Chapter 7 #2
Stevie booked a room at a downtown hotel called The Pineapple, where she sat on a thick mattress and watched traffic purr through the streets below.
Jazz still filled her ears. She checked the time and saw it was nearly nine thirty, which meant it was seven thirty in Los Angeles.
She tried to imagine what her daughter was doing right now.
Was the baby asleep? Was her daughter exhausted, trying to eat dinner, clean, or take a few moments for herself?
Stevie remembered her own early days with her baby, with her little Joni, the pain that had lingered between her legs for days, the anger and fear that had slowly burned away to make space for confusion and love.
She’d sung to her baby Joni, hoping that her singing voice was more comforting than her normal one.
Joni was a crier, which Stevie had privately felt was an indication that Stevie wasn’t enough, that she wasn’t fit to be a mother.
It was in those soft and terrifying moments that Stevie had most missed her mother, the woman she’d never really gotten to know. She had no memories of her. She was a mystery.
When Stevie’s daughter, Joni, had first met her husband, Sam, Stevie had immediately felt dread in her stomach. At the time, she couldn’t say why. Call it mother’s intuition. Call it fortune-telling.
Joni and Sam met a few years ago at a work function.
Not long after they began dating, when Stevie was still none the wiser, Stevie and Joni met at a breakfast place in Los Feliz, Joni’s brand-new neighborhood, which wasn’t far from Joni’s brand-new job as a marketer for a fancy underwear brand.
Everything about Joni’s early twentysomething life felt brand new and impossibly glorious to Stevie.
Although Stevie couldn’t pretend to understand the appeal of marketing, she definitely didn’t want her daughter to grow up to sell insurance.
Joni had never really cared to make music, which was fine with Stevie.
Being a musician felt like something other people were allowed to do, luckier people than Joni and Stevie.
Even Will and Ella, at that time, seemed washed-up, their band all but forgotten.
Stevie had heard that their relationship hadn’t survived either, although she’d learn soon after that they’d gotten back together and even gotten married.
“I met a guy,” Joni said that morning at the breakfast spot, taking delicate bites of her fruit bowl. “He’s pretty high up at the company. He thinks my marketing copy is really precise.”
Stevie blinked at her daughter, befuddled. Precise? Marketing copy? Was her daughter speaking a foreign language? But before it was too late, she remembered to smile and say, “Honey, that’s amazing. What’s he like?”
Joni explained that Sam was tall, blond, and handsome, and from a prominent family with roots in Berkeley. He’d been instrumental in the founding of the underwear brand, although he now spent half of his time traveling and the other half overseeing the goings-on at the company.
“Can you imagine having all that freedom?” Joni asked, breathless.
Stevie smiled, trying to echo her daughter’s excitement. “I can’t wait to meet him!”
But meeting Sam had been disastrous in nearly every sense of the word.
The meeting didn’t happen until Sam and Joni were engaged, about six months after they’d met.
Stevie had whiplash. How could a young woman whom she’d so recently taught to read and ride her bike make a decision like marriage?
Stevie was invited to an engagement party at Sam’s parents’ place in Berkeley, to which Stevie planned to drive, until Joni swooped in and paid for Stevie’s plane tickets.
“You don’t have to do that,” Stevie said, embarrassment scalding her cheeks.
“But, Mom, it’s a long drive,” Joni said. They both knew the truth. Joni didn’t want Stevie to tell Sam’s parents that she’d driven from LA to Berkeley. Only very poor people did that. Only very poor people opted not to fly. Stevie suddenly hated to see herself in her daughter’s eyes.
Eventually, to avoid a fight, Stevie agreed to take the flight from LA to San Francisco, where she insisted on taking the BART train from SFO to Berkeley.
She didn’t have money for a cab, and she definitely didn’t want Sam’s parents to send a driver or, worse, pick her up in whatever fancy car they’d opted for that day.
In a public bathroom near the train station, Stevie did her hair and makeup and told herself everything would be okay.
It was Stevie and Joni against the world, wasn’t it?
Sam was just the necessary next step for Joni.
Plus, Joni was in love. That was the kind of thing that mattered.
The kind of thing that needed celebrating. Right?
No surprise that the dinner with Sam’s family was nothing short of a disaster. Sam’s parents did little to hide their confusion at Stevie’s appearance—and her name. Apparently, being named after one of the biggest female rock stars of all time was proof of something not so savory in their world.
“We like her. Stevie Nicks. She’s really got a nice voice. Shame about her behavior,” Sam’s mother, Sharon, said as they gathered on the veranda behind their home, the one with the gorgeous views of the sweeping hills behind their mansion. Stevie could see vineyards peppering the horizon.
Stevie couldn’t help but ask, “What behavior do you mean?”
“You know what her lifestyle was like.” Sharon wrinkled her nose before muttering, “That rock-star lifestyle really scares me to think about. Imagine not caring about anything but yourself, music, and alcohol. I mean, it’s so empty, isn’t it?”
At that moment, Joni came onto the veranda, carrying a bottle of what looked like (and probably was) costly wine.
Stevie was caught off guard at the sight of her daughter, out here in the gorgeous hills overlooking the bay.
Joni fit right into their home and their family.
And as she filled Stevie’s wineglass, she spoke about a tasting they’d attended at a winery a few days ago, about the soil and the sommelier and everything she’d learned.
Stevie felt as though she didn’t recognize her.
Now, years after that fateful day, as Stevie sat in her hotel room overlooking the bustling Chicago streets, her phone buzzed with a text from Reggie, of all people. She felt grateful to hear from her old life and opened it swiftly to read.
REGGIE: Look what I found! Are you on tour?
Beneath it was a photograph of Stevie Franklin, singing on stage with James, the saxophonist. Stevie shot to her feet, her head spinning.
Because she couldn’t stop herself, and maybe because she was lonely, she called Reggie right away.
She could hear that he was at the concert venue in Venice Beach.
“Where did you see that?” she gasped.
Reggie laughed. “It was on social media. I got a new account on there the other week and followed all these music sites. Apparently, you performed for a Chicago music journalist by the name of Addison Quail.”
“Addison Quail?” Stevie shook her head and caught a look at herself in the mirror across the hotel room. She hadn’t realized how big she was smiling. Her cheeks ached.
“The journalist called your performance ‘incendiary,’” Reggie said.
“Said you brought heart and spirit to that jazz club in downtown Chicago. Said you’re what the ‘new era of jazz’ needs.
Tell me, Stevie. How on earth did you finagle your way onto a stage in Chicago? And why are you half a continent away?”
Stevie laughed. “Thank you for sending this.”
“I see you won’t tell me a thing about your life.” Reggie sighed. “I told Baxter that you were gone with the wind yet again. I hope you’re taking care of yourself. I hope to see a lot more photographs where this came from. Be well, Stevie.”
“You be well, too,” Stevie said.
When they hung up, Stevie collapsed on the bed and stared at the ceiling, her heart pounding.
Her performance with James was the second in the past week, after many years offstage.
She’d never thought anyone would want to hear her sing again.
Now that she was back, she could feel her old desires to perform welling up inside her.
She wasn’t sure she could ever silence herself again.