Talk To Me: The Dance Thriller, Part 1

Dusty Words Lying Under Carpets

Santa Monica, California
Wednesday, April 3, 1997
(11:00 pm)
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Lindsey could not remember a time when there was not at least one dog around while he was sitting or lying beside Stevie.

Tonight, as they shared a bottle of wine on the overstuffed tapestry couch that had come with her rented home, they were joined by Sara - full named Sara Belladonna - a little ten-pound yorkie with rich tan and gold a black hair, a tiny sideways smile, and a pair of curious eyes as she watched two people, one a stranger, sit tucked away on the sofa and engage in deep conversation. The little dog lay in a ball against her mother's side, and from time to time Stevie addressed the dog, talking to her in the dog mom voice he'd always found so endearing, and reminded him yet again of a sad truth that made him love her even more - Stevie would have been an incredible mother.

They were talking about the upcoming rehearsal. Lindsey had been working on a solo project and run into Mick, and after an impromptu date for breakfast to catch up Lindsey had invited him over to play, and before they knew it Christine was there too.

"Then John showed up one afternoon!" Lindsey was saying, recounting the events of the past month in the studio and drinking from his blue-tinted wine glass that, like the rest of the things that surrounded them in the condo that night, was a rental. He wanted to ask her when and if she was going to look for a permanent home in California again.

"How is John doing?" Stevie asked. She'd spoken to Christine enough since she'd been out of rehab to know that John's alcoholism was a disease that had its dramatic ups and downs.

"He seems to be doing well," said Lindsey. "I think this whole thing has been keeping him that way. He has something to do, a reason to wake up...I mean, Julie and Molly notwithstanding, of course."

Stevie drank her wine with a small chuckle. "I know. I think their anniversary is coming up," she said. "Nineteen years...man, do I remember that wedding!"

"You mean the wedding you missed because you spent most of it having your brother bring you gin and tonics in Christine's broom closet?"

They both managed a tense laugh before she said, "Hey man, you try having Jenny Fleetwood pissed off at you!"

It was at the 1978 wedding of John and Julie McVie when Jenny Boyd Fleetwood, in from England with her two daughters, Amy and Lucy, had threatened to confront Stevie about her affair with Mick. She'd heard "Sara" and knew Mick was Stevie's "great dark wing within the wings of a storm." She'd heard "Angel" and knew Mick was who Stevie "tried hard not to look up" at when he walked into the room. And, of course, Stevie remembered, Mick had sat Jenny down at home and told her he had a big problem on his hands - he was in love with her and with Stevie at the same time. Years later, Jenny and Stevie - and even Sara - were all friends again despite Mick and the drama that had just about killed them all during Tusk - but it had not been an easy road. Stevie knew that Robin's death from leukemia in 1982 had paved the road for the reconciliation of the women hurt by Mick's cocaine-and-alcohol-induced vacillation, all of them suddenly very aware that life, even in one's thirties, was fleeting.

Stevie and Lindsey sat quietly for awhile, drinking their wine. She had invited him over to talk about their issues, but so far all they'd spoken about was everyone else. It was Lindsey who called attention to it by saying, "You know, Stevie...we never talked about you and Mick."

They hadn't. Mick had come to Lindsey's door one day in 1978 to inform him before he learned it from somebody else that he and Stevie had been seeing each other. Two days later they'd broken up, and the next day, Jim Recor had called Stevie in a huff and broken the news.