Buckingham Nicks A/U Series Part 3: Storms

My Body Tries To Cry

The Village Recorders
Los Angeles, California
Monday, April 9, 1979
(12:00 pm)
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It was a Sunday night when Lindsey had emerged from the bathroom clean-shaven and short-haired.

Stevie was sitting up in bed, feeding a bottle to Julia while she watched the three waitresses of Mel's Diner getting into comedic hi-jinx on an episode of Alice, Ginny snoring away on Lindsey's side of the bed, a box of Animal Crackers she'd been snacking on nearby. Lindsey had opened the bathroom door and a flood of shower steam had come out, almost the way dry ice was used for magic shows and the primitive special effects of fantasy TV comedies like Bewitched that she'd watched in the Sixties.

Lindsey had worn a white towel around his waist, another draped over his shoulders, which he seemed to be using the edge of to get water out of his ear. Exhausted and not wearing her contacts, Stevie saw his body first, his tanned arms and chest looking more tanned than they probably were, contrasted against the towels. It wasn't until she'd squinted and look north of his chest hair when she'd finally seen his drastic new look, and he stood frozen in one spot, dripping onto the light pink bedroom carpet and half-smiling.

Stevie had immediately burst into tears.

"My God, Stevie, I'M the one who should be emotional!" he said after a few minutes of explaining himself from the bathroom doorway when he'd joined her on the bed. Stevie was openly sobbing, tears streaming down her makeup-free face, and sweet, placid baby Julia falling asleep in her mother's arms with the nipple of a bottle in her mouth, oblivious to it all...the calm in the middle of the storm as always.

"I'm sorry, Lindsey..." Stevie choked out. "I'm sorry I'm crying...I don't know why I'm getting so fucking EMOTIONAL about this...please don't be insulted by me crying...you know I think you're beautiful...my God, baby, I LOVE you! You're the best-looking man I KNOW! But..."

Stevie continued to sob openly until Lindsey took Julia from her arms and placed her tiny sleeping form on the bed between them. Ginny sniffed "her human sister," as Stevie called their relationship, and gave kind little doggy licks to Julia's tiny hand. Lindsey took the bottle Stevie was clutching with both hands and set it down on the nightstand. She watched shower water drip from his arm into her lap, a little dark pink spot forming on her light pink nightgown.

"Stevie..." Lindsey cleared his throat, buying himself time to find the most tactful words. "You know your hormones are way out of whack right now..." She was six months postpartum from Julia and eight weeks pregnant with Aaron.

"No! Jesus! Why does every man on earth think every emotion a woman has is PMS or Baby Brain or some bullshit cop-out like that?" She was trying hard to get control of herself, trying to catch her breath.

"Then I'm at a loss, Stevie," he said. He flung the towel around his shoulders onto the floor and said, "See that? Dig me, LITERALLY throwing in the towel!" He smiled as Stevie began laughing, wiping tears away as fast as they came. He said, "There...now THAT made you stop crying." He began to rub affectionately at her exposed thigh near him on the bed. "Now tell me...why are you so upset? Do you not like it? It's just hair, angel. Your hair has changed...hell, you were barely a BLONDE when I met you!"

"You look great, Linds," Stevie assured him with a little delicate sniffle, followed by a not-so-delicate one. "It's not that." She inhaled deeply, and when she exhaled, her voice shaky, she said, "It's the end of an era!" When his puzzled expression was his only response, she added, "We met in 1966. You were singing a song written by John and Michelle Phillips after a day out in the cold in New York City when they had previously been dropping acid on the beach for months in the Virgin Islands. We opened for Jimi Hendrix at the Fillmore. Janis Joplin once threw a Southern Comfort bottle at us and told us to get the fuck off her stage."