Joe opened the door and held it for her, the very picture of a gentleman—if gentlemen wore band T-shirts and had smudges of pencil lead on their fingers. The room smelled faintly of aftershave and newspaper. His bed was made. His bag was tucked in the corner. A stack of books and half-scribbled notes was spread across the desk like a chaotic love letter to his future career.
Nora stepped inside, breath catching.
Then, before she could overthink it, she pulled off her top and pressed herself against him.
Joe didn’t hesitate. He caught her in his arms like he’d been waiting all summer. His mouth found hers with heat and hunger, his hands firm at her back, grounding her. Nora let her fingers explore his shoulders, chest, and the line of muscle beneath his shirt. Who knew that buttoned-up, word nerd Joe had a body like this?
He stripped off his shirt, tossing it aside, his smile both cocky and surprised. “You’re full of secrets, Nora Miller.”
She laughed low and breathless as he guided her toward the bed. The mattress squeaked with their added weight and her heart hammered against her ribs. This was reckless. Wild. Uncharted territory. And yet—this was also her choice.
“I have a condom,” he whispered, his forehead pressed to hers.
“Good,” she murmured, tracing his bottom lip with her thumb. “You’re going to need it.”
Then she pulled him down, letting herself feel, fully and unapologetically, the intimacy she knew she’d remember for the rest of her life.
Part FivePeace and Music
Summer 1969
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Eleanor had never minded a crowd. In fact, she used to say the bigger the crowd, the better she sang. The roar of applause had been her fuel back in the day, and these past few weeks, it had started to feel that way again. She’d fed off the energy like the rabbits fed ravenously off the vegetable garden she’d once tried to grow.
But this was something else entirely.
Woodstock wasn’t just a crowd but a sea of humanity. A pulsing, sweating, swaying continent of barefoot youth, all moving in rhythm under the golden August sun, arms raised to the gods of music and mud.
They were packed in tighter than sardines, sprawled across the rolling green of Max Yasgur’s farm. Half a million people, they said. Half a million! And if anyone had asked Eleanor even a month ago if she’d be here—at nearly seventy years old, dragging around an uncanny canine and letting her hair flow free—she’d have laughed them right back into their bell-bottoms.
But here she was.
And even though the music was electric, the energy intoxicating, and the vibes mostly good…Eleanor was also hungry.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Her stomach growled like a bass line as she perched beneath a makeshift canopy near the main stage. The smells in the air—herbal, body odor, hot dogs, wet denim, damp earth—swirled together into something heady and unforgettable. Woodstock perfume, she thought wryly. Bottle it up and sell it for a dollar.
Shep had proudly brought her a bowl of lentil soup from the Hog Farm Free Kitchen earlier. He and the rest of the band had been giddy about the “brown rice and vegetables” movement like it was some kind of culinary revolution.
Eleanor had taken one look and thought,If I wanted to eat like a monk, I’d have joined a commune twenty years ago.
She took a polite bite. Earthy. Mushy. Kind of like wet cardboard with a hint of cumin. What she wouldn’t give for one of Henry’s steaks grilled medium rare and big fat baked potato topped with butter and sour cream.
She’d smiled and thanked Shep, because he was trying and because he was adorable in a rocker sort of way. But now, hours later, with her stomach twisting and Roxy napping in the crook of her arm, all she wanted was a nice, juicy hunk of farm-raised beef. Maybe a wedge salad topped with blue cheese crumbles and extra crispy bacon. Something with crunch and meat and an honest-to-God metal fork.
That was the downside of all this freedom. Chasing the music, soaking up the spotlight, and running away from everything that tied you down was liberating. But at the end of the day, a girl still wanted a good home-cooked meal.
Three more days.
Just three more days, and she’d be back in Ossining, back in her house with the creaky floors and the doilies she used to hate but had somehow grown fond of. Back to her pink refrigerator. Back to a mattress that didn’t leave her spine shaped like a question mark. Back toreal food—something not cooked over a camp stove or ladled from a communal pot by a stoned teenager in bell-bottoms and no shirt.
And yet…her stomach twisted at the thought.
Home wasn’t just a place. Home was a reality. A responsibility. A structure. A routine. And routines, Eleanor had come to realize, were just cages dressed up in pearls and wallpaper. Routines were things she wasn’t sure she could keep up with, not after this summer and not with her diagnosis.
Home meant facing the music.
