Storms (9 page)

He started to rip the newspaper into shreds and threw it on the ground. “I'm not hungry anymore. Let's grab a couple of burgers to go. I want you to eat. I don't think I can.”

I felt helpless. I knew I had to make him feel better, but looking at his face left me lost for words. It seemed that in just one moment our world had come crashing down. Even though the afternoon sun was warm, I felt chilled to the bone. We ordered our food to go and climbed back into the car. We'd both lost our appetites, and the food sat forgotten between us.

Lindsey headed out of the parking lot and back onto the freeway. He was driving about ninety miles an hour, pushing the gas pedal down hard with rage and disappointment. I struggled to think of something,
anything
, to say that would make him feel better.

“It's only one review, Lindsey. In a crappy newspaper.
Rumours
is brilliant! Look at all of the airplay it's been getting. It's on every radio station!” I said desperately as the car swerved in and out of traffic.

Suddenly he took his foot off the gas and hit the brakes. Roughly, he steered the car over to the side of the freeway, pulled onto the shoulder, and turned off the engine. As traffic flashed by us he lowered his head onto the steering wheel and I swear that I could hear a silent scream fill the air. He turned his head, looked at me, and said simply, “It hurts so much I can hardly breathe. What if he's right? What if the album is shit? I can't tell any more, Carol. Am I crazy? I think it's good. Fuck, I thought it was great. But what if I'm wrong?” His face was that of a child, dismay and confusion etched across it.

The words of one reviewer had opened the door to Lindsey's darkest fears and it would take the words of another to close it. Until that next review, I would have to try to close the lid of his Pandora's box and help him with the pain that he was feeling.

Leaning over, I grabbed his face between my hands. “Listen to me”, I urged him. “You're not wrong. You're not! This album is amazing. When I first heard it at the studio, I was stunned! It's that good, baby. You have to believe me; I'll never, ever lie to you. I think it's the best album I've ever heard! Why do you think every radio station is playing it before it's even sold one damn copy?”

Lindsey looked at me, calmer now, listening.

“You have to forget about the idiot who wrote that review. He doesn't get it, Lindsey. And if he doesn't get your music,
then fuck him. I hate him!”

Lindsey blinked, startled at my ferocity, and then started to smile. “Maybe you should write our next review.”

I kissed him hard and said, “I just did.”

The ride back to L.A. was quiet, with none of the celebration that we had on the journey north. As we pulled into Lindsey's driveway on Putney in West L.A. he said, “I have to call the band. I have to tell them about the review.” I nodded and followed him inside his house, leaving our suitcases forgotten in the trunk.

We entered Lindsey's bedroom, decorated with a shabby-chic, threadbare Persian carpet, a chipped wood bureau, and his ever-present guitars. The only wall decoration was a creased black-and-white poster of a Victorian house standing on a cliff, looking sinister as a storm wreaked havoc around it.

I stared at the poster. I'd seen it before, but tonight its stark bleakness made me uneasy—as Lindsey called first Mick, then Stevie and Christine to tell them about the piece in
Bam.
As he vented his rage and disappointment and received obvious reassurance from the voices at the other end of the line, I listened to the first of many occasions when the members of Fleetwood Mac would become one entity against the world, to support one another against an attack. Hearing confidence slowly creep back into Lindsey's voice with each call, I knew that
Rumours
had weathered its first storm.

In fact, the
Bam
review trashing
Rumours
would be the only time, to our knowledge, that the album wasn't heralded as the truly defining golden accomplishment in music that it was. Literally hundreds of magazines showered glittering praise on the record.
Rolling Stone
gave
Rumours
such a rave review that it was almost embarrassing to read. The album as a whole and the band members' individual songs were lauded to the heavens, with Lindsey's work getting special accolades: “joyous”, “timeless”, “angelic”, and, best of all, “classic.” Over the next year the same magazine would give Fleetwood Mac not one but two covers accompanied by main features: one of the highest honors a band could receive in the 1970s and ‘80s. We didn't realize it that night, but the golden curtain of fame was lifting for Fleetwood Mac.

Rumours
was about to make history. The clock had started ticking on my days as a participant in everyday, normal life. Without realizing it, I was about to leave behind everything that I'd ever known.

Warner Bros. released
Rumours
in the last week of February 1977. It was the largest advance order that Warner Bros. had ever shipped. In one week the album sold enough copies to reach platinum status. The music industry had never witnessed anything like it before. Eight hundred thousand copies were shipped to record stores in the first week alone. Every radio station in L.A., and across the country, was playing each and every track on the album. I'd pull up next to someone in traffic with “Gold Dust Woman” on my car radio and hear “Go Your Own Way” blasting from the car next to me. The album hit number one on the charts within days of its release.

Carol Ann and Lindsey arriving at the Jacques Cousteau show.

Lindsey's phone was ringing off the hook; people were beginning to stare as we went to restaurants. It was insane, exciting, and scary. Promotions, interviews, and magazine articles were appearing daily. I'd leave work at six, drive to Lindsey's for a dinner date, and have to wait in the living room while reporters interviewed him and photographers shot close-ups for yet another article in a newspaper or magazine. After a month of this I got as used to it as the rest of the band
did, and the surreal world of rock icons quickly became part of my daily life. As the
Rumours
tour began, Fleetwood Mac was on the brink of becoming one of the greatest bands of all time.

