick Fleetwood, God love him, was not Lindsey Buckingham, and he never would be.

She loved that he knew that, and she loved that when she started to cry from the heaviness of the day and he crossed over to her and held her as she cried, he didn't mind that half of her tears were over losing the love of her life.

********************

Bel Air, California
Tuesday, August 18, 1987
********************

It was Robert Redford's birthday today, according to Mary Hart and John Tesh of Entertainment Tonight.

Lindsey groaned and changed the channel with the remote, knowing Who's The Boss, albeit a rerun because it was summer, would be on at eight.

Stevie loved Who's The Boss. He'd always suspected she had a crush on Tony Danza because she'd loved Taxi as well. For some reason, thinking about it that night, he smiled.

The big segment on Entertainment Tonight this evening, however, had been the big Fleetwood Mac press conference held this morning at the Bel Age Hotel in West Hollywood, in which Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks had addressed the personnel change in the band ahead of the Shake The Cage tour, and two new guitar players were going out with them.

He was already expecting to have to take his phone off the hook tonight.

The phone rang beside him, and he decided to answer this one, test the waters, see how bad the situation was, how invasive. "Hello?"

"Dude! Is it true?" Lindsey instantly recognized the voice of his brother Greg.

"Unfortunately," Lindsey said. "Or fortunately, depending on which way you look at it."

"What did she do this time?" Greg asked with a sigh, and Lindsey knew what he meant.

"That's not the reason, Greg," Lindsey explained. "There was more to it than that."

"But she did do something."

"In a manner of speaking." Lindsey exhaled and cloud of marijuana smoke from the joint he'd been smoking. "I did stuff too. It wasn't pretty. It had to be done."

"Well listen, call Mom before she finds out like I did or you'll just get yelled at," Greg advised him. Ruth Buckingham did not enjoy being kept in the dark about her sons. "Call Jeff too, or he'll be offended. I don't care; I know you had your reasons."

"I just couldn't take it anymore, Greg. Not only her...the whole scene. Mick's off the rails completely...or on them, so to speak, John's best friend is a bottle and poor Chris...her heart breaks looking at them and mine breaks looking at her...and then there's Stevie."

"Are you still in love with her?" But Greg already knew the answer to that question.

"I always will be," Lindsey admitted sadly. "You know I'd take her back in a second if..."

"If what , man? Aren't you still living with Cheri?"

"She moved out...almost three months ago now. She knew what I knew...that we were just playing House, same as with Carol Ann." He took another hit of his joint before stubbing it out in a green four-leaf-clover-shaped ashtray that used to belong to Stevie but had somehow wound up in his boxes of knickknacks when Stevie had moved into her first luxury apartment in 1975. "You know I love her, Greg, but..." He sighed openly, reclining in his seat and resting his feet on the coffee table. "You know, I read this article once that was an interview with Lucille Ball about the demise of her marriage to Desi Arnaz..." He suddenly felt a pang in his heart remembering how Stevie had always loved I Love Lucy. "The interviewer asked Lucy why she divorced Desi despite the fact that she still loved him and confessed she always would. Lucy said, 'He was the love of my life, but I just couldn't take it anymore.'" He heard the silence of Greg's non-reply. "Stephanie Lynn Nicks is the love of my life...but I don't think either of us could take it anymore."

His conversation with Greg lasted a few more minutes before he told his brother he had to go, that he needed to call Ruth and Jeff before the media told them both that he was no longer a member of Fleetwood Mac.

"I'll call you tomorrow, man," Lindsey promised. "Maybe some time this weekend we can go eat, check out a record store...just chill, do normal brother shit, you know?"

"I'm down," Greg said. "Talk to you tomorrow. And tell me what Mom thinks about this!"

Lindsey chuckled. "Will do, brother. Have a good night."

Lindsey picked up his half-smoked joint and lit it again. He needed to be good and stoned for the conversation with his mother. He knew Ruth loved Stevie and had even gone so far as to give Barbara Nicks a call in Arizona when their children had broken up years ago, to commiserate.

I agree, Mom, but what can you do? Lindsey thought. It's too late. She's out of my life now.

Now he just had to figure out how he was going to be able to breathe again without her. So far, he had not been doing so well at that.

He missed Stevie so much he didn't even know how his heart was still beating.

********************