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

Epilogue: Like A Soft Silver Chain

Lahaina, Hawaii
Friday, May 26, 2023
(9:00 am)
********************

"Wake up, Grandma, or you're going to miss your annual birthday pancakes."

Stevie opened her eyes slowly to the bright sunlight streaming in from the beach outside the bungalow, and to Lindsey, crawling into bed beside her and wrapping her in his arms from behind. It slowly came to her as her brain unscrambled from the dream she'd been having about her mother and Robin on a train in Japan that today was her birthday. She was seventy-five years old.

"Call me Grandma again and watch what happens," she teased him in a sleepy murmur, settling into his embrace and bending in towards his little kisses to her neck. "I'm seventy-five today...kind of stings a bit."

"It shouldn't," Lindsey whispered softly into her ear, moving away the blonde mermaid waves of her hair. "You are the most beautiful grandmother I've ever seen, angel...not to mention the most beautiful birthday girl...but that's every year." He kissed her temple.

It had been Amber's idea for them to spend Stevie's seventy-fifth birthday weekend at the beach in Lahaina, visiting with Mick and introducing baby Stephanie to the beach Stevie had fallen in love with decades ago on the Rumors tour, the first time she'd seen Hawaii. They had all flown in the day before, and everyone had taken turns toasting Stevie at dinner at Mick's restaurant, Amber holding her infant daughter on her lap for half of the dinner, Stevie taking over for the other half so Amber could eat. Stevie's request for her actual birthday had been a day at the beach with her granddaughter, who was two months old now and, as Stevie had been teasing since she was born on St. Patrick's Day, the replacement for Lindsey as the love of her life.

Lindsey knew better.

"Five more minutes, sweetheart, and then birthday pancakes," she said, kissing Lindsey's hand before wrapping it around herself and settling herself into the covers and his arms. "I'm not done with you yet."

"Works for me," Lindsey said, kissing her neck from where he lay behind her. He felt slightly damp, she noticed.

"Were you out there this morning? You feel damp."

"A little bit," Lindsey said. "I was going to swim, but instead I set up the baby's stuff down by the shore so we'd have less to do...we can just swing on in there and put Stephanie in the playpen thing with the umbrella, no worries."

"Mmmm...good Grandpa." Stevie couldn't help but smile. She wasn't sure who was more obsessed with baby Stephanie - Grandma or Grandpa. With blonde hair and blue eyes just like her mother had been born with, Stephanie Robin Buckingham Ryan had been born a few weeks early on St. Patrick's Day, with her grandmother Stevie on one side of Amber in the delivery room and her other mother Jane at the other side. She'd come home from the hospital with her grandmother calling her Lucky Charm and singing her the old Irish song about the guy named McNamara who was the leader of the band.

After that, Stevie had divided her time between doting over the baby and working on getting her "Rhiannon" sketch series showcased at a gallery in San Francisco where it had all begun, with help from Jane. The show had opened in January and the first person to walk through the door, with a forgiving smile and open arms, was an elderly Hispanic man who walked with a cane named Javier Pacheco.

The Fritz reunion of Stevie, Lindsey, Javier, Bob and Brian had been, as Stevie put it, "the second unexpected blessing of 2023." A dinner out in San Francisco had followed the "Rhiannon" opening, and five people in their seventies had spent a Friday night catching up, laughing about old times, teasing Stevie and Lindsey a bit about the painfully obvious crush they'd had on each other the whole time they were in the band, and toasting all the grandchildren between them, including baby Stephanie, who then was two months away from entering the world.

It had been Stevie's idea to have their Fritz family come to Hawaii over her birthday weekend in May but at the last minute, Javier's health issues and Bob's wife's health issues as well, had put an end to their plans. Stevie thanked God that except for Lindsey's bypass surgery in 2019, they were doing the best for their age out of all of them.

"I don't know how we managed to come out unscathed but we did," she'd told Lindsey that night in bed, after a lengthy conversation with Javier's wife on the phone. "I mean...even after all the wear and tear! Can you believe it? Why did the universe do that, you think? Make us come out healthier and on top?"

"You really want to know my theory?" Lindsey pulled his wife in closer to him and said, "Look, I don't do a lot of talking about the universe and fate and all of that, Stevie...I've always considered that your department. But if you ask me, the universe knew we'd spent so many years apart before middle age that it had to make sure we stayed alive and well...to make up for lost time. It's been twenty-five years, Mrs. Buckingham...and I'm not done with you yet." He kissed her to prove his point.

Stevie was starting to dose off in Lindsey's arms, and he heard her breathing changing and said, "You can sleep if you want to, angel...pancakes can wait."

"Okay," Stevie whispered, barely awake. He smiled.

"Happy Birthday, sleeping angel," he whispered into her hair, borrowing from a song she'd written many years before that had somehow managed to come true.

Lindsey began to fall back to sleep himself, his early-morning efforts on the beach to set up for his granddaughter having exhausted him more than he thought. He thought about the blueberry pancakes he'd be making for Stevie soon enough, the day at the beach that lay ahead - Stevie playfully splashing her granddaughter's tiny feet in the ocean, reminding Amber to apply sunscreen to the baby even though she already knew, telling Jane adorable stories of how Amber had enjoyed the beach when she was a little girl, and then reluctantly parting with the baby so she could nap and joining Lindsey in the water before they all broke out their family beach meal of cheese and baguette and wine, followed by the carrot cake he had chilling in the refrigerator for later, when everyone was dry and they sang Happy Birthday.

He wasn't sure if his theory about the universe was right, but whatever it was that had brought him here, holding Stevie in his arms as she slept in on her seventy-fifth birthday in Hawaii, the family they'd created on the way over, he knew they were exactly where they were supposed to be as he closed his eyes against the sunlight.

They slept until ten, and blueberry pancakes came later.

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