Storms (31 page)

Jeremy Spencer, always religious to an obsessive degree, had disappeared hours before a show while on tour with Fleetwood Mac in the U.S. According to band lore, it had happened right here in Los Angeles in 1971. He walked out of the band's hotel room announcing, “Just going out to a bookstore”, and never returned. Somewhere on Hollywood Boulevard he climbed into a van belonging to members of a religious group who called themselves the Children of God. After a long, frantic search involving the police and close friends, Jeremy was finally tracked down to a ramshackle house that was the headquarters of the Children of God.

He'd become a full-fledged member of a religious group that some would label a cult. And there he stayed. He refused to come back to either Fleetwood Mac or his wife and children, choosing instead to join a group of religious fanatics and leave all that he had ever known behind.

And now he was standing in my entry hall with a ghost of a smile on his pale face. It was obvious to me that whatever life Jeremy had been living had been a hard one. His face was lined, his hair shot with gray, and there was a bewildered air about him as though he was not quite sure where he was or what he was doing here. Stepping out of the way of the surge of people who had gathered around to greet him, I looked for Lindsey.

He was staring at Jeremy, an excited look on his face similar to the one he'd had when he met Eric Clapton. That excitement would be replaced
with a sense of sadness in all of us as we spent the next hour trying to talk to Jeremy. He barely spoke at all, choosing instead to sit at our piano in the living room and play simple melodies as though there were no one else in the room but himself.

It was obvious to everyone that he was extremely uncomfortable being surrounded by people, so we left him alone and let him play the piano in solitude. We checked on him at regular intervals to offer drinks that were refused and quiet conversation that was rebuffed. After an hour and a half he disappeared. But somehow it was enough that he had chosen to pay a call on old friends and new ones, even though he left in his wake a sense of loss for us all.

At the barbecue Julie Ruebens and I spent hours talking about her upcoming marriage to John McVie. They would be wed on June 1 in a small ceremony before their closest friends—the Fleetwood Mac inner circle—and their own family members. After the private wedding vows they would throw open their house in the Hollywood Hills to a reception that promised to be a huge blowout. Julie thought it was quite hilarious that their wedding would take place in the same house that John once shared with Christine. We agreed that it was another sure sign that the band's incestuous way of life was all-inclusive—even when it came to their weddings.

The morning of the nuptials Lindsey and I dressed in our finery and arrived in time to see John and Julie exchange their vows in a moving ceremony that brought tears to my eyes. Julie looked so beautiful, so happy, and John was the typical nervous groom as he stuttered through his marriage vows.

Within half an hour of the ceremony the house was full of people. Ron Wood, guitarist for the Stones, was there with his girlfriend. Bill Graham, the famed concert promoter, was in attendance, along with John Mayall. Derek Taylor, the dashingly handsome Englishman who was a close friend of the Beatles as well as their official press officer (a career that would span thirty years), was making the rounds with a martini glass in his hand. To everyone's surprise, Peter Green and his new wife Jane were also in attendance. One of the original members of Fleetwood Mac, Peter looked cherubic and happy in a long, flowing caftan. He was in preproduction for an album that Mick was supposed to produce and was warm and gracious to
everyone who spoke to him—which was just about every living soul at the wedding. He was, after all, a legend who had only recently rejoined the world after a long battle with drugs and alcohol.

The reception was fun and charming, but the real action wasn't in the living room or patio area where the famous guests were making small talk, nor in the bathrooms where lines of blow were being laid out for the wedding guests. The action was in Julie's walk-in closet.

For it was there that Stevie Nicks and Jenny Fleetwood were having themselves one hell of a “clearing-the-air” session—at top volume. At the sound of female voices raised in anger, I rushed to where they seemed to be emanating from and I found the two women behind the partially closed door of Julie's cedar closet. Jenny was screaming,
“How could you?”
as Stevie, looking more than a little embarrassed and defensive, did her best to talk herself out of a corner. And in a corner she surely was. Jenny beckoned me into the closet and I stood by her side as she glared, hands on hips, breathing fire, at Stevie.

