I Will Run To You

Prologue: If You Need Me I'll Come Running

Venice Beach, California
Monday, May 2, 1983
(10:30 am)
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The incessant barking of a the little white poodle on the other side of the bed woke Stevie out of a dream she was happy to be pulled from.

It was the same thing every night - or rather, every morning when she finally got to bed. The dreams were always about babies. Baby boys, baby girls...dozens of them, all lined up in cribs in one room like they were being kept in some kind of a detention center, crying at the top of their lungs...and she couldn't reach them to comfort them. Some nights, her arms wouldn't move. Some nights, she couldn't walk in with her own feet. Last night had been the worst kind of baby dream, though.

Last night she was locked out of the room completely, but was made to stand in the hallway and listen to them cry.

The crying babies which became the barking dog soon had another sound to add to the mix - the phone was ringing.

"Fuuuuuuuck meeeeee..." Stevie groaned into her pillow, and blindly reached a gentle hand out to poor little Ginny, who was still barking at her mother to stop the phone from ringing. She groped with her other hand for the phone beside the bed and answered with a tone reminiscent of Elmer Fudd. "Hello."

"Are you out of your goddamned mind?" Stevie heard the unmistakable voice of Jimmy Iovine coming from the other end of the call.

"Good morning to you too." Stevie's tone was extra sarcastic as she reached out for the pack of Marlboro cigarettes and lighter beside the phone. She lit her cigarette and exhaled completely before she said more. "What?"

"You were supposed to be in the rehearsal studio at ten o'clock this morning and it's ten-thirty!" Jimmy sounded irate, but not more than usual. "Jesus Christ, Stevie, people are being paid to sit on their asses and wait for you!"

"Then that's the easiest day's pay they'll ever earn," she answered back with a grand exhale of smoke clouding around her. "Tell anyone who's there to hold their horses, okay? I'll jump into the shower and get in a car and I'll be there by like twelve. Meanwhile let Lori and Sharon practice harmonies or something. Everyone else has something to do, Jimmy, so keep your pants on."

"You never used to tell me that," Jimmy wisecracked, to which Stevie rolled her eyes...even if she did chuckle a bit.

"That's not funny yet, Jimmy," she said, cigarette dangling from her lips as she opened the nightstand drawer to retrieve her vial of cocaine.

"Ah, I see," said Jimmy, his anger sufficiently diffused. "And what exactly is the right time frame for cracking jokes about your relationship to your ex? Riddle me that."

Unscrewing the top of the vial, Stevie said through her half-opened lips through the smoke that was beginning to burn her eyes, "I don't know, Jimmy. Why don't you call Lindsey Buckingham and ask him?"

"Touché." Jimmy laughed, and as Stevie took a rather large bump of cocaine from the spoon at the other end of the cap, she knew she had successfully gotten him to forget he was mad at her oversleeping. She thought of her mother, who had taught her the subtle grace of controlling things like a puppeteer but all the while appearing just a little bit like you were letting the other person win. Thanks, Barbara, she told her mother in her head.

"Anyway, let me wake up a bit, pour a gallon of coffee down my throat, and I'll be there," she said.

"I'll keep my pants on," Jimmy teased, and she giggled again.

"You would." She screwed the cap of the vial back on tightly and said, "Thanks, Jimmy." She hung up the phone and looked at her little dog. "Mommy has to go sing soon, baby. Let's go get you some food."

She rolled out of bed and picked Ginny up in her arms, and headed downstairs with her dog and her cigarettes. As upset as she was about Jimmy's attitude during the phone call, she had to admit, at least she'd forgotten to be scared of her nightmare about the crying babies she couldn't save. Leave it to Jimmy to be around when she didn't realize she needed him.

The phone was ringing as she got to the kitchen downstairs. Setting Ginny down on her feet, she said out loud, "Jesus! Is this Everybody Call Stevie Day?" She reached for the wall phone and the bag of dog food simultaneously. Over the rattling sound of kibble hitting the metal dog bowl, she said, "Whoever this is, I'm on my way."

"That's how we're answering the phone now?"

Stevie swallowed hard at the sound of the very familiar voice. "Hi, Lindsey. What do you want?"

"From the sound of things, you haven't had coffee yet," said Lindsey, hearing her groggy, grumpy tone. "I'm sorry...I'm on my way out and I wanted to call you before I left...it's a month today and I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Stevie froze, standing there in the middle of her kitchen, bag of dog food in hand. It suddenly occurred to her that it was May 2.

Exactly one month ago, she had watched as Kim had taken the suitcases out to the waiting car, giving her every last moment to hold baby Matthew before he took his infant son from her arms and they rode off to the airport, heading home to Minnesota.

Exactly one month ago, she had quietly retreated to the nursery upstairs in her empty house, looking around at the Jungle Book themed room, and the picture of Robin she'd kept on the table near the rocking chair so Matthew would know his mother's face.

Exactly one month ago she had sunk to the floor of the nursery, clinging to a framed photograph of Matthew taken on his first day home from the NICU, when he was finally strong enough as a preemie to come home.

Exactly one month ago, as if by magic, Lindsey's footsteps had sounded up the stairs, and he had sat down beside her on the floor as she cried, clutching the picture as if it were Matthew himself, and he had not said a word but just sat beside her until she'd said, "Do not say a word, Lindsey. Do not say I told you so or it was stupid or anything I already know, okay?"

Exactly one month ago, he had taken her hand in his and simply said, "I won't," just before he took her in his arms and let her cry over the baby she had almost gotten to raise as her own.

And exactly one month ago, he had lifted her up from the nursery floor and carried her to bed where she could cry more comfortably, and she had asked him to stay with her.

He'd left the next morning, telling her not to worry, that the marks she'd left on him in their tearful, desperate lovemaking were not so bad and he'd figure out what to tell Carol Ann.

"I'm fine," she finally said out loud, although she could have sworn she'd said it sooner, but realized she had only been practicing the lie in her head.

"I hope so," Lindsey said. "If you're not, you know, it's okay. You can tell me."

"I'm fine, Lindsey. I appreciate your calling, but I'm on borrowed time. I have to get out to Century City to rehearsal. The Wild Heart tour starts in a month."

"Well I won't keep you." Lindsey cleared his throat. "You call me tonight if you need me, okay? I was there too, you know, and...I get it."

You always do, she thought, but said instead, "Thanks, Lindsey. I'm going to go."

"Okay." She could hear the disappointment in his voice, and then she heard, "I'm here if you need me. Bye, Stephanie."

Stevie felt the beginning of tears but she forced them back. "Bye, Linds."

Something told her it was going to be particularly difficult to get through the set list at rehearsal that day without every lyric making her cry, but she wasn't quite sure who she'd be crying over.

She lit another cigarette and started the coffee. It doesn't really matter who my tears are for anymore, she thought. I wind up missing everyone when they leave me alone anyway.

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