Storms (34 page)

Silently walking into the room, Lindsey stopped and looked at me, as though seeing me for the first time. He then held out his arms to me, his expression now soft and welcoming. Slowly, I got up from the floor and stood trembling in front of him. He pulled me into his arms and I collapsed against him, sobbing. He gently, lovingly helped me upstairs. Easing me onto the bed, he lay down beside me, stroking my hair as I cried myself to sleep.

In the morning it was like nothing ever happened. Lindsey woke up, kissed me, and jumped up out of bed, heading down to the studio where he stayed for the remainder of the day. I stayed in bed, exhausted and spent from the night before. My mind however, was manic. I went through the events leading up to the incident over and over, but I couldn't for the life of me understand what caused it. But surely, I told myself, I must be to blame, because otherwise it made no sense at all—and I needed it to make sense.

I spent the day feeling numb and shaken, bereaved by a loss of something that I couldn't put a name to—a loss that seemed to haunt me as I listened to the music coming out of the studio.
Maybe
, I thought,
it's the pressure of the upcoming album that's responsible for what happened between us last night.
I felt chilled to the bone when I realized that this was only the beginning of that pressure. The band would be going into the studio in a matter of weeks and I had no idea what to expect. But nevertheless, just having something concrete to blame for what had happened between Lindsey and I helped me weather the emotional storm that had left me bereft.

A few days later Lindsey began to have excruciating stomach pains that left him doubled over in agony. After two days we rushed him to our doctor and he was admitted to Midway Hospital for a four-day stay for tests. Once the tests were back, we were told that it was stress, and even though I was distressed to hear it, I was secretly relieved. Now my excuse for what happened the night of the Elvis Costello show seemed to be confirmed. The pressure of the album and the long hours that he'd been working at home were taking a toll on his mind and body that was as dangerous as it was painful—to both of us. He was prescribed pills to help with the stress and pain and was sent home with instructions to take time off—which, of course, fell on deaf ears.

He went into the studio the minute we walked into the house and I headed straight for the phone. Bob Aguirre had been dropping by our house ever since we'd gotten back from the tour. He'd let us know in a straightforward fashion that if we ever needed a personal assistant or house sitter, he was the man for the job. While Bob already worked as a session drummer, he seemed to miss being around Lindsey. Unlike Lindsey's other close friend Richard Dashut, who traveled on the road with Lindsey as Fleetwood Mac's sound engineer, Bob had been left at home alone while his two former
housemates traveled the world. And it had been hard on him. He was, after all, one of Lindsey's oldest friends.

Lindsey and I had talked about having Bob move in and Lindsey had pretty much left it up to me. He didn't want me to feel like I was giving up my privacy by having another man move in with us. And I, in turn, wanted to think about it.

But with the recording sessions approaching and Lindsey's obvious stress, I felt that a little
less
privacy was a small price to pay for the contribution that Bob could make to the serenity of our household. I knew for a fact that Lindsey seemed relaxed and happy when Bob was around. And I, too, had become close friends with him. Since our house had four bedrooms, I realized that having Bob move in to help Lindsey as a personal assistant—or just to be there as a friend when he needed it—was a brilliant idea.

Speaking with Bob on the phone, I asked him if he'd like to move in with us. Without a moment's hesitation he jumped at the chance. And within forty-eight hours we were living a version of
Three's Company
in the June Street house. Bob immediately set up a croquet set in our large backyard, and both Lindsey and he delighted in beating me game after game. I was hopelessly bad at croquet, but it was fun and, more importantly, it was relaxing. Our new living arrangements seemed like a match made in heaven and I breathed a sigh of relief. Lindsey's stomach pains disappeared and he returned to being loving and caring toward me, and that, in itself, was all the evidence I needed that we'd made the right decision in welcoming Bob Aguirre to our home. Since that night, Lindsey had not apologized or even mentioned what had happened between us—and neither had I. I was convinced that it would never happen again and honestly, I couldn't bear to think of it, much less talk about it. It had become my secret, my shame, and my guilt. I believed that somehow I must be to blame for what happened. I wasn't sure what I'd done wrong, but I felt that if I were loving enough, smart enough, and supportive enough, it would never happen again.

In the years that followed, Bob would become one of my best friends as he moved with us from house to house. With his dry wit, low-key presence, and constant mishaps with various girlfriends, he never ceased to entertain. Asking Bob to live with us would prove to be one of the best decisions
Lindsey and I ever made. He became a big brother to me and when push came to shove, he was always there when I needed him. His protectiveness when I needed some shelter in the world of Fleetwood Mac is a gift I'll never be able to repay, but one for which I'll forever be grateful.

In a few days' time Fleetwood Mac would officially begin their recording sessions for the new album. The studio was ready. Lindsey was ready. And hopefully, so was the rest of the band. I, however, was not so sure that I was ready. Never having been in the studio with the band as they recorded an entire album, I was more than a little worried. If Fleetwood Mac interacting in the studio was anything like the stories that I'd heard about the
Rumours
sessions, then I had every reason to feel a great deal of apprehension about what might lie ahead. There had been so many fights … so many nights of tears, accusations, and unbridled rage within the studio that even now, whenever the subject came up, it was spoken of in only general terms within the band. Nobody wanted to relive those nights when marriages and relationships disintegrated within the walls of a recording studio.

