Instead of flipping on the television like they had at every other stop, they each kicked off their shoes and climbed onto their beds,cracking openThe Love Machine. The room smelled like a mixture of borax and their sandwiches, and someone had left the air conditioner on arctic mode, but they didn’t care; they just climbed under the covers.
Tonight, the entertainment was Jacqueline Susann.
Nora read aloud about Robin Stone—midway through the book now—navigating his dangerous dance between Amanda and Judith, both women heartbreakingly self-aware and heartbreakingly blind at the same time. In the chapter they devoured, Robin bought Amanda a luxurious apartment, promising love while planning his subsequent escape. Amanda, wise to the world but not to him, kissed him anyway, knowing what came next.
“I swear,” Leanne muttered, “he’s like if Robert Redford and a bottle of Brut cologne had a baby.”
Nora laughed until she had to set the book down. “I don’t know whether I want to date or slap him.”
“That means Jacqueline did her job,” her mom said, already chewing on the next page.
Later that night, the book closed and their sandwich wrappers tossed in the motel trash, Nora lay in bed, cocooned in the air conditioner’s hum and the thrum of the highway just beyond the curtains. She didn’t think about college exams or dorm room assignments. Not about the boy who’d broken her heart junior year or the curveball of calculus.
Instead, she thought about telling her mom she wanted to be a writer.
Really telling her.
Not just the vague “I want to get an English degree so I can write” but the truth about the notebook in her bag—the leather-bound one with bent corners and ideas scrawled in margins. The one that held the line she wrote last night, lying in a motel bed just like this one, after Joe said goodbye…
In the electric haze of the open-air concert, with the night thrumming like a heartbeat around us, I turned—and there he was, a stranger with ink-stained hands and eyes that held entire stories, watching me like he already knew how this would end.
With her eyes closed she let the story drift through her, humming like a song only she could hear.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sitting in the shade of a canvas tent under the sweltering Atlanta sun, Eleanor wiped a bead of sweat from her brow and handed Roxy the last bite of her ham sandwich. The diva dog nuzzled into her lap like royalty, tongue lolling, belly full, and wholly unbothered by the heat or the noise. Around them, the festival throbbed like a living, breathing creature—drums pulsed in the distance, bass lines vibrated the dirt beneath her sandals, and the air smelled of patchouli, beer, and the occasional illicit smoke.
She would have thought she’d feel energized after the excitement of sleeping in a van for a week and spending the past few days bouncing from one backstage to the next. Refreshed. Reinvigorated. But no—she felt like a suitcase with a broken handle. Lugged along. Half open. On the verge of spilling its contents into the dirt.
Still, she smiled, one hand absent-mindedly stroking Roxy’s spine.
How long had it been? Two weeks since she’d left New York? Already it felt like a month or more. And today was the Fourth of July. Back home, after the town parade, Leanne would be preparing a strawberry and blueberry Jell-O mold while Dean fired up his Weberbarbecue for burgers and hot dogs. Kids would be lighting off firecrackers, and Eleanor would have been sitting back to watch it all.
“Ellie.” Shep’s voice was syrup-slow and sun-drunk. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
She glanced up, squinting through the halo of sunlight bleeding into the tent.
Shep glided toward her, flanked by a young man who practically shimmered in the heat. A rolled red bandanna crowned his dark curls, hair spilling out like a halo of effortless rebellion. A turquoise stone caught the sun from where it hung on a beaded necklace. His white fringe shirt was unbuttoned, framing a sinewy brown chest that gleamed with sweat, and his bell-bottoms hugged his hips like they were sewn on.
Silver rings adorned his fingers, a cigarette tucked between them, and when he smiled—full lips, a glint of teeth—she swore the temperature climbed ten degrees.
Jimi. Goddamn. Hendrix. A name she was certain never to forget.
Eleanor stilled.
If she were forty-five years younger, she might’ve screamed, begged for an autograph, and thrown herself at his Converse. But she was sixty-nine. Did sixty-nine-year-old women swoon over rock stars?
Well. Maybe they should.
She caught Shep’s eye. His smirk said,I know.
“I hear you’re the Dame of Rock and Roll,” Jimi said. That voice could melt the ice in a drink before he finished the sentence.
Eleanor straightened her spine just slightly, offering her hand with practiced grace.
“Nice to meet you, young man.” The corner of her mouth twitched into a wry smile. “They call me Mama Lightning too sometimes. But that one’s a little more scandalous.”
Jimi threw his head back and laughed. Roxy barked once, punctuating the reaction.
