Cheaper Than Free: An Anniversary Story (The Dance A/U Sequel)

What's Not To Feel

Acadia, California
Wednesday, April 27, 1966
(11:00 pm)
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"I went to Young Life tonight, Robin. That's how bored I was without you."

Stevie was lying back against the pillows on her bed, balancing the phone on her shoulder as she scarfed down a slice of her mother's homemade apple pie. She had arrived home ravenously hungry for some reason, and she'd hit the jackpot with the pie she'd found covered in the refrigerator, with a note on top reading Saved for you from Christopher's clutches. Hope you had fun. Love, Mom.

"Hey, don't blame me...blame Belva!" Robin said into the phone. She was currently grounded for a week, which was what had prompted Stevie to make other plans tonight. "Completely overreacted, she did!"

"Robin, that hickey was the size of a small swimming pool," Stevie said with a giggle. "Ever heard of cover-up? Thanks to you I had to go to Young Life, where I was way too old to be hanging out..." She broke off with a sigh. "I swear, I am over this teenager shit. We need to figure out where people go for fun at night."

"You could have gone out with Dave," Robin said, and she heard Stevie make a noise of disgust at the mention of her boyfriend.

"We're in a fight, and I didn't want to spend time with him tonight if he's going to be stubborn as all hell."

"What are you fighting about?"

"He disagrees with me that The Rolling Stones are more influential in rock and roll than the Beatles," Stevie said, and she heard her best friend guffaw on the other end of the call. She set her empty pie dish down on the bed, held the phone in her hand now. "What? They are!"

Robin was still laughing. "You can't expect everyone to agree with everything you think about music, Stevie...Dave is a football player, not a musician. He doesn't get the depth of it like you do."

"Yeah, well, maybe I need someone with a little depth of music knowledge!" Stevie paused a moment, then said, "I met one tonight at Young Life, actually."

"Met who?"

"A guy with depth of music knowledge!" Stevie yelled into the phone, louder than she'd planned. She lowered her voice and said, "Keep up, Robin Ann!"

"You're hard to keep up with, Stephanie Lynn!" Robin shot back. Their teasing invocation of their full names was a practice they'd begun long ago. "Who is this person with all the musical depth, dare I ask?"

"This guy at Young Life who was playing guitar." Stevie could still remember the sound of "California Dreaming" coming from the good-looking guy with the blue eyes who'd told her that her song was structurally good but girlish. "His name is Lindsey Buckingham. He's in eleventh grade. He was playing guitar and singing 'California Dreaming' and I decided he needed a Michelle to his Denny...so I sang with him." She smiled at the memory. "Harmonized, actually. It was perfect. People clapped."

"Ah...so I guess Young Life wasn't so bad tonight," Robin teased. "Met a guy to...harmonize with, did you?" Robin was giggling now.

"Ha-ha! Yes I did. We harmonized together, like in song. He's a good guy...talented as hell...but Dave is Dave and I'm not breaking that up for some guy in the eleventh grade with a girl's name just because he knows about music."

"What does this guitar playing guy with a girl's name look like?" Robin was still kind of laughing. "And Lindsey is unisex, by the way."

"Actually..." Stephanie let out a huge exhale she had been unaware she was keeping in, saying, "He's gorgeous!" She smiled and shook her head at Robin's second burst of laughter in the phone call. "He is growing his hair out - you can tell because it's not short but not long. He has really deep blue eyes...like ocean blue, you know? He's somehow tan, despite the fact it's been raining all damn spring...he's adorable, actually."

"Am I going to have to start covering your ass with Dave so you can go out with blue-eyed-guitar boy, tell him you were with me when you weren't?"

"No! Jeez, Robin, get your head out of the gutter!" Of the two best friends, Robin was the one who played the field, while Stevie was in a relationship with Dave Young, a senior in high school like herself who had noticed her almost from the first day she'd transferred schools, when Jess had announced to Barbara, Stevie and Christopher that they were moving up north from L.A. Stevie had stomped around the old house in anger for awhile, saying she couldn't believe she had to transfer schools in her "senior YEAR, for God sakes, Daddy!" , but Menlo-Atherton High School had loved her right away...as had Dave. Robin was one of two people on earth who knew that over the holidays, she had given Dave her virginity. Her mother was the other...even if she had a sneaking suspicion Barbara had shared the information with Aunt Carmal.

"Listen, Stevie, I've heard you talking about guys before...remember the Steve debacle?! You sound like you like this...What's his actual name again? I forgot."

"Lindsey Buckingham." Why am I smiling when I say that?

"Well listen, I'm with no matter what, Stevie. You know that. And who says you need to limit yourself to one guy? This is 1966, you know, not 1946! We have pills for that now."

Stevie giggled prudishly. "You should know, Miss Grounded On Account Of Hickey...a hickey I know wasn't from the guy who you call your boyfriend!"

"Ugh...don't get me started on what hell I caught on that end..."

Robin filled Stevie in on the latest in her own life life drama, and Stevie listened, her mind straying to two things - going downstairs to get the rest of the apple pie, and Lindsey Buckingham's ocean blue eyes.

Maybe Robin, fly-by-night, playing-the-field Robin, had a point. Then again, who was to say Lindsey Buckingham even liked her back? He'd certainly seemed as though he'd enjoyed singing with her, talking to her...

As soon as Robin ended the call, Stevie went down to the kitchen for more apple pie. She had to do something, she thought, to distract herself from thinking about the perfect two-part harmony she and Lindsey had created at Young Life...and she definitely needed to stop thinking about those unbelievable blue eyes that had looked right into her soul for just a moment...and the smile on his face that had told her whatever he'd seen in her soul, he had definitely enjoyed.

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