Fall From Grace: The Dance Thriller, Part 2

It's Not Something That You Planned

Hartford, Connecticut
Wednesday, September 17, 1997
(4:00 pm)
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"Be honest. How fat am I?"

Stevie turned around from the full-length mirror in their hotel room and looked at Lindsey, so nervous she was actually wringing her hands. She was five months pregnant and just beginning to show, and she had spent the better part of August working with Margi to get a pregnancy-friendly wardrobe together for the tour, which began tonight. Lindsey's response was to cross the room until he stood before her, and took her face in his hands to kiss her tenderly.

"You are not fat, angel. You're carrying our baby girl. And that is yet another reason why you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

Stevie's Think pink! campaign had worked. The amniocentesis had been performed the week after the Fourth Of July when they'd flown home from Arizona, and they were having a healthy baby girl. After she'd gotten done crying and calling everyone she knew with the news, Stevie had begun to shop. Everything she'd bought in the past two months was pink, and she hadn't stopped smiling.

"You're a liar, sweetheart...but I love you." She winked at him and began walking towards the bathroom, Sara Belladonna following at her feet until she suddenly stopped, grabbing the armoire nearby, her hand over the baby as she stooped over.

"Stevie?" Lindsey approached her immediately. "You okay there, Mommy?"

"I'm fine," she said. "Baby Robin just kicked me in, like, the pancreas or something...knocked the wind out of me for a minute." Her hand was still over the baby, but she reached out and brought Lindsey's hand to her belly and covered it with her own. They stood in silence for a moment, frozen, mesmerized. Stevie looked up into his eyes and said, "Can you even believe this? My God, Linds..." She felt her eyes fill with tears. The baby had kicked and moved before, but every time it happened was like a new adventure to them. "That's our daughter in there...our baby girl...Robin."

"I know, baby...I know." Lindsey slid his hand from her belly to her shoulder, and soon he was holding her, both of them in tears. They had stayed up late s few nights before in bed watching The David Letterman Show and the baby had moved so much that Stevie had lifted the bottom of the adorable short-sleeved emerald green silk pajama top she'd been wearing with the matching silk elastic shorts, and if they looked closely, they could see the tiny moving ripples under the skin that were their daughter's movements. When Stevie had fallen asleep beside him later on, still half-sitting against the pillows in bed but her head on his shoulder, Lindsey had removed her glasses, pried the bridal magazine from her tiny hands as it lay open in her lap, and tucked her in under the covers beside the dog and kissed both of their heads before sneaking out to the living room to cry without being seen or heard by a pregnant woman who needed her rest.

The email he'd received from KitMess228@aol.com earlier that day had been more cryptic than usual, and watching Baby Robin, as she was officially being called now, moving beneath Stevie's stretching skin had filled him with an overwhelming sense of calm. He'd needed it after reading the email...

Lindsey,

Did it ever occur to you that you already HAD the perfect family set up before you ran back to a woman who dumped you 20 years ago? Your son is moving around now, kicking like a soccer player, and you're missing out. All for some middle-aged hippie woman who ensnares men like you with her fantasy songs about angels and kingdoms and then doesn't make good on any of it! It's a shame.

I want you back, Lindsey. I always wind up getting what I want, too, because I'm patient enough to wait...and strong enough to take the reigns if I need to move things along to accomplish my goals. My goal is the same as yours - a home and a family and a future. It's all right here if you'd answer the phone when I call you, for God sake.

Anyway, don't get too attached to the Welsh witch or whatever she calls herself. Is HER baby kicking? If I were that baby I'd kick my way out...and if I were you I'd watch my fiancé closely. I mean, everyone knows Stevie Nicks saying she wants a future with you is only her line until the next musician comes along. I guess she has to surround herself with talented people because she isn't one.

She's going to disappear on you, honey. And our son and I will be waiting right here for you when she does. I won't even say I told you so.

Love,
Kristen

Lindsey busied himself with looking through one of his suitcases for clean underwear while Stevie stepped into the shower before they were picked up and taken to the venue for soundcheck. There was a knock at the door, and he called out to his fiancé in the shower, "I've got it, Stevie. You just get yourself all clean and pretty and thank God for the knock at the door...if we were alone now I'd hop in there with you and we'd be late for soundcheck!"

He heard Stevie's raucous laughter ring out above the sound of the water. "You're an animal!" she called out to him.

"That's your fault, sweet girl...be less pretty so I can get places and not be late!" He heard her laugh again as he closed the bathroom door so she would not be seen showering by whoever was knocking at the hotel room door.

Mick Fleetwood stood at the threshold wearing his street clothes - beige Bermuda shorts, sandals, a pink gold shirt and matching pink cap over his gray ponytail. He looked visibly nervous. "Hey Lindsey, is Stevie here?"

"She's in the shower," Lindsey said. "What's up?"

"Actually good," said Mick. He was shifting his weight from sandal to sandal. "Let's talk out here; Stevie shouldn't hear this." Mick ushered Lindsey out into the hallway, and Lindsey closed the door over, looking confused. "Marty told me to come up and tell you two...we have a security problem."

"What kind of a security problem?" Lindsey tried not to think what he was thinking. "She's going to disappear on you, honey..." He felt sick to his stomach.

"A few phone calls were made to the box office of the arena today," Mick explained. "They were from Gary Briggs...you know the guy...Warners executive, the one who knew Kim Anderson years ago before..."

"Yeah, I know Gary," said Lindsey, nodding.

"Well Gary was calling out of concern. Apparently his ex-wife is in town here...or she was planning to come here...it was unclear. Marty said a bunch of stuff. In any case, this woman made a few threats, and Gary did what he thought was right. Marty flipped out, you know, and so tonight we're having extra security at the venue."

"What kind of threats? What do you mean?"

Mick looked to his left, then to his right, and then back at Lindsey. "His ex-wife's name is Kristen Messner. Christine was in the room when Marty told me...told us, as it were. John was there too. In any case, the threats were towards Stevie. John and I figured it was an obsessed fan - you know, some girl with a flower crown and tambourine who thinks 'Gypsy' was written about her, that kind of thing. But Chris remembered the name and she told me where from...that this Kristen person is a woman you used to see, and that she and Stevie ran into her at a restaurant in Hollywood back in April, same day of that interview we did when Stevie complained about camera angles and I got upset that you were catering to her." Mick leaned in closer. "Lindsey...what the fuck is going on?"

From inside the room, far away and muffled by doors and shower water, both men could hear the sound of Stevie's voice as she began to sing.

"And it all comes down to you...well you know that it does and lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice...oh, and it lights up the niiiiiiiiiiiiiiight..."

Lindsey looked up at Mick and took a deep breath. Marty Hom, their new tour manager since cutting ties with J.C., was a bit of a hysteric, he knew, but this was not about that. Lindsey knew it was time to face the music. He said, "Brace yourself, Mick. I have a story for you, and it's not a good one..."

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