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

Your Hand, Your Hand

Pacific Palisades, California
Sunday, November 27, 2022
(10:00 pm)
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"Come here, Grandma. It's time for your anniversary present."

The excitement of Amber and Jane's good news had died down, and the music selection had shifted into a more mellow tone, Frank Sinatra's "It Was A Very Good Year" playing as people milled about, taking new desserts and drinks and banding and disbanding groups for conversation. Lindsey was standing beside the stereo system, beckoning with his finger towards his wife, who was deep in conversation with Lori about how the hell they were grandmothers and not still on a stage somewhere at thirty-five, singing "If Anyone Falls".

"Lindsey Adams Buckingham, I have cried enough happy tears tonight to make all the water references in 'Crystal' come true right here in this living room!" Stevie admonished him teasingly, one look in his eyes from across the room letting her know that whatever his anniversary present was, it was going to elicit the same amount of tears as Amber's baby news earlier that night.

"Stevie, when are you not crying over something sappy?"

That came from Waddy, who sat beside Sharon in the corner of the living room, and everyone within earshot laughed as Stevie stuck her tongue out at them all in mock protest. Everyone knew that Stevie Nicks was nothing if not a hopeless romantic about everything; if her music hadn't proven it, her actual interactions with them all over fifty years had.

"You're cut off, Waddy," she joked, gesturing towards the martini in his hand.

"Seriously, Stevie, it's go time here," Lindsey said, now waving her over to him with an anxious hand. "While we're young, please."

Rising from her seat on the sofa with a groan at the pain in her knee, which had become arthritic every since she'd broken it two years earlier in the Chicago snow at the height of the pandemic, having flown into a Midwestern blizzard just to okay the video footage of her 24-Karat Gold concert, Stevie called out to her husband, "Um...we crossed that border a long time ago, Linds! Don't you think?"

Lindsey laughed, a sudden memory popping into his head of Stevie referring to them as George and Gracie while regaling the audience of a Fleetwood Mac concert in San Diego with the infamous "Without You" story. He said, "Okay, okay. Come on then, Gracie. We have tissues on standby; you'll make it." He smiled at her as she appeared at his side, and he couldn't help stealing a small kiss that made everyone gush and made Stevie hide her face in his shoulder for a moment. She's seventy-four and about to be a grandmother, and she's still the same shy little girl she was the first time I ever kissed her, he thought. My God. I love this woman.

"How about while we're young, Daddy!" Amber called out from her place on the sofa between Jane and Mick's daughter Tessa. She knew what was about to happen, but it was fun to pay along. Jane rubbed her knee affectionately and then they held hands - she'd shared the romantic secret with Jane that morning.

"You got it, kid," Lindsey called back. He lowered the volume of Frank Sinatra playing behind him, and then turned to a slightly anxious Stevie and took her hand. "Stevie, fifty-six years ago, a friend of mine from Chemistry class called me up on a Wednesday night and asked me if I'd like to go out with him to Young Life, and I told him no, it's a religious thing and I wasn't into it. He told me to come anyway, and to bring my guitar, because if I played I would attract pretty girls." He smiled, having no idea that earlier that morning in the bathtub, Stevie's memory had strayed to the night they'd met, and her conversation on the phone to Robin as she'd scarfed down apple pie and told her best friend that she'd sung "California Dreaming" with a guy named Lindsey Buckingham. "I agreed to go, and sure enough, I met the prettiest girl in the place." He kissed her tiny hand, and then said, "It's been a crazy ride, these fifty-six years since the prettiest girl at Young Life sidled up to me with tenacity and a great voice and sang along with me - not all of it has been pretty. But somehow, twenty-six years ago on New Years Eve, when I called you in Arizona and told you that The Mac was going to reunite...I knew that meant we were too. I knew that somehow, years later, I'd wind up standing here with you in a house full of people that have watched us go through it all, and I would give you this."

Lindsey could feel Stevie's hand trembling in his as he used his free hand to reach into his pocket and pull out a black velvet ring box. He opened it, and Stevie looked down, biting the corner of her lower lip. The ring was made of gold, a light gold that almost had a platinum tint to it and reminded her of the glass emerald birthstone ring he'd bought her for her twenty-sixth birthday when they could barely afford food and rent. She quickly noticed it was a braided ring. Getting the reference immediately, she felt tears begin to form in her eyes for the second time that night.

"Stephanie Lynn Nicks, in my heart, I wished you stardom, but my eyes wanted for you much more," he said, the lyrics to "Gold And Braid", the song she'd written for Bella Donna over forty years ago coming back to her in almost a confession. He went on, "But that's not so different, from the way that I say...we did get the 'much more'...we got it twenty-five years ago when Amber was born and we got married in the hospital and you wore a fuzzy pink bathrobe and I thought you were the most beautiful bride I'd ever seen. So, tonight, with this ring that is literally made of gold and braid...I'm asking you, Stephanie Lynn Nicks Buckingham...angel...will you remarry me?"

Stevie looked into the blue eyes she'd been looking into for her entire adult life. She could barely see through her tears as she said, "Well...if we're quoting my song here...In a dream I said to you that I'd always love you...yes, baby, yes!" She flung herself into his arms and he lifted her off her feet and whirled her around as everyone cheered, and they kissed for a little longer than they'd expected after the initial peck on the lips that Stevie began, before he placed the "golden braid" on her left ring finger along with her original rings from 1997. They were kissing again and it took them both a moment to notice that Amber, stereo remote in hand as was the plan, changed the music and made the volume higher.

"Do you always trust you first initial feeling...Special knowledge holds truth, bears believing...I turned around, and the water was closing all around...like a glove...like the love that had finally, finally found me...then I knew, in the crystalline knowledge of you..."

"You're insane," Stevie said when she was finally released from their embrace and she began to fiddle with the ring. "How are we doing this? When? You mean like a wedding thing...like with vows and everything, baby?"

Lindsey chuckled. "Like a wedding thing with vows and everything, sweet girl." He smiled down at her, wondering how he could possibly be falling in love with her more in that moment after fifty-six years. "And to answer the first question...on our actual anniversary, at the dinner party, when we all show up again for another round of this and Mick gets his act together and writes a little speech for us and everything."

"Mick?" Stevie looked up at him, her nose crinkled in confusion.

"I asked Mick if he wouldn't mind getting ordained online so he could marry us...you know, like you did for Vanessa and John." It had been Vanessa Carlton's wedding to John McCauley a decade ago, officiated by Stevie in a beautiful flower crown that made his heart melt, that had given him the idea to have a friend marry them on their twenty-fifty anniversary.

"That might be the cutest, creepiest fucking thing I've ever heard," Stevie said, laughing. "I love it!" Oblivious to the watchful eyes of friends and family, she wrapped her arms around his neck and said, "And I love you. I said it on tour a million years ago and I'll say it again...my one true love. Now and always." She remembered that night in 1977 when she'd dedicated "Landslide" to Lindsey with those words, and she remembered that when the show was over, he had not gone back to his own hotel room. And that night, forty-five years later, she pulled him into another kiss and then hid into him again with the collective "Awwwww" from the people around them.

"I can't wait to marry you again, Mrs.Buckingham," he whispered into her hair as he held her. "Or...actually, Grandma."

Stevie giggled. "I can't wait to marry you again too, Grandpa." And as she rested her head on his chest and he took her hand in his, they began to slow-dance to the song she had written a lifetime ago sitting beside him on their mattress on the floor as he slept.

"Drove me to the mountain...to the crystal like a clear water fountain...drove me like a magnet to the sea...to the sea...then I knew, in the crystalline knowledge of you."

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