Everybody Loves You

Fear Of Fire Leaves You Cold (Lindsey's Story)

Hollywood, California
Monday, January 9, 2023
(9:00 am)
********************

A series of texts from my son woke me up the morning of Christine's memorial service right in the middle of a rather bizarre dream I was having about her.

We were at a restaurant, Christine and I, and no one else was there but a busboy in the distance. I was telling her about my divorce being final and Christine just looked at me over this teacup she was drinking from with red roses all over it until she finally told me she had big news of her own - she was retiring. It was exactly the same conversation we'd had when she'd retired from music and left the band in 1998, just after The Dance and the Hall Of Fame...only I could see in her eyes something different this time. She was tired. She was ready to go.

I covered her hand with mine on the table and told her I understood. Her hand felt cold. Then she dropped the teacup onto a matching saucer and looked at me, really looked at me, and said, "Don't worry about me. Worry about her."

"What do you mean, Chris? Who else is there? We're talking about your retirement, aren't we?"

"Yes, but you know what happened last time."

I was just about to ask her which "last time" she was talking about, who the "her" was I needed to worry about, when the sound of Simon & Garfunkel's "I Am A Rock" broke into my dream and I was alone in my bed, awake. Hearing the recently-purchased ringtone I'd added for texts on my phone with help from my daughter Stella, I looked over at the phone charging on the nightstand beside me. My screen read 8:56 and I hadn't intended to sleep that late. I also saw three new text messages from my son Will.

8:56 am
Hey dad listen good luck this afternoon if you need me I'm around ✊🏻✌🏻😉

8:56 am
Also mom said call her tonight. Was there last night for dinner so she said to remind you sorry🙈

8:57 am
Is Aunt Stevie going to the thing today?

My first thought was What no overuse of emojis for the last one, kid? I kind of chuckled through a yawn over young people's texting habits, like no capital letters and run-on sentences. Then, as I woke up a bit more, I internalized the information. Will wished me luck. Kristen needed me to call her tonight. Stevie was expected at Christine's service today. I yawned again and replied, rubbing my eyes with my wrist and typing with my other thumb.

Probably so. Don't know about that. If you speak to Mom today tell her no problem. Thanks, kiddo. 😁

The coffee maker in the kitchen of my brand-new condo in Hollywood, over by The Bowl, was my first stop after using the bathroom. My doctor's repeated warnings about the affect of caffeine on my heart have been going "in one ear and out the other" as my mother once told us three - my brothers Jeff and Greg and myself - when we were kids and didn't listen. I figured at this point, I was seventy-three years old and if caffeine was the thing that would take me down, so be it. After all, Mick Fleetwood spent about twenty years hoovering up half of South America and he's in perfect shape, so what was the harm in a little Maxwell House?

I'd have been lying if Stevie being at the service hadn't been on my mind more and more as the date grew closer. I'd spoken to Mick, who hadn't mentioned her name at all, mostly because it probably hadn't occurred to him but probably also because we had an agreement, he and I. The "S-word" was off limits if we were going to be friends again. Johnny hadn't said anything about her either, but he had bigger problems. I knew that. I don't care how long he's been married to Julie; Christine was the love of his life. Even Julie knew that.