Apparently Stevie was trying to deny that she and Mick were having an affair, while Jenny, not listening to one word that was coming out of her mouth, was going on and on about how Stevie should think of Mick's children, Amy and Lucy. I stood paralyzed. I didn't know what to do to stop the rapidly escalating fracas.

Oh my God, why did they have to pick Julie's wedding to have this out? I can't believe this! What should I do?
I thought desperately as I looked at the two rigidly angry women squaring off in front of me.
I think I need help with this—they're going to ruin the wedding! Damn! John and Julie's parents are out there—this is so trailer park, I can't believe it! They're going to start pulling each other's hair out any second!

I turned and bolted out of the closet, the sound of the two furious women following me down the hallway. As I entered the living room I saw that just about every coiffed head was swiveled toward their voices, trying, no doubt, to make out the angry exchanges in what was obviously a catfight. Seeing Robin Snyder standing outside on the patio, I ran to where she was standing and whispered in her ear what was happening inside. With a look of shock on her face, she grabbed me by the hand and we both raced back to the closet. Robin swooped in, grabbed Stevie, and spoke urgently into her ear. Whatever it was she said, it did the trick. With a haughty toss
of her hair and a last glare at Jenny, Stevie regally swept out of the small room and slammed the door behind her.

Jenny and I looked at each other and I wrapped my arm around her. We could hear the murmur of voices outside the room, so we hurriedly touched up Jenny's tear-smeared makeup and walked outside together as if nothing had happened. Jenny told me that she was caught off guard seeing Stevie dressed in a long, white dress at Julie's wedding. It was, she said, the straw that broke the camel's back. We agreed that the dress was a faux pas of the highest order.

Lindsey and I had been shocked when we saw Stevie in her dress, too. Lindsey remarked that only Stevie would try to upstage a bride on her wedding day. The white dress was beautiful but it was, after all, Julie's wedding day—not Stevie's. Julie seemed unaware of the catfight in her closet and I didn't tell her about it. I was still committed to trying to stay out of the whole ugly three-way scene between Mick, Jenny, and Stevie.

I knew I wouldn't even share this delicious piece of gossip with Lindsey, because that would, of course, let the cat out of the bag in a huge way. And in the world of Fleetwood Mac, strange cats in bags had a bad habit of clawing mercilessly until they cut you to ribbons.

I found it incredibly exhausting to be living through a full-blown, sordid Fleetwood Mac love scene and I couldn't wait to leave the wedding reception and go back home, where at least the soap operas were on television instead of in the next room—or in this case, the closet.

Three weeks before we were due to go on the road, Bjorn had scheduled almost back-to-back shoots to finish my portfolio. Lindsey was not pleased. He didn't like me working this much, he told me. He didn't like it that I was shooting with photographers with names like François and Antonio—men who were every bit as good-looking as their somewhat smarmy names suggested. Even though Bjorn “chaperoned” me at each and every shoot, Lindsey's displeasure seemed to increase every time I left for a session. He became distant and sullen, and while it hurt me, I did my best to placate him by calling home as much as possible when I was between shots.
It's just a passing phase
, I told myself.
He just isn't used to me working, but once he is, then everything will be fine.

The night of my last and final shoot I was so nervous I almost felt like vomiting. This was the shoot for my first real professional booking. I'd been
chosen as the model for the print ad for Bobby Caldwell's new hit single “What You Won't Do for Love.” It was the first song released from his new album and was getting heavy airplay and making its way to the top of
Billboard
‘s singles chart. The physical appearance of the record itself was amazing. A heart-shaped pressing made of red vinyl, it was destined to be sought after by record collectors everywhere.

Bjorn, Andy, and I were doing the shoot in the living room of our June Street house. Bjorn and Andy had insisted upon it because they didn't want me to be distracted by Lindsey's concerns about who-what-when-wherewhy. Even though Lindsey was working at Village Recorder that night with Richard and Ken, he'd seemed happy that morning when he learned that I would be working “safe” at home tonight. And, unlike my other shoots, he hadn't called once to check on me.