Lindsey and I had been together for almost two years now and, just as I had known it would be at the very first show of the
Rumours
tour, my life had become almost a fairy tale—a very twisted one, but a fairy tale nonetheless. As I sat outside on the backyard patio of our house watching Bob and Lindsey play yet another game of croquet, I leaned back in my wicker chair and propped my head up on my fist, staring past them into the vast green expanse of the golf course that backed up to the edge of our property. And I tried to remember what it felt like before I met Lindsey, before I became a real-life version of Alice in Wonderland and stepped through a looking glass into a world where magic was real and mundane reality could be changed to suit our purposes. And I couldn't. Not really. That world seemed like a black-and-white version of the one in which I now lived.

Listening to Lindsey and Bob's insolent taunts reverberate against the background crack of croquet mallets on wooden balls, I smiled at the innocence of the scene that was taking place in the backyard of the beautiful mansion that I now called home. It was a scene that went hand in hand with my many trips up to northern California with Lindsey to see his family during our breaks on the
Rumours
tour. Wonderful days when we walked around Point Lobos, stayed in Carmel, and lived a life that was as tame as it was beautiful.

And as daylight faded to a darkening twilight, I thought of Stevie's swirling black chiffon, bottle caps full of blow, spotlights of gold and red, and the spell that was cast over every single member of the Fleetwood Mac family as they listened to the band perform “The Chain” night after night on the road. Those lyrics, which had been a secret bond that held Fleetwood Mac together before the band's amazing success, seemed now to be too much to bear. I had no idea how much longer they could carry the weight of that golden chain. Or of the cost to us all.

The weather was gorgeous in L.A. on the day that Fleetwood Mac was scheduled to begin recording the follow-up album to
Rumours. A good omen
, I thought, as I pushed my Ray-Bans onto my face. It was three in the afternoon—an
early
call time for the band. Even though we'd had the summer off, Lindsey and I were both deathly pale from “studio pallor.” We wore it like a badge of honor as it proved its bearer lived a completely nocturnal life—in the studio, on the road, and at dusk-to-dawn parties. To look healthy and tanned in the late 1970s in the music industry was a sign that an artist's career was in the shithouse.

Fleetwood Mac's career was definitely
not
in the shithouse. As Lindsey and I pulled up and parked in the lot that belonged to Village Recorder, we checked out the cars that were parked around us. We spied Mick's red Ferrari, J.C.'s Jaguar, a couple of black Mercedes, and a few BMWs that may or may not have belonged to our clan. The band members changed their cars as often as their underwear, so it was hard to be sure who was driving what at any given time.

Carol Ann.

Lindsey pushed his own Ray Bans firmly into place over redrimmed eyes and took a deep breath. “Ready?” he asked as he reached into the backseat of our silver Beemer. Grabbing the small leather case that contained the cassettes of his home-recorded songs, he quickly climbed out of the car and started to walk away.

After checking my pale pink lipstick in the rearview mirror, I grabbed my purse and followed. I almost had to run to catch up with him as he made his way to the sidewalk. Lindsey was definitely looking forward to getting started on the album—so much so that I felt that I might as well have been invisible as I trailed behind him.

Having lived with Lindsey during his recording sessions at home, I'd grown accustomed to feeling like a ghostly presence when his mind was focused on music. As soon as I realized he was looking
through
me instead of
at
me, I knew that yet another song was brewing in his head. And once that happened Lindsey was oblivious to everything around him. I'd come to terms with the fact that his favorite place in the world was a recording studio—which meant that for the duration of this new album I'd better get used to being invisible at times.

Walking past the main entrance to Village Recorder, we headed straight for a gray iron door that had no markings on it of any kind. It was the private and only entrance to the new studio that Fleetwood Mac's dollars had paid for. There was a buzzer and intercom on the left side and when Lindsey pushed a button and mumbled his name, the heavy door opened almost immediately to reveal the grinning face of Greg Thomason.

Beckoning us inside like a butler, he walked ahead of us down a dark corridor to the outer studio reception room, which held about a dozen people. Lindsey's ever-valiant, ever-vigilant roadie, Ray Lindsey, was sipping a mug of the much-heralded English draught beer. The polished blond wood keg with its gold spigot held a place of honor immediately on the right side of the room. And already there was a steady flow back and forth of the band's other personal roadies, Greg, Dwayne, and the man himself, J.C.

Mickey Shapiro, a cigar hanging from his mouth, was hovering in a corner with Mick, wrangling over a legal document as Mick listened intently. Christine was standing with a cigarette dangling from fingers that also gripped a red plastic cup filled with her standard vodka tonic.

Tables were laden with salad, sandwiches, and assorted expensive cheeses and crackers that I knew, within a few hours, would make the inner circle gag when they came out of Studio D's interior. As soon as the band members walked through the double-soundproofed doors that guarded the studio itself there would be massive amounts of cocaine waiting for whoever wanted it. And once the blow was snorted, the food that now looked
so delicious would become a source of stomach-wrenching loathing to the wired inhabitants of the Fleetwood Mac family.

After ten minutes Lindsey whispered into my ear that he wanted to go into the studio itself. Clinging to his hand, I double-stepped behind him and entered the private realm of Studio D, which would become the band's home away from home for the duration of the album. It was a room to which only the band and their close associates would be given access for the duration of the recording process. Any others—secretaries, Warner Bros. executives, lawyers, and outer circle friends—would never be allowed to stay longer than an hour. It would prove to be more inaccessible than even the band's personal dressing room on the road. It was the most exclusive room in Fleetwood Mac's world.

Richard Dashut and Ken Caillet were seated at the eight-foot-long mixing console. Ensconced like kings in executive-type black leather chairs, they were passing a joint back and forth. Spying Lindsey, they cackled out a cry of welcome and held it out to him as he crossed the distance between them. Within minutes Mick, Christine, and a newly arrived John McVie were breezing into the inner sanctum.