“I know.”
“After the breakup with—what was his name?”
“Chad,” she says.
“Of course it was Chad.” I shake my head. “Six weeks of Fleetwood Mac and enough ice cream to sink a ship, if I recall correctly.”
“Noah has a big mouth.”
“How does a person who wanted to marry you not like Fleetwood Mac?”
She puts her head in her hands. “I know. Okay, I know. This distance—just being away from it all—I keep seeing these things I excused. Things I filed away and told myself weren’t a big deal.” She exhales against her palms. “It wasn’t just the music. He didn’t like music playing too loud in general.”
I turn and look at her.
“At all,” she clarifies.
“Jesus Christ.”
“In the car. At home. If I were practicing. He preferred quiet.”
I face forward. I don’t say anything because what I want to say would probably be a felony in several states.
The man told a violinist he preferred quiet. He sat across from a woman whose entire identity is built around sound and told her it was too much. And she lowered the volume. Of course she did. She’s been turning herself down for years.
“I’m not judging,” I finally say.
“You’re doing the jaw thing.”
“I don’t have a jaw thing.”
“You’ve always had a jaw thing.” She sits up straight. “You do it when you’re angry about something but won’t say it.”
I consciously relax my jaw before I speak, choosing my words carefully. “Fleetwood Mac are a fundamental requirement. Non-negotiable. You either understand what they did, or you’ve made a life choice I don’t respect.”
“Thank you,” she says. “That’s all I wanted.”
“Buckingham was already gone by the time of that tour, but the catalogue alone—”
“The guitar work onThe Chain,” she says.
“Right.”
“The bass line going into the chorus.”
“That bass line,” I agree. “Might be one of the most recognizable four notes ever put on tape.”
“It is. Technically, it is. I looked it up once. There’s data on it.”
I feel the corner of my mouth twitch. “You looked up data on it?”
“I was bored and curious. There are musicologists who’ve written entire papers on cultural recognition in opening bass lines, andThe Chainis consistently in the top five.” She’s animated now, talking with her hands. “The production quality onRumoursis also criminally underrated as a topic.” She shifts in her seat and turns toward me. She’s in her element. “It was recorded during what was objectively a relationship implosion between multiple band members at the same time, and yet the sound design is pristine. They managed to capture something that was falling apart emotionally and make it technically immaculate.”
“The tension is in the record.”
“It’sinthe record,” she says, pointing at me. “You can feel it.Go Your Own Wayis Buckingham directly processing his breakup with Nicks in real time, and she had to sing backing vocals on it. Backing vocals. On a song written about her. And she did it because she’s a professional and because the song needed her voice.” She stops just as a flush creeps up her face. The energy in the car changes. “Sorry,” she murmurs.
“Don’t be.”