The first show of the
Rumours
tour, in San Francisco, was fast approaching and after weeks of rehearsal at SIR Studios, the band was ready. Lindsey asked me to go with him barely a week before the show. I was beginning to wonder if perhaps he was too nervous to have me there at his first big show of the tour, but he made it clear that he needed me there. It seemed very important to him to have me at his side. I soon realized why.

Yes, I'd been to gigs before. I'd been in the music industry for years, and I was pretty laid back about most things. But I was totally unprepared for this. Believe me, there is no drug, no adrenaline rush, no high that compares to going onstage with Fleetwood Mac.

This was my first experience of a Fleetwood Mac performance, behind the scenes, up close and frighteningly personal. The band members were all clearly preoccupied on the flight to San Francisco and in the Fairmont Hotel, where we stayed. There was little of the amiable joshing and joking that I'd seen at the studio or in the rehearsal hall. I think they all realized by this time that this was way out of control—that the fast track they now found themselves on could head beyond fame into the unknown region of legend. The attention from the press and the fans was so overwhelming that it had almost become a physical weight—and it was beginning to choke everyone.

The sense of urgency and responsibility also transformed our charismatic English road manager John Courage. He appeared out of nowhere as our limo pulled up outside the venue, an instant butler—composed, deferential, and completely in control.

Jacques Cousteau concert ticket
.

“And how are we tonight, Mr. Buckingham? Miss Harris? Let me get you to your dressing rooms and I'll personally make you your first drink of the evening.”

Lindsey needed one. He was deathly pale. The hand that held on to mine was clammy.

We followed J.C. past rows of huge anvil cases with the Fleetwood Mac penguin logo on them. Coils of gray cable snaked under our feet, boxes were piled in the corridors we stumbled through, there were racks of lights, roadies everywhere, technicians barking out orders, and, beyond it all, the hum of distant voices, whistles, screams—the audience taking its own place in the panic.

We were led through this madness and movement into a huge room furnished with tables piled high with food, exotic floral arrangements, and bottles of every conceivable alcoholic drink. It was also filled to capacity with men in suits, milling to fill every gap, networking, on the move, cuff links flashing.

Lindsey grabbed J.C. by the arm. “Get me out of here!” he pleaded, his voice frighteningly quiet. But he'd been seen and heard. The milling stopped for a moment. The shark pack of bodies seemed to inch toward him. There were hands outstretched, shit-eating smiles on faces.

J.C. quickly told Lindsey that he'd take him to the tuning room where Ray was waiting with Lindsey's guitars. Lindsey squeezed my hand and pulled me close. “You'll be all right here for a while?” he whispered to me, then, turning to J.C., “I'm leaving her in your care. Make sure no one bothers her!”

J.C. nodded at me and, taking Lindsey by the elbow, made way for him through the glad-handers. I stood where he left me, marooned, shaking. I wasn't expecting it to be like this. Not like this.

And then I heard Christine's warm, throaty laugh, and she was suddenly by my side. She threw her arm around my shoulders as she told me in a loud voice not to pay any attention to the flashy men swarming around us. Explaining that they were “money men”, Warner Bros. execs and lawyers, she guided me to the drinks table and told me I'd be wise to keep away from them. She ordered me to have a drink to calm my nerves.

“I don't drink—” I started to say, but Christine, holding on to her usual vodka tonic, was already pouring the same for me.

“Get that down you”, she ordered. She winked at me again, poured another drink for herself, and spun away. Immediately someone came up to me, introducing himself as Mickey Shapiro, attorney for Christine, John, and Mick. The name didn't register with me at the time. He was an attorney for just three of the band, not all five. Fleetwood Mac, with its separated affiliations, wasn't quite the unified organization it pretended to be. Lindsey and Stevie were each represented by different attorneys and when
contracts needed to be signed there were multiple law firms happily billing multiple hours. I returned his handshake, hoping that I could manage a smile to match his leer, and then caught J.C.'s eye. He was waving to me.

“Hey, you!” he grinned. “Lindsey's asking for you. Let's ferry you through to him.” He crooked his arm for me to slip mine through. I needed the support.

Lindsey was in a small room along the hallway, sitting on the floor, surrounded by guitars, strumming an Ovation quietly. “Hey”, he grinned. “Mickey Shapiro just stopped by to congratulate me on my new girlfriend. I guess he thinks I chose well!” He stood and hugged me. He seemed back to his old self, there, in that tiny room, hemmed in by instruments. It was where he belonged. He always preferred to be among objects rather than people, I later discovered, especially if they were objects over which he could have total mastery and control. Instruments obeyed him. They spoke the words he wanted them to say and did whatever he instructed them.

Lindsey pulled me close and kissed me. He handed me his guitar, stroked it lovingly, nodded to a stand where he wanted me to set it and then began to change into his stage clothes, pulling a loose white cotton shirt over his head. With long full sleeves it was cut exactly like a pirate shirt that looked as though it was straight out of the wardrobe department of a film company. Standing there in his faded blue jeans, swirling shirt, cowboy boots, and dark curling hair, he looked like a fairy-tale prince. I wanted to tell him how much he meant to me, but at that moment, just as his lips touched mine, John McVie loped into the room.