Harris - Storms: my life with Lindsen [sic] Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac

Hi, he said, Im Lindsey Buckingham.

He turned silently out of the shadows in Studio B and just stared at me. I think I stared back. But there was a time lapse. What is it with some memories? They etch themselves indelibly on your mind afterward, yet at the time theres just confusion and resistance and a flood of emotion to fight through.

But now I remember so clearly that first time I saw him. I remember in exact and overwhelming detail the light on the angles of his face, the slow, sensuous smile, the dark, dark halo of hair, the satanic goatee and mustache. I was face to face with my nemesis, staring into eyes of a blue that was never Californian. This blue was misty, like those English skies Id seen on my travels.

I shuffled my studio schedules, turned my gaze away.

Im Im Carol Ann. Nice to meet you. Ive, uh, gotta get back to work, I stammered, trying to sound bright and efficient. But I could see he wasnt fooled, and neither was I. I raced toward the office, almost stumbling in my haste to get away, slamming my papers down on the desk once Id reached my sanctuary.

Oh listen, Id seen beautiful men before. Out here, in Los Angeles, and in the recording industry, they were regular fixtures and fittings. Id seen hundreds of one-hit wonders, each with a different come-on theme song, different lyrics.

Lindsey Buckingham, 1977.

This one was different. This one was unlike anything or anyone Id ever seen before. This one had magnetism so intense that I felt a shock go through me the minute I saw him.

But who was Lindsey Buckingham? I had no idea, amazing as that might sound. I scanned the sheaf of papers for clues. Was he an engineer? Was he a technician? Was he just a delivery boy with a tape recorder? Whoever he was, he was scary. Well, he had me scared, at any rate, and despite my small-town background and my waiflike appearance, I didnt scare easily. Id run my own music business since I was nineteen, and here I was, three years later, just trying to settle into the studio manager job, with a sound engineering internship on the side. I was going places. I needed to. I was in a dead-end relationship with a man who had hardly spoken to me for years and had forced me to part with the only person who ever mattered to me. I had to get out. I wanted independence. I was being smothered alive, and twenty-two was too young to die.

But now Id just bumped into someone who felt dangerous. And danger wasnt what I was looking for. I told myself that Id probably never meet him again and I forced my attention back on the scheduling book in front of me. Yes, this was it. Studio B. Richard Dashut and Lindsey Buckingham, it said. Post Production. Fleetwood Mac/Rumours. I checked that out again, and for want of anything better to do, with a shaky hand corrected the spelling. Rumors.

Over the next few days I avoided going into Studio B, just in case. I was trying to be absolutely professional, against my instinctive urge to see and speak to the guy again, if he was still around. For all I knew he could have driven off into the huge metro of L.A. and would have been just one of those random images that haunts your dreams for years.

But he ended up coming to me, just appearing out of nowhere two days later, asking for a coffee, explaining who he was. He said that he and Richard were putting the finishing touches on the Rumours album, so hed be a fixture for a while. The rest of the band, Fleetwood Mac, would be coming in a few days to add extra vocal tracks for dubbing.

Fixture indeedwithin minutes of each afternoon arrival he would appear at the doorway of my office and ask for a cup of coffee. Id point him to the machine and hide my smile as he struggled to make small talk.

A lot of rain. Dont you think weve had a lot of rain this week?

Well, yeah, Lindsey, we really have.

Both of us felt the fusion every time we came within four feet of each other. Neither of us knew how to handle it. We stammered and fidgeted and smiled at each other to fill in the gaps where words should have been, drank bad coffee, and then one of us would have to leave the unspoken longing hanging in the air and get back to work.

You know I broke up with my girlfriend? he asked me one day, when hed popped in to ask about the next days schedules.

Oh yeah?

Stevie Nicks. You know?

No, I said. Really?

I knew. That first week Id checked it out. Id found out exactly who he was. I knew that he was the new guitar player for a band that had been around for over ten years. A band that Id listened to and admired in high school. A band that just happened to be in my studio putting the finishing touches on their next album.

He didnt seem sad about his lost relationship. If anything, he seemed resigned, even relieved. There was a sense of sweetness and vulnerability about him. When I looked into his eyes I could see a longing that made me want to reach out and touch his face. Each day it got a little bit harder to go home to my boyfriend, John. But then Id been finding it hard to go back to John for ages. So Id get in my car, drive out of Producers Workshop and through the garish decay of Hollywood Boulevard, past the sex shops and the pimps, the slouched addicts, the broken flashing neon signs over the greasy diners, my head still buzzing with whatever it was that was happening to me with this complex and mesmerizing stranger.

I really didnt want to get involved with another dream angel.

John and I had been living together for over four years. He was the cousin of my best friend, Lori Lazenby. Lori and I left Tulsa together three days after high school graduation and drove the legendary Route 66, both of us singing along to the car radio, all the way to the City of Angels.

I met John on my first day in Los Angeles. I was eighteen and a virgin. He was my first angel, or so I thought. Anyway, he was a nice guy, pretty interesting, and within three weeks I slept with him. It just seemed like thats what you did in cities like L.A. The point of getting out there in the first place had been to say, Look, Im cool! Im independent! Im sophisticated!

Within five weeks I was pregnant. He asked me to live with him, but didnt ask me to marry him. As the months passed, John would reduce me to hysterical tears as he began to tell me over and over that he didnt want a child after all. When our baby, Claire, was five months old, I realized with horror that hed never even picked up his own daughter. His disinterest in her was terrifying to me.

I spent sleepless nights agonizing over my daughters future. I wanted her to have the best that life could offer and I knew that being alone and just a child myself, I couldnt give it to her. Id grown up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, surrounded by my six sisters in a loving, stable home with two parents who loved me. We didnt have a lot of money, but we were secure and I always, always felt safe. I desperately wanted that for Claire. I realized after crying many, many tears that by giving her up for adoption, I could give that to my little girl. I chose an agency and poured out my heart to them.

Because it was a private adoption agency, I was able to choose her new family from among four that were presented to me. I chose a wealthy family who already had two adopted sons. The parents were highly educated and loved books, music, and children. They wrote a letter to me asking me to allow them to raise my daughter. They promised that when she was old enough, they would tell her all about me. They swore that they would tell her that her birth mother loved her enough to give her up so that she would never, ever have to worry or want for anything.