Hollywood Hills, California
Tuesday, May 26, 1987
(8:30 am)
********************"Happy Birthday to you...Happy Birthday to you...Happy Birthday, my little Teedee-bird...Happy Birthday to you..."
Barbara's voice on Stevie's answering machine, singing her the happy birthday song as lovingly as she had sung it to her daughter thirty-eight times before, was the first thing Stevie heard as she opened her eyes on the morning of her thirty-ninth birthday.
In her sleepy haze, Stevie picked up the phone and heard the long beep as the answering machine stopped recording. "Hi, Mom...thank you."
"My baby girl is thirty-nine," Barbara Nicks mused out loud. With a sigh, she added, "We're getting old, Teedee-bird...you just wait till your bathroom shelves are covered in anti-aging creams."
"They already are," Stevie said, and they both laughed. She yawned, slowly becoming aware of two little dogs wandering around the foot of the bed, awake for the day.
"What are your plans for you big day?" Barbara inquired. Stevie hesitated before answering her truthfully, a lovesick grin coming to her face as she thought of her birthday plans...as well as how they'd been made yesterday morning, before Lindsey went home to do damage control for his relationship...
"I can't wait to see you all dressed up in your birthday girl outfit, all heads turning when you walk into that restaurant because you'll instantly be the most beautiful woman in the room."
Lindsey was standing in Stevie's bathroom, recently dressed to leave after they'd shared a shower and he'd personally washed every inch of her body, stopping here and there to apply his mouth to her skin where his soapy hands followed. Stevie stood before him in her fluffy black velour bathrobe, her long permed hair drying into curls which he tucked behind her ear as she moved closer to him. He grabbed the velvet sash of her robe at her waist to pull her into a kiss.
"Mmmm...and then realizing it's Stevie Nicks," she said when his lips left hers. "On Lindsey Buckingham's arm...are you sure about this, sweetheart? We're really upsetting the apple cart here, you know."
"I will upset all of the apple carts in all of the orchards everywhere if it means being with you and giving you a great birthday, sweet girl." He kissed her again, backing her up against the sink vanity. Still kissing her, he grabbed either side of her waist and lifted her up onto the countertop, the lighted mirror behind her and illuminating her damp blonde curls. Lindsey walked right in between her legs, which she wrapped around his waist, arms around his neck as he continued to kiss her, holding her by the chin.
"Hey..." Stevie knew he had to leave, but she could feel him starting to get worked up again. "Baby...you have to get out of here...you can't be attacking me like this if you plan on going home."
"Then stop being so damn kissable and I'll be on my way," he said, bringing her to him for one last kiss by sinking his hand into her hair and pulling her towards him. He kissed her long and deep and groaned in protest when their mouths pulled apart at last.
"You'll see me tomorrow night and you can kiss me aaaaaaaall you want, baby," she promised him, her fingers crawling up the front of his t-shirt up to his face to stroke his cheek with her thumb. "I'll won't have changed, you know...I'll be just as kissable then, sweetheart."
"Oh I'm sure of that, birthday girl...and you will be handsomely rewarded for being so adorable, too."
"Good...now get out of here so I can take the dogs out and you can turn into a pumpkin," Stevie teased, pushing him gently away and lowering herself off the sink vanity. "Tomorrow night...we party!"
"Naked, of course," Lindsey teased with a silly grin.
"That'll REALLY make their heads turn at the restaurant!" Stevie said, and they both laughed as she fell into his arms for one last hug before she walked him downstairs. She couldn't wait for her birthday dinner tomorrow night...and the private birthday party for two Lindsey had promised her, complete with carrot cake and a bubble bath for two, exactly what she'd told him she wanted to do for her birthday once she'd taken the time to choose.
"I asked you what you had planned for today, honey." Barbara's voice broke into Stevie's thoughts, and she wondered how long she'd be silent, daydreaming about Lindsey, kissing her as she wrapped herself around him on the bathroom sink counter, hating more than she cared to admit that Cheri Caspari was at home waiting for him to explain why he hadn't come home the night before.
"Oh...sorry," Stevie said to her mother. "Nothing major; just dinner."
"Who with?" Barbara asked innocently, and Stevie made a split-second decision she would live to regret exactly one month later.
"With Lindsey," Stevie said. She listened to the silence on the other end of the call. It was deafening.
"Does his girlfriend know he's taking you out for your birthday?" Barbara sounded more than a little hesitant to accept it...in fact, Stevie thought, she almost sounded scolding.
"I don't know, Mom, but he offered and I'm going," she said. "Everyone else is either busy or away, and it was going to be just me and the dogs around here tonight with dinner ordered in and watching Who's The Boss and Growing Pains on TV...so I'm happy for the chance to get out." I'm also looking forward to our AFTER-dinner plans, but you don't need to know those, Mom, she thought with a giggle she hoped was in her head.
It wasn't.
"What's going on with you two these days?" Barbara had heard the giggle and she knew her daughter; it was the silly girlish sound of someone in love...or at least in lust...with either a new man or the old one she never seemed to be able to do without.
"Nothing, Mom; he's just being kind enough to make sure I'm not alone on my birthday," Stevie lied. "You know Lindsey; he's always made a huge deal of my birthday, since the very first one I knew him for, when I turned twenty." She thought back to the pink stationery with the gold angel and the gold stenciled Stephanie on it, and the bootleg copy of Joni Mitchell's Song To A Seagull he'd given her at band practice before Javier had yelled at them to get to work, and the electricity that had coursed through her body and right through to her soul when she'd hugged him to thank him for her thoughtful gifts.
"Well be careful, and have a good time, honey," Barbara said. "I'll let you go let the dogs out and start the day, and I'll talk to you later. Happy Birthday, my baby girl. I love you."
Suddenly feeling terribly guilty for lying to her about Lindsey, Stevie said, "I love you too, Mom. Tell Daddy hi and I love him."
"I will, sweetheart. Enjoy your special day."
Stevie's feelings of guilt disappeared soon after they hung up and she brought the dogs downstairs to the kitchen to start her usual routine - coffee, two bowls of dog food, two bowls of water, a trip to the backyard, a cigarette. Lindsey had told her he would pick her up for dinner at seven o'clock that night, and she had a whole day to fill. She knew she'd be fielded a few birthday phone calls, but other than that, the day was hers. She figured she'd write for awhile after coffee - she already had half the lyrics to a song in her head called "Sweet Girl" after the night before last - and then she'd play some music and make herself as pretty as she possibly could so that when Lindsey picked her up that evening, if he wasn't already considering leaving Cheri, he definitely would after he saw her. Grinning like a schoolgirl with a crush as she stood in the yard and waited for Sara Belladonna and Ginny to do their business, Stevie crushed out her cigarette in the sombrero ashtray on the round glass table on the deck, pulling her black velour robe closed against a spring chill that still lingered in the air despite the California sun that streamed into the yard, and decided she was not going to feel guilty about whatever was happening between Lindsey and herself these days.