“She’s not well,” Leanne said. “Not mentally. I found a note from the doctor’s office at her house. She’s been diagnosed with dementia. I think…I think we need to find her.”
Panic pressed against Nora’s ribs.Dementia?“Where would we even start?”
“California. I found this note crumpled in the trash at her house.” Leanne’s voice was tight. She held up a torn scrap of paper, the margin jagged like it had been ripped from a larger thought.
Nora scanned the slanted, unmistakable handwriting. The identical looping cursive that Eleanor had signed her name within every hand-painted birthday card and the postcard on her wall.The Pink Flamingo.
Nora wrinkled her nose. “What’s the Pink Flamingo?”
“A hotel in California.” There was an edge to her mother’s voice, like she might just crack at any minute.
“Why would Grandma write down the name of a hotel in California?”
Leanne’s mouth tightened, the line of her lipstick disappearing, and for a second, she looked like she might cry. “I think it has something to do with the songs.”
Nora looked down again. Below the hotel name, her grandmother had scrawled a short playlist:Purple Haze. Proud Mary. With a Little Help From My Friends.
Nora’s chest gave a small thump. “I love those songs.”
“Any idea what they have to do with the Pink Flamingo? Or California?” Leanne’s eyes shimmered, and she wiped at them quickly, as if acknowledging her emotion might make it worse.
Nora didn’t comment. Her mother hated being seen while unraveling.
Instead, she hopped off her bed and crossed the room, grabbing the latest issue ofRolling Stonefrom her desk. The cover was already curling from overuse.
“Yeah. I think I do.” She flipped rapidly through the glossy pages until she reached what she’d been obsessing over the day before: a two-page spread filled with names, bands, bright colors, and promises of noise and liberation. There was no way her parents would let her go, but a girl could dream.
“The Newport Pop Festival. It’s starts later this week in California.”
She held the magazine open, showing her mother the full-color ad she’d practically drooled over, tracing the band names like prayers. Janis Joplin. Jimi Hendrix. Creedence. Joe Cocker. The Byrds. The gods of music, and the concert was the altar at which the fans could worship them.
“There’s another one at the end of summer,” she added, chewing her lip. This was the one she’d been banking on attending. “Woodstock. But that’s in New York.” Her voice dropped, wistful. Half her graduating class planned to be there. Some of them planned on wearing “Make Love, Not War” T-shirts in protest of their friends being sent to fight in Vietnam. She, Kelley, and the others were already planning a campaign to attend. They had to be strategic, their parents so strict about where they went and with whom. Most of the time, Nora’s mother called the bands she loved “heathens.”
Leanne stared at the ad, her lips parting slightly. “That’s a lot of festivals.”
“You don’t really think Grandma went to one, do you?” Nora asked, the question hanging between skepticism, awe, and hope. If her grandmother knew she had dementia, why would she risk it? The woman was smart—there had to be some reason…
Leanne didn’t answer right away. She stared down at the note again, the shaky handwriting, the songs—like breadcrumbs leading to some secret version of her mother she’d never been able to follow.
“She loves music,” Leanne said finally, almost to herself. “She always has. Maybe she felt like after the visit with the doctor that she had to do this. I think she…I think she really went to California. Her car is still gone. God if she drove…”
Nora didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t just the idea of Eleanor going rogue that stunned her—it was the strange gleam in her mother’s eyes. Fear. Determination. Maybe a little envy. There was an uncontrolledness about it that had Nora standing up a little taller.
“I need to go after her.” Leanne squared her shoulders as if expecting her daughter to say she was crazy, and maybe she was a little bit. “She’s not safe alone.”
Nora didn’t argue. She just nodded slowly, watching her mother like she’d suddenly become someone from a different planet.
Or maybe just someone who finally realized her mother had a whole secret side of herself that Nora wasn’t privy to.
“I’ll see if Dad wants to go,” her mother said, disappearing down the hallway.
Not an hour later, there was another knock at the door. Softer this time. Hesitant.
Leanne peeked her head in. “Any chance you want to go on a road trip?”
Nora stared at her for a long second. “A what?”
“A road trip. To California. To find Grandma.”
