Storms (15 page)

I tried to smile and nodded as I listlessly turned on the television. There was an Easter service on TV, with the pope on the steps of the Vatican. My throat burning, I whispered, “It's Easter, Lindsey! I can't believe I forgot that today is Easter!” As if by signal, church bells started ringing, echoing across the park outside our room and, together with my fever and the choirs singing on TV, I felt as though I were in a dream.

Lindsey leaned over and stroked my hair as he told me that he had to go out to pick up the medicine for me. Nodding, unable to speak again, I watched as he threw on a black overcoat and left the room. I turned on my side and felt the tears that I'd been trying to hide from him run down my face.

I couldn't remember ever feeling this ill, and I was scared. Right then I would have given anything to be in my bedroom in Tulsa with my mother watching over me. I stared out the window and suddenly I saw Lindsey walking through the park. My view of him became hazy as the snowflakes obscured his shape, and he grew smaller and smaller as he braved the blizzard for me. I had an otherworldly feeling as I listened to the choral music and watched the man I loved disappear in a swirl of white. Yet even in my fever-induced delirium, I could see that the balance in my relationship with Lindsey had shifted.

Until that day I had been the one taking care of him, feeling I had to be a rock for his musical genius and his needs, both emotional and physical, after his awful dental surgery. Now, suddenly, I was helpless and he was taking care of me. And I knew that, for both of us, our relationship would never be the same again. We had proved that, no matter what, we were there for each other. Until then I'd felt that I was his shelter in a storm, and that day he was braving one for me. As ill as I was, I fell asleep with a smile on my face. No longer afraid in a French hotel room so far away from home, I felt secure that Lindsey would do everything he could to keep me safe.

He returned, dusted with snow, holding a vial of pills and a large bottle of codeine-laced cough syrup. Spilling it over the bed covers as he tried to measure it into a teaspoon, he talked in a soothing tone to me, but in my fever the meaning of his words became lost.

The following day I was diagnosed with “walking pneumonia” by the hotel doctor and given more prescriptions. Between us, Lindsey and I had about seven bottles of different pills and syrups on the bedside table in our hotel room. By the night of the band's concert I was tired of being ill and determined to go to Fleetwood Mac's show, no matter what. And I did.

To everyone's disgust, a bullfight had taken place in the concert venue the previous day and the smell of blood permeated the arena. Everyone bitched and moaned, but this time it was with good reason. The stench was so strong that I felt my stomach churning as I laid on a couch watching Fleetwood Mac prepare for the show. And, by the looks on the band's faces, they were faring little better than I. Stevie was positively green under the fluorescent lighting and I knew that I must have looked the same. Still, everyone managed to make it to the stage and the roar of the crowd greeted them as they began to play.

Lindsey Buckingham on the European
Rumours
tour.

Following slowly, I walked through the curtains into the arena. As I looked at the audience I could see that they didn't seem bothered whatsoever by the smell of carnage in the air and the reddish-stained sawdust on the floor. The Parisian crowd was clapping and screaming, every single one of them on their feet as Fleetwood Mac launched into the set, pressing closer and closer to the stage in a frenzy as the music washed over them. I shrank back from the crush of fans and climbed onto the metal stairs to stay within reach of Lindsey should I need him. It looked as though the crowd might swarm the stage in their rapture.

The audiences in Britain had been good, but not like this. With the whole ground level of the venue open and without chairs, the kids were going insane. I saw a few of them fall, only to be picked up off the sawdust and surge toward the stage again as soon as they were on their feet. The band was possessed, reacting to the audience's crazed adulation as they performed. I stood silently, watching, accepting.

As I stood in the relative darkness of the stage stairs, I thought back to the band sweating out the final mixes of
Rumours
at Producer's Workshop and their first shaky rehearsal; to Lindsey's middle-of-the-night fears and that first bad review of the album; and to when Fleetwood Mac had barely dared to dream of the success that was unfolding before them that night in a blood-soaked arena in Paris. It was obvious that Fleetwood Mac was now an international sensation. And there was no going back.

John McVie and Lindsey Buckingham.

The snow accompanied the band as it swept across Germany and Holland, leaving rave reviews and crazed audiences in its wake. Fleetwood Mac's fame was growing by the day and it was putting pressure on everyone. The punishing schedule, the brutal weather, and the intensity of performing to ever-greater adulation had, by the end of the tour, exhausted every member of the Fleetwood Mac family. Lindsey had lost so much weight on the road from the aftereffects of his surgery that he looked skeletal, and I was still recovering from my walking pneumonia. Christine, John, Stevie, and Mick were hollow-eyed, cranky, and ready for a break.

The European
Rumours
tour had been a phenomenal success for Fleetwood Mac, but it had taken its toll on us all. It was time to go home—time to go back to the States and the superstardom that was waiting for the band.

The Pan Am flight landed at LAX and the exhausted members of the Fleetwood Mac family staggered into the smog-laden air of Los Angeles. With a mumbled chorus of goodbyes, the band climbed into waiting limos, heading off to their (barely) separate lives and a three-week break in L.A. before the next leg of the
Rumours
tour.

Lindsey and I headed home. Because the band had about a thousand back-to-back interviews to promote the album and tour during their socalled break, a vacation was out of the question. To unwind, we spent three days secluded in Lindsey's house, playing records, making love, and giving thanks that we'd survived the tour.

