Decades

The Last Worthless Evening

Fleetwood Mac took the stage for their brief performance at the fundraiser. Backstage, Carol Ann wandered into Stevie's unlocked dressing room. She quietly looked around the room. She used a little of Stevie's perfume, rubbing her wrists together and dabbing a little behind her ears before picking up her lipstick and reddening her own lips.

She ran her hands over the outfit that Stevie had hung up to change into after the show. The fabric felt luxurious but so modest. Carol Ann looked at her own skimpy attire in the mirror and wondered why Stevie was so dowdy, always wearing shawls and covering up with layers of fabric. Maybe Stevie didn't have the body to pull off something like the little number she was wearing, Carol Ann thought.

Stevie left her journal on the counter near the makeup mirror. "Hmmm, what do we have here?" Carol Ann picked it up and thumbed through the pages, looking at her drawings and doodles and scanning the words on the pages for anything interesting. She knew they'd soon be back, but she had a few minutes before she'd need to clear out.

Stevie had droned on about how she loved Lindsey, but he was jealous of Don and how much that hurt her. She tiptoed around the details, but it was clear she was describing fucking Lindsey. There were comments about how she was usually afraid of storms, but watching his beautiful body lit by lightning and covered in raindrops had been a transcendent experience for them. It didn't take a genius to know that she wasn't talking about simply being caught in the rain.

She also talked about Don and how nice it was to spend time with him and how she hated that it caused problems between her and Lindsey. Stevie said she enjoyed being his friend and would miss him but that Lindsey's jealousy would cause her to give that friendship up, even if she didn't want to. "Interesting," thought Carol Ann.

Then, on the last page that Stevie had written was the beginning of a note in Stevie's neat cursive. It had Lindsey's name in flowery letters with a heart around it at the top of the page. A quarter of the way down the paper, she'd written, "I really want us to be one again. Even though I've seen you these last few days, I've missed you still. I miss us. I want us to start over. Even though this has been difficult, I know in my heart that loving you hasn't changed. Come to me tonight, All my love, allways, Stevie."

Carol Ann rolled her eyes at the weirdly misspelled "allways" and wondered why Stevie did that. She began to hear noise in the hallway, and quickly tore the page from the journal and walked quickly out of the dressing room, but not before ripping away the top portion of the note where Lindsey's name was featured inside a drawing of a heart.

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As Fleetwood Mac closed the part of the set devoted to their songs, Stevie announced Don. "Please welcome a man who is very dear to me," she went on as Henley made his way to the stage, where she greeted him with a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, her smile pasted on in a way that anyone who didn't know her would believe was real. Again, Lindsey was forced out of the spotlight while Don stepped into it beside Stevie. The two of them were the most exciting part of the show for the audience, knowing they were the golden couple of rock and roll these days.

Don and Stevie performed their duet, "Leather and Lace." Though this entire performance was done to keep Lindsey out of trouble, he was angry at Stevie and blamed her for having to play on it. And he hated Don. Hated the way he was singing to Stevie as if he sincerely meant every word. By all appearances, she was reciprocating his feelings.

"When you walked into my house, That you won't be walking out the door,"

Lindsey remembered when Don was at Stevie's house, and his blood began to boil. His temper made it difficult even to see straight. Why would he be on stage obsessing like this? He had to get ahold of himself.