He waved the Polaroid through the humid air. “So you’ll never forget the moment you became a literal rock goddess from the bog.” Joe grinned at the photo. “I think I’ll call this one ‘Perfection Takes a Day Off,’ and I’ll include it in my exposé on a college girl discovering the joys of spontaneous mud therapy.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Nora muttered, snatching for the photo.
“Who knew a little mud could make you even more unforgettable?”
Nora tried to snatch the photo again, but he stepped back.
“I’ll give it back to you on one condition.” Joe eyed her with a challenge in his gaze.
“What?” She folded her arms, trying to look intimidating, which was difficult when you were dripping like a soggy sandwich. “You’ve already met my grandmother, so, not sure I have anything else to offer up.”
Joe grinned. “You’ve got a lot to offer. Here’s the deal: Don’t edit the mud out of this memory. Don’t try to rewrite it later to make it more palatable. It’s perfect exactly how it happened.”
She paused, eyeing him. He wasn’t teasing anymore. There was something real in his eyes. Something that said he liked her messy, wild, unguarded. “Fine,” she said slowly. “But if anyone asks, I fell like an angel.”
Joe chuckled. “A perfect angel.”
She shook her head, smiling despite herself, and turned to toss a look at her mom—ready for her to tease them both, but Leanne wasn’t there.
Nora’s smile faltered. “Mom?”
She scanned the shifting crowd, a wave of festivalgoers dancing through the mist. Leanne had vanished.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Thunder crackled lazily overhead as if the sky couldn’t decide if it wanted to be done with its tantrum or not. Roxy burrowed deeper into Eleanor’s shoulder bag, her wrinkled little snout barely visible beneath the flap. Eleanor tugged the strap tighter across her chest, shielding the dog from the sudden wind. At least the rain had subsided to a mist.
She stood just under the lip of a canvas tent she’d ducked into on her way back from the facilities—a generous term, given she’d just relieved herself behind a well-worn patch of bushes while trying not to flash the entire festival.
And then her mind went blank, like someone had splashed water on the chalk drawing of her life.
Where was she? A few terrifying seconds of empty space filled her brain. No music. No names. No sense of the timeline. Just trees and thunder and a dog’s quiet whimper. But then Roxy yipped—sharp, confident—and the world stitched itself back together again.
Eleanor smiled softly now, watching the vitality and vividness of youth swirl in the storm.
Out in the open, barefoot dancers leaped and spun, summoning therain, arms open like they were part of the sky itself. Their hair clung to their necks, skirts plastered to their thighs, but none seemed to care. They were laughing—screaming, even—as Led Zeppelin continued to thrash from the stage, the bass line rolling like thunder beneath the actual thunder. The rain wasn’t ruining the concert, but rather joined the festivities.
She watched lovers kiss like movie stars in a finale scene, dripping with rain and not giving a damn. Hands tangled in wet hair, shirts transparent, clutching each other as though the downpour only deepened the intimacy. Nearby, a pair of girls lay flat in the grass, heads tilted back, arms outstretched, eyes closed, letting the rain baptize them into a rock-and-roll religion.
A ripple of a shiver wracked her body suddenly. And Eleanor hugged Roxy close to her chest, feeling the tremble of the dog’s tiny ribs against her own bones, which ached with the cold that came with being sixty-nine and damp for too long. That creeping chill she couldn’t seem to shake with a blanket or even a whiskey was starting to worm its way into her joints.
Still, she stayed.
Because beyond the dreamers, the dancers, and the lovers…were people like her. The practical ones. The ones who sought shelter beneath tents and tarps and tied scarves around their hair and shared warm, dry cigarettes under awnings. One woman passed out foil-wrapped sandwiches and paper cups of red wine. Someone offered to share a plastic tie-dye poncho, but Eleanor declined.
Shep had left a poncho folded in the back of the van for her, some flimsy thing he’d probably bought at a gas station next to the beef jerky. She’d said no, wanting to feel the rain a little longer. Wanting tofeel—period.
One day, she wouldn’t remember the rain, let alone this concert. One day, she might not even comprehend what the wordrainmeant.
A group of drunk boys stumbled past, raising their beers liketrophies as if holding them above their heads might keep the rain out. A girl with long braids and a flower crown giggled and tossed them a worn quilt, motioning for them to make a canopy. They cheered like they’d invented architecture.
Eleanor chuckled under her breath. Youth had a way of turning disasters into magic. And for once…she didn’t feel like she was just watching. She was part of the fairy tale.
She wasn’t Eleanor Bell, the widow from Ossining. She wasn’t even just Mama Lightning or the Dame of Rock and Roll.
She was a creature standing at the edge of something wild, waterlogged, with a dog in her arms and a memory, however fragile, stitched into her bones. Right now, she felt less like someone’s mother or grandmother and more like a girl again. The girl who once played her heart out on a stage in New York, who sang until her fingers bled and her soul felt clean.
The thunder cracked again, louder this time, like it had revived and the sky was giving a standing ovation.
