Crystal Visions Part 2: Under The Skin

It's Only Me Who Wants To Wrap Around Your Dreams (Finale, Part 2)

Maui Hawaii
Sunday, November 30, 2008
********************

Lindsey had known he'd have tears in his eyes from the first notes of the piano as the song began. He'd known from the moment Stevie had chosen the song she wanted to walk down the aisle to him to. He was right.

"You are so beautiful to me...You are so beautiful to me..."

The first time Lindsey had ever fantasized about seeing Stevie walk down the aisle to him, he'd been dating a girl named Sally. She was a nice girl, pretty, came to many of Fritz's shows when it wasn't a school night, listened to him - for the most part - when he talked about music he liked, guitar players he thought we talented and cutting-edge, plans he had for his future in music. Sally was just fine...her only crime was not being the sweet, vivacious, adorable girl who was the lead singer in his band and made him smile the instant she walked into a room and the whole world was lit up around him.

It had been the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving 1969 when he'd envisioned Stevie walking down the aisle to him for the first time. He and Stevie had agreed to meet in Golden Gate Park before the holiday weekend to give her some notes and changes from Javier for their gig on Saturday night, and she'd been shopping on Haight Street and spent herself down to fifty cents. She was trembling from the cold November air coming off the ocean as they walked around the park and he'd taken her into the warmth of his overcoat for a moment by wrapping it around her as she stepped closer to him.

He'd treated her to Hamburger Haven for dinner and when he'd paid the check up front, she'd gone to the ladies' room and to use the pay phone to call Robin before driving him home in her little red sports car that made her look like Barbie in the driver's seat. Something about the way she'd walked from the back of the restaurant where the restrooms and pay phones were towards him at the front door made him dream of a day when he'd see her walking towards him down the aisle in a white dress, smiling that same smile she had that night were her nose crinkled and she looked so cute he couldn't think of anything else but how much he wanted to hold her.

He'd come closer than he ever had to kissing her that night, after she'd dropped him off at home and he'd told her to please call him to let him know she made it home okay, and he'd spent the entire night wishing he had been brave enough to just go for it, to find out what it felt like to kiss her full, beautiful lips, hoping one day he'd be kissing her again because they were standing at the altar and someone had told him he could now kiss the bride.

Almost forty years and many wedding fantasies later, he stood beneath the trellis she and Karen had threaded with red roses, his son beside him, and as his daughters carefully tossed red rose petals along the sand for her path towards him from their little matching baskets, he could already see her there on the sand, awaiting her moment to walk towards him on her brother's arm, and she was so beautiful in that moment he felt a pang of love so strong in his heart that it actually ached. All she needed was a halo, he thought, because she looked like an angel.

"You're everything I've hoped for, you're everything I need...You are so beautiful to me..."

Stevie began walking the short path of red rose petals in the sand, arm in arm with Christopher. She had chosen a simple white lace dress that was off the shoulder and had a neckline that plunged just enough for her silver moon necklace to sparkle in the afternoon sun. The skirt was long and flowing and made her look like she was floating towards him instead of walking, and she wore a single white flower in her hair, which hung in loose waves and shimmered in the sunlight as did her eyes as she looked at him growing closer to her the more she moved forward. She carried a bouquet of red roses, of course, and all he could think as she came towards him was This is MY crystal vision...this beautiful girl who lights up every room she enters and is lighting up this entire beach with her smile...is all mine. She is alive, she is healthy, she is smiling at me, and tonight, I get to fall asleep beside her and know she's mine forever.