We'd been shooting for almost three hours when the front door flew open and Lindsey came into the entry hall carrying his guitar case. He stopped dead center and stared at us without speaking, ignoring everyone's shouts of hello. Instead of offering a welcoming smile or even acknowledging that he was being spoken to, he glared at us and took the stairs two at a time, seeming to fly up to the master bedroom. The sound of the door slamming behind him made all of us jump as it reverberated through the ceiling of the living room.

Feeling my face flush with embarrassment, I quickly told Bjorn and Andy that he'd probably had a bad night in the studio and I was just going to run upstairs and make sure that he was OK. Bjorn handed me a fistful of Polaroids to take with me. “Show him these, Carol. He's going to be so proud of you when he sees them. They're absolutely stunning. Oh, and you might want to mention that this is going to be a full-page ad in
Billboard
and
Record World.”

“What?
You're kidding, Bjorn! I'm doing a full-page ad?
Why didn't you tell me?
I thought this would be a little picture in the corner of a back page. Are you serious? Oh my God!”

“That's why we didn't tell you. Andy and I didn't want that kind of pressure on you while you were posing, but hey, the shoot's going great—and, well, just tell Lindsey, OK? This is a big deal for you—and us.” Bjorn gave me a hug and a little push toward the stairs. I smiled gratefully at him and raced up to the bedroom to find Lindsey.

He was standing in the middle of the room, facing the door. Waiting for me.

“Lindsey, did everything go OK at Village?”

“Yes”, he answered, as he stood frozen, giving me a thousand-yard stare. It was the same stare of fury that I'd seen him give J.C. on the night of the Rod Stewart incident at the Forum. A warning bell went off inside of my head as I slowly approached him.
What's wrong with him? Why is he staring at me like that?

Reaching him, I held out the Polaroids as I kept a bright smile on my face. “Lindsey, look! Look at my pictures! Bjorn just told me that this is going to be a full-page ad in
Billboard
and
Record World.
Can you believe it?”

Silence greeted my words as Lindsey continued to stare at me with blue eyes that held no expression. His gaze dropped to the pictures and he knocked them out of my hand, sending them flying in all directions. Speechless, I looked down at one of them lying on the dusty carpet between our feet: a shot of myself dressed in a long-sleeved white lace blouse and holding a heart-shaped single to my breast as I smiled into the camera. The image seemed to mock me as Lindsey started to scream out words that stunned me.

“No!”
Lindsey shouted. “I don't want to see your fucking pictures! I
hate
what you're doing! Leave me alone … go back downstairs and take your
stupid
pictures with you!”

Struggling to speak as tears started to stream down my face, I whispered, “Lindsey, what's wrong? Why are you saying these things to me? Look at my pictures! They're nice! They're pretty! Aren't you proud of me? Why are you so angry? I don't understand!”

“Goddamn it!
I fucking hate this!
Get out and go back downstairs—now!” he snarled. Turning, he rushed into the bathroom and the door crashed behind him as he kicked it closed.

Numbly picking up my scattered photographs with shaking hands, I felt as though my entire world had just been shattered. Never before in my life had anyone screamed at me with such anger. And that anger left me trembling in its wake. Hearing a soft knock on the bedroom door, I blindly turned to open it. Bjorn was standing there, his worried expression darkening when he saw the tears running down my face and soaking the high collar of my blouse.

Pulling me gently out of the room, he whispered soothing words into my ear. He guided me back down the huge staircase to the pool of lights set up in the living room. Taking one look at my face, Andy ran into the kitchen and came rushing back with a glass of water. Silently he offered it to me before turning away, fiddling with his cameras in the classic pose of a man who was completely at a loss for how to deal with the scene in front of him. Bjorn, however, was not at a loss.

“Sweetie, I heard it. I couldn't help it—I think the neighbors down the street must have heard Lindsey. Hey, I love you. You didn't do anything wrong, Carol. I don't know what Lindsey's problem is, but you didn't do anything wrong. I feel like going up there and giving him a piece of my mind—”