Auld Lang Syne: A Millennium Love Story

And The Heart Skips A Beat

Mandalay Bay
Las Vegas, Nevada
New Years Eve
Friday, December 31, 1999
(5:00 pm)
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"Because the rain is going to hold everything up, Waddy! Tell Carlos to cool his jets, okay? I'll get down there when I get down there!"

Stevie stood in the center of the living room of her suite, telephone in one hand and a bottle of tequila in the other. Her routine of taking a shot of tequila before every show had expanded today, and she had blamed New Years and her steel trap of a memory as she'd poured a shot just before Waddy's phone call from downstairs. She was just beginning to feel it.

Waddy had calls to ask what was holding her up for soundcheck, and she had no answer to give him. She had no idea what was keeping her locked up in her room, knowing that downstairs, her entire band and crew were scrambling, Karen rushing around with a head mic on, Sharon and Mindy starting to panic. She just couldn't leave the room. Was it fear? Was it some sort of holiday depression setting in? She couldn't figure it out. All she knew was she was not ready to go downstairs.

It was still pouring rain outside, and she thought she heard thunder in the distance. She was beginning to think maybe she should force herself to go downstairs, where there were no windows that were being relentlessly beaten with rain and thunder that made her stomach do anxious flip flops no matter how many shots of tequila she took.

She tried not to think of the hundreds of times Lindsey had let her crawl into his arms and hide from the rain. He knew thunderstorms frightened her, a girl from the desert who was used to baking sunshine, and he'd always wrap her in his arms and pull up the covers tell her she was safe, that it was just a little thunder and she was inside, that he'd protect her.

Someone began knocking on the door as she hung up the phone. She rolled her eyes and began walking towards the door, expecting Karen to be on the other side, trying to rally her to go downstairs.

"Jesus, Karen, I told Waddy I was on my way!" she shouted at the closed door. She pulled it open and saw no one. She looked to her left and to her right in the hallway, but it was when she looked down that she saw the bundle of things lying on the floor.

Two dozen red roses and two boxes of Animal Crackers sat in a festive basket, and small note card sticking out of the top. She sucked in a breath - or was it a sob? - knowing exactly who would leave those specific items for her. She picked it all up and brought it into the room, deposited it all on the coffee table. She was terrified to read the note card, but she picked it up and took a deep breath.

Stephanie,

One bouquet of flowers and one box of Animal Crackers for each year I haven't been there to kiss you at midnight, sweet girl. Tonight, hopefully, that changes. See you at the show. I have a lot to tell you.

Love,
Lindsey

She could see the note card shaking and she knew it was because of her hand. Lindsey. She had not laid eyes on him since the Hall Of Fame, and she liked it that way. It kept her safe from her own thoughts...mostly. It put distance between her and the most perfect year of her life, the year they'd finally gotten it right for the most part and she went to sleep at night feeling safe and warm and loved.

It kept her from thinking about his smile under the stage lights when she sang "Landslide".

It kept her from seeing him in her dressing room with red roses and Animal Crackers while Christine was singing "Songbird" on stage overhead.

It kept her from seeing his beautiful blue eyes meet hers across her brother's backyard on the Fourth Of July, both of them saying without words that his presence in Arizona meant one thing - they were home.

It kept her from remembering his hand on her belly in the bubbly bathtub water as he sang to the unborn child of theirs they would never meet.

It kept her from going straight back in her mind and her heart to that hotel room in Michigan, ironically just a few miles from Silver Springs, where they'd huddled together and cried and made love one last time before she sent him to do what they both knew was right.

It kept her from remembering that she had gotten so used to falling asleep in his arms that she had not had a good night's sleep in two years, even when she got desperate and pulled the covers up tight, gripped the pillow and stroked her own hair, hearing him in her mind whisper, "Good night, my sweet girl. I love you."

It suddenly occurred to her that she was crying. She hadn't noticed the tears at first as they ran silently down her cheeks, finally sliding across her lips before she wiped them away.

Fuck...now I REALLY can't go downstairs yet, she thought. But the phone was ringing again and she knew it was either Waddy or Karen and whoever it was would be angry, so she quickly went into the bathroom to touch up her face and then grabbed her things and put on her shoes.

She took a sip of tequila from the bottle before she closed the door, leaving her two little dogs dozing together in a ball in their little bed and trying not to remember how amazing it felt when she and Lindsey fell asleep the exact same way.

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House Of Blues
Mandalay Bay
Las Vegas, Nevada
New Years Eve
Friday, December 31, 1999
(10:00 pm)
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Lindsey had decided when he obtained his ticket to the New Years Eve show at the House Of Blues that sitting in the front row, however much he wanted to because he longed to be that close to Stevie again, would be a mistake. He knew that seeing him there, watching her, would make her too nervous. He didn't want her to have a show that was anything less than her usual amazing performance, and he didn't want her to be upset. Instead, he'd opted for a seat in the second level, where Stevie, between the darkness and her terrible eyesight, would miss him.

He blended in with the crowd, his anonymity safe between two tipsy thirty-something women in flower crowns and black dresses and a couple in their fifties talking about having seen Elton John at Madison Square Garden earlier that year. He held his breath as the lights dimmed and the familiar sound of Waddy Wachtel's guitar filled the venue, and the audience went wild with cheers and applause.

"Outside the rain and the heart skips a beat...So you're lonely...Creature of the night, it's been almost a week...Can you love me only?"

Lindsey's heart stood still. There stood Stevie, center stage, bathed in light and dressed in black and a sparkling red and gold cape around her shoulders. Her hair was longer now, he noticed, straightened, and it shone in the spotlight and made her look other-worldly, like a goddess. He swallowed hard, standing up as people around him did the same, his eyes fixed on her and thinking there could be nothing on earth more beautiful to him in that very moment. He was mesmerized. He was in love.

"Look at me, for a very long time...long enough to know love is a word I've been trying to find...Words don't matter...They don't matter at all..."

He thought of the lyrics she sang, remembering the time he locked himself away to listen to Bella Donna for the first time in his home studio. He wondered then if any part of the song was about him...until she'd confirmed it one night a few months later, lying in his arms in a bedroom in a chateaux in France, their naked bodies wrapped together and the fireplace crackling before them. He'd echoed her lyrics back to her and whispered into her wild blonde permed hair, "Love is a word that some entertain...If you find it, you have won the game." Stevie had whispered back, "Then we're both winners, sweetheart." They kissed, and he rolled over onto her under the covers and they'd made love again while he told her she looked like an angel in the firelight.

He could hardly wait to hold her again. He had two more hours to go.

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