We desperately needed the time off: just the two of us, with no band, no roadies, no concerts, and no grueling timetable to follow. The European tour had taken our relationship to another level. An exhausting tour schedule, blizzards, Lindsey's dental troubles, and my illness in Paris had shocked us out of the “honeymoon” period that every couple enjoys in the beginning of their relationship, driving us without mercy into the hardcore rock ‘n' roll reality of being together on the road 24/7.

Our month in Europe had been a make-or-break time for us. Even at my young age, and with Lindsey only the second man I'd ever slept with—I still knew that not many couples could have survived such an ordeal with their sanity intact, much less their relationship. And I believed that the fact that we'd come out on the other side more in love than ever was not just a miracle, but fate. We were meant to be together.

After a too-short long weekend I returned to work. Ed was glad to have me back—glad, I think, to see that I'd actually survived the tour. The studio
was busy. The Babies were still recording in Studio One so I was not surprised when Bob Ezrin walked in and leaned against my desk. He welcomed me back and then got straight to the point: he wanted to offer me a job.

“I'm sorry, what did you say, Bob?” I asked stupidly.

He needed a personal assistant and had decided that I'd be perfect. I would accompany him to Miami, New York, or wherever his work as a producer took him. The pay was four times what I was receiving at Producer's Workshop and best of all, he explained, it was not just a job—it was a career. I sat in stunned silence as I tried to take in everything he was telling me. Feeling a flicker of excitement as his words started to sink in, I replied, “Sounds great, Bob, but I'm not sure … I'm pretty happy here at Producer's.”

Bob cut in quickly. “You'll be even happier working for me. I'll prove it to you. I have to go into this session right now, but I want us to sit down and discuss it.” So we set up an interview on Saturday at Producer's Workshop.

My head spinning, I watched him disappear into Studio One. I couldn't believe what had just happened.
I can't wait to tell Lindsey
, I thought as I sat and chewed on my fingernail, staring at the phone.
Hell! He's doing interviews all afternoon. It'll have to wait until tonight. But he's going to be so proud of me! He'll be touring again soon, so it shouldn't be a problem if I have to travel as well for my job. It's going to be a lot easier for me if I'm busy while he's out on the road.
With a smile on my face, I went back to scheduling bookings and waited for the clock to strike six.

After work I headed straight for Lindsey's house and almost ran inside. “Lindsey! I've been dying to tell you! Something really amazing happened today! Bob Ezrin, Pink Floyd's producer, wants me to be his personal assistant. He said the pay would be really good, and that I would travel with him … and I'd be his representative in meetings with record companies when he couldn't attend them … and he wants me to come down to Producer's on Saturday to talk to him about it! Isn't it exciting?” I finished breathlessly.

Lindsey had been sitting playing his guitar when I rushed in talking a mile a minute. Expecting him to jump up and congratulate me, I stopped talking and looked straight at him. He sat deathly still, staring back at me with a brooding look on his face. I stood frozen, knowing that something was wrong, but not sure what I'd done or said to cause the shadows that I
saw flickering across his narrowed eyes. And I had no idea that when I did find out, the entire course of my life would be changed in one afternoon.

After what seemed an eternity he carefully laid his guitar on the floor, got up, and walked toward me. “That's great, Carol. I'm going with you on Saturday, OK?” As I nodded he pulled me to him in a tight embrace. “I'm going house hunting on Saturday morning and I want you to come with me. We'll go to your studio after that.”

Saturday morning dawned bright and glorious. The sky was a shade of flawless, intense blue that only appears after an L.A. rainstorm. As Lindsey and I drove through the Hollywood Hills, I gazed at the pink bougainvillea cascading down the walls and entry gates of old Spanish-style mansions that lined each side of the narrow, twisting street. The scent of jasmine hovered in the air and I felt incredibly happy. Not only was I spending a gorgeous morning with the man I loved, but also that afternoon I had a job interview that I was completely excited about.

As Lindsey pulled over and parked his Beemer next to a huge white Spanish house, I heard a voice echoing above our heads that I recognized. Looking up, I saw Stevie Nicks standing on one of the balconies overhanging the street. Lindsey swore as he grabbed my hand, pulling me up a flight of stairs that led to the open front door of the house.

“I can't believe that Stevie got to this house first! Damn it! I'm going to find a new realtor, I swear to God!” Lindsey tossed over his shoulder at me as we raced into the house and up a huge staircase inside.

Stevie laughed as soon as she saw Lindsey's scowling face from her perch on the balcony of the huge living room. “Great house, Lindsey. What a surprise to see you here!” she teased in her husky voice. “I just might buy it. You really must see the fireplace in the master bedroom! It's perfect for me!”

“Whatever, Stevie. Who's your realtor?
Satan?”
Lindsey snapped back.

“I wouldn't say that … but my realtor has enough mystical powers to know to bring me here an hour before you! And anyway, he got the listing last night from
your
realtor!” Laughing at the dark scowl still on Lindsey's face, she continued. “Oh, Lindsey, don't be such a spoilsport. This is a perfect girl's house … I really like it … oh, hi, Carol”, Stevie added as an afterthought.