I Will Run To You

One So Young, So Changed

Las Vegas, Nevada
Friday, May 27, 1983
(5:45 pm)
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"You're being ridiculous, Howard. I'm not canceling shit!"

Stevie had gone from sad to indignant in a matter of minutes. She sat on the sofa in the living room of her suite, her little dog in her lap, stroking her white fuzzy curls as she looked at Howard as if he'd just told her Santa Claus wasn't real.

They'd been in the suite for all of one minute before the story had come out...

Someone who appeared to be an obsessed fan had written a series of disturbing letters that had been found among her fan mail, and the last one had included the fact that they "couldn't wait to see her up close" at the show tonight.

"Listen to him, Stevie! You can't be out there tonight if someone is threatening you!" Christopher Nicks sat across from his sister and beside Lori, and it had not escaped Stevie's attention that they were holding hands. Sharon owes me ten bucks, she thought, the two friends having engaged in a drunken debate a few nights ago about whether Lori and Chris had feelings for each other.

"Chris, knock it off. You sound like Daddy," Stevie said. She turned to Howard. "Can't we just, like, have good security? I mean, won't they keep an eye out?"

"I mean, of course...sure." Howard looked around at a roomful of people, and Stevie was by far the least concerned. "Look, Stevie, canceling dates is a last-ditch alternative. We just want you safe out there, and for things to run smoothly."

"Obviously everyone is keeping an eye out," Lori chimed in. Stevie could see her rubbing Christopher's knuckles with her thumb nonchalantly. "Hey...you've got a stalker! That means you're a big deal!" Lori smiled, hoping to make light of a tense conversation.

"Yeah, I'm Paul freaking McCartney," Stevie said, rolling her eyes. She did her best to smile back at her friend, but she had to admit, she was getting a little tired of people in her life joking things away. "Keep the security tight, especially the front row for the Edge walk, and we should be cool. Okay?"

Howard slapped his hands on his lap as he rose to a standing position and said, "You got it, Stevie. I'm going downstairs and talk to security now."

"Fine." Stevie stood up and said to everyone, "Listen, I'm going to get ready, do my whole routine and all...so you guys go do your own thing, okay?" I wonder if they know that's code for, "I need a bubble bath, a joint and a serious crying jag before I go down to the arena tonight."

"We'll see you down there," Waddy said, and they all began to file out of the room. Stevie walked them all out, and it was Waddy who turned to her and said, "Don't worry. I'm not letting this shit go down, Stevie. You're going to be fine."

Stevie smiled and said, "I know." She looked up into his eyes, and for a split second, she saw something she had never seen before, something she had spent the entire early Seventies yelling at Lindsey he was crazy for seeing.

She saw Waddy looking at her as more than a friend.

"See you down there," he said, and as quickly as she had seen the look, it was gone.

All alone in her suite, Stevie went to the mini bar and poured herself a generous glass of brandy. The cocaine she'd ingested downstairs was making her jittery, and brandy, she knew, was the perfect antidote. Her two dogs lying happily on the rug near the window overlooking the Strip, she sat down on the sofa with her drink and removed her boots to curl her legs beneath her in her seat. She tried to take stock of what Howard had told her, the contents of the letters and why they were suspicious.

"This person is writing all kinds of stuff about you being their soulmate, how you are spiritually married and all, Stevie. They have pieced together your lyrics in a way that proves it, and quite frankly, that is alarming and dangerous."

She thought back to the tears she had shed in the bathroom just a few minutes ago, and why news of this obsessed fan's letters was starting to upset her more than she'd let on in front of everyone just now.

It's the same thing as downstairs with Mike, she thought. I am surrounded by people who think they love me, but they don't even know me, and I am still all alone.

She took a long sip of brandy, and then, against the voices that were screaming in her head, she picked up the phone and dialed Lindsey's number. She was already starting to cry again.

"Hello?" Carol Ann's high-pitched whine came through the phone. Stevie froze. "Hello?"

Stevie covered the end of the phone over with her hand so she wouldn't be heard breathing unsteadily. She heard Carol Ann say, "Uh, hellooooooooo?" There was a scuffling sound and then Lindsey's voice from the background.

"Who is it?" Stevie sucked in a breath at the sound of his voice.

"I don't know; some joker who..." And that was all she heard before Carol Ann hung up the phone.

Stevie reached for her glass and drank the rest of her brandy in one long, slow sip. You're losing your mind, Stevie. For God sakes, get a grip! She had no idea why a perfectly innocent day had turned into what she honestly felt was the beginning of a nervous breakdown. She reached down to her discarded boots on the floor and pulled out her vial again. One more quick snort of cocaine, she figured, would combat the fact that the brandy she'd just swallowed had made her a bit fuzzy, and she had an entire opening night show to perform in two hours.

She went into the bathroom, stopping on the way to pet the dogs, and began to fill the tub for a bath. She turned on the tape deck and began to undress, singing along to the Joni Mitchell song she had played so many times she had every note memorized, determined not to let the events of the past hour make her any crazier than she already was.

"I am on a lonely road and I am traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling...looking for something, what can it be? Oh I hate you some, I hate you some, I love you some...oh, I love you when I forget about me..."

She stepped into the hot soapy water and slid in as far as she could until she was almost floating, and closed her eyes to the familiar sound of the song she had first heard in her apartment in Northern California a million years ago, when Lindsey was just a friend and Robin was alive and Fritz was opening for Jimi Hendrix and life wasn't so goddamn lonely all the time.

"I am on a lonely road and I am traveling...looking for the key to set me free...Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling, it's the unraveling, and it undoes all the joy that could be...I wanna have fun, I wanna shine like the sun, I wanna be the one that you want to see...I wanna knit you a sweater, wanna write you a love letter, I wanna make you feel better, I wanna make you feel free..."

The last time she felt free, she remembered, really felt free, she was sitting down on a mattress on the floor in a tiny apartment and prying a guitar out of the hands of the man who was lying asleep there beside a little white poodle whose paws were on his face and he was oblivious to it because it happened every night, and she was setting the guitar down and lying beside its owner and resting her head on his chest, only to feel his arms circling around her as she closed her eyes and settled into a dreamless, peaceful sleep, knowing she was not only loved, but she was seen - really seen - and she did not feel the least bit cold or alone.

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