I Will Run To You

Whatever Road You Choose

San Bernardino, California
Monday, May 30, 1983
(9:30 pm)
********************

"Good evening! How's everybody?"

Stevie stood off to the side of the stage at the Us Festival, watching her father address the cheering crowd. Lindsey stood behind her as one person he'd never met before fluffed her hair with a comb and another person handed her a vial of cocaine from which she took a generous snort up each nostril. His eyes quickly found Christopher's in the dim light of the backstage area, and without a word, both men knew that the things they'd talked about in the conversation they'd had that afternoon were right.

She was headed for a fall.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my daughter, Stevie Nicks!"

Stevie walked onto the stage with all the confidence of a woman who had not been sitting in a hotel room in a puddle of tears just hours before. She carried herself like a woman who had not been shaking like a leaf in arms as half a dozen members of her security team had argued in the living room of her suite about the best course of action and yelled at Lindsey to stay out if it, that he had just gotten there today and wasn't helping anyone with his hysterics.

She took her place at the microphone like the queen of rock and roll.

"Well I'm glad you stayed," she said to the crowd. Pushing her hair out of the way and suddenly terribly hot underneath the stage lights, Stevie felt the cocaine kicking in as she said, "Thank you for coming to this very, very, very important gig for all of us, because it's just so mammoth and big that we're so excited to be here. Thank you for staying...and welcome to your wild hearts!"

The crowd cheered, and Stevie turned briefly away from the mic as Waddy gave the signal and the band began to play "Outside The Rain". Lindsey, Jess and Christopher stood off to the side of the stage and watched as Stevie transformed from the terrified mess she had been just hours before into the center of attention, the true star that she was.

"Outside the rain and the heart skips a beat," she sang, her hands wrapped around the mic. "Are you lonely? Creature of the night, it's been almost a week...Would you love me only?"

Lindsey was so engrossed in her voice, watching her so intently, that he was unaware of Jess' presence as the older man sidled up to him and said, "She needs you, Lindsey." Lindsey turned around to face the man he had once considered his father-in-law. "That's not my kid out there. She's doing her best to pretend she's Stevie Nicks, but that's just the costume. She's not okay."

"She hasn't been okay since Robin," Lindsey said. Watching Stevie out of the corner of his eye as she continued her song, he was reminded of the night a few months earlier, during the Mirage tour, when he'd had to take over the second verse of "Sisters Of The Moon" on stage when Stevie had begun to cry. Robin had been dead only a week, and he couldn't believe she'd even made it that far into the song before breaking down. He could still see the back of her hair and her black velvet cape as he'd leaned over her from behind during his guitar break, whispering into her hair, "You're doing so good, angel. You're almost done. I've got you, baby...you are not alone." Stevie had proceeded to scream out the final lyrics of the song in an almost bestial performance before accepting well wishes and gifts from the audience, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

Twenty minutes later she'd been sobbing in a heap in his lap in a limo on their way back to the hotel, clinging to him like a frightened child after a nightmare.

Twenty minutes after that, she was curled up in his arms in her bedroom after insisting he place her mattress on the floor so she could "feel real again."