I Will Run To You

Will You Please Make Up Your Mind (Part 2)

Buffalo, New York
Saturday, July 2, 1983
(3:00 pm)
********************

Barbara Nicks could tell her daughter was high from the moment she stepped off the plane.

Stevie, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be normal. Her old self. Teedee. She wore her permed hair pulled up into a loose ponytail that left quite a few curled strands around her face. She was wearing makeup. She had on a pair of Sergio Valente jeans cuffed at the ankle, red high heels and a red-white-and-blue-striped linen blouse tucked into her pants exposing a white leather belt. She was smiling ear to ear as she waved across towards her mother walking in her direction from the gate, her red Gucci purse slipping from her shoulder as she yelled, "Mom! Barbara! Over here!"

But the truth was in her eyes.

They were vacant. They were dead. They were doused in anesthesia and they had no sparkle, no light...no Teedee behind them.

"Look at you!" Barbara's arms were outstretched towards her daughter despite her black leather purse over one shoulder and her carryon bag on the other. She quickly noticed that Lori Perry was standing beside her, and shuffling her feet while looking at the floor behind Lori was Sharon Celani.

Thank God, Barbara quickly thought. She's not alone at the airport in broad daylight while some lunatic is after her!

"I missed you!" Stevie cried out as she pulled her mother into a hug that lasted long...airport long. When she released her, Barbara got a good look in her eyes. That, as well as the bones of her daughter's back through her thin linen blouse, confirmed what Barbara already suspected.

"I missed you too, Teedee-bird," she said, and then turned her attention towards Stevie's two friends and backup singers. She hugged each of them. "So good to see you both!" she said. "How are you girls liking the tour?"

"Speaking for myself, I'm exhausted but it's been awesome," Lori volunteered. "I have your son to thank for keeping me sane, Barbara. Seriously! Chris has been an amazing friend all through the tour."

"Good to know," said Barbara. She and Stevie exchanged a knowing smile, remembering their conversation on the phone the week before about Lori and Christopher's friendship seemingly heading for more. "Okay, so let's go get my suitcase from the carrousel and get to it! Jess is waiting and we have a birthday to celebrate!"

The limousine that took the four women back to their hotel was long and black and the inspiration for Stevie's latest writing project, a song called "Belle Fleur" in which she wrote about big black limousines taking her away from the people - the men - she loved until she almost missed her old Toyota with no reverse. She was explaining this concept out loud to Barbara in the back of the limo as the radio played a pop station and Lori began singing under her breath, soon joined by Sharon, to the new love song duet by Sergio Mendez, "Never Gonna Let You Go".

"Looking back now it seems so clear...I had it all when you were here...Oh, you gave it all, and I took it for granted...But if there's some feeling left in you,
some flicker of love that still shines through...let's talk it out, let's talk about second chances..."

Barbara noticed Stevie was not joining in the singalong. Instead, she gazed out the window at Upstate New York as they rode along the highway, looking out at the summer afternoon that was getting gloomier and gloomier and promising an afternoon or evening thunderstorm.

"Wait and see, it's gonna be sweeter than it was before," Lori and Sharon went on singing, harmonizing and having a ball with the song that was fast becoming the big love song of the summer of 1983. "I gave some then but now I intend to dedicate myself to giving more...This time you can be sure..."