Say Goodbye

Before The Night Turns Blue

The Drake Hotel
Chicago, Illinois
Saturday, September 14, 2003
(11:30 pm)
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Stevie had just remembered that Saturday Night Live was on as she settled into bed with Sulamith on one side and Sara Belladonna on the other. She slid easily under the down comforter in her green silk pajamas, which she preferred to wear with the air conditioning on rather than turn it off and dress lighter for bed. She had finally stopped crying about an hour after Lindsey left, reminding herself that she would look terrible on camera tomorrow if she continued to cry. She recalled the tears she had shed over various relationships and people in her younger days before taking the stage, hating being fifty-five and subject to puffiness and tired eyes because she couldn't stop loving a man who wasn't hers anymore. She thought back to Tusk, to dragging herself into the studio after crying about Mick and Sara, only to see both Mick and Lindsey there, either avoiding her like the plague or asking her if she was tired because she looked it in her eyes. In those days, a few quick bumps of cocaine would have taken care of everything - her tired eyes as well as her broken heart. But she had not touched cocaine in nearly twenty years, so she'd forced herself to stop crying and get into a hot bath, to forget that all of a sudden, after six years of resignation, her entire life hung on Lindsey's answer.

She knew she wasn't going to sleep tonight, and she already felt sorry for the makeup department at the studio where she'd be joining Lindsey on stage to sing about the exact thing that had her crying.

Stevie could hear the sound of someone knocking on the door over a Saturday Night Live sketch in which Will Ferrell was playing George W. Bush to hilarious exaggeration. She felt her heart leap into her throat, remembering that she'd told Lindsey to come back when he'd made up his mind. She was trying not to tremble as she took herself out of bed.

"Mommy's coming right back, ladies," she told the curious dogs who sat on the bed. "Don't worry."

The knocking sound was increasing, and as she fumbled with her hands over unfamiliar walls for a light switch, she heard the voice that terrified her and made her feel safe all at once.

"Stevie? Stevie, let me in," Lindsey implored beyond the locked door to her suite. "You can't be sleeping, Stevie; it's still dark outside."

Stevie stopped on her way to the door, smiling, her hand over her heart. Lindsey's little teasing remark about being awake made her feel so known, so seen. Lindsey knew she seldom went to sleep before seven in the morning, and that little joke from beyond the door made her heart melt in a way he'd almost never achieved in her before. She took a deep breath and opened the door, and there stood Lindsey, still in the blue t-shirt and jeans he'd been wearing earlier, but he looked tired, spent, as if he'd just been through a war.

"She's leaving tomorrow morning," he announced. "It's over."

"Linds..." She looked at his tired stance in the open doorway, holding onto both sides of the frame. "What do you mean? What happened?"

Lindsey responded by stepping across the threshold and pulling her into his arms. Too stunned to say a word, Stevie's arms went up around him. He was holding her so tight she could barely breathe, and instead of the desperation she'd felt in him earlier in the evening, she felt a quiet sense of calm, of relief, as if he'd been upstairs doing battle and he'd come to her door to announce his victory and ask for her hand. Her eyes filled immediately with tears and she gave up wanting to look rested for the show.

"We had it out, once and for all," he explained, his words falling into her hair. "She's leaving tomorrow morning with the kids and the nanny. When we get back to California it's over, angel. I'm not going through that one more day...I can't."