In truth,The Love Machinewas buried deep in her purse—bold, dog-eared, and buzzing with a female energy she’d long since personally repressed.
He’d always been dismissive of her reading choices—calling them trash, lowbrow, fantasy nonsense. If Dean had acted even remotely like Jacqueline Susann’s smoldering anti-heroes, maybe she’d give him more than a goodbye peck on the lips.
She adjusted the mirror and started the engine as Nora began flipping through the opening pages ofThe Godfather, her long legs propped on the dash like she had all the time in the world.
Then Leanne pulled out of the driveway, a quiet, intrepid thrill humming beneath her pearls.
Chapter Six
Nora watched her mother’s tight and awkward hands on the steering wheel—as if she’d never driven a car before. She wanted to ask what she was worried about, but she bit her tongue. The answer was obvious. While Nora believed her grandmother had gone off on a grand adventure, her mother believed Eleanor had likely been abducted or worse. Besides, they were only fifteen minutes into at least a three-day road trip to California, not to mention the ride back. The last thing Nora wanted was to spend the entire drive locked in silent warfare over something dumb.
Reaching forward, she switched on the radio. The dial buzzed and clicked, then settled into the warm hum of rock and roll—Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”—pouring from the speakers in scratchy stereo. Nora braced for a groan, a sigh, a predictably passive-aggressive comment about “noise” or “those drugged-up musicians.”
But none came.
In fact, looking over at her mom out of the corner of her eye, Nora would almost swear she saw her mother’s lips twitch upward.
They were chasing Eleanor just like Alice was chasing the white rabbit, like the song lyrics…
The truth was, Nora had been kind of pissed about this whole thing. Her mom dropping everything to chase Eleanor across the country felt…dramatic. And, of course, Nora couldn’t say no. That would’ve made her the selfish one. The ungrateful daughter. The one who let her possibly senile grandmother vanish into the California sunset with nothing but a playlist and a dream.
Kelley had been as disappointed to hear Nora tell her she wasn’t going to the lake this weekend as Nora had been to tell it. The only consolation was that she was going to a music festival, maybe more than one, and Kelley wanted a picture of Nora near the stage.
Watching their neighborhood slip past the windows—sprinklers hissing, boys on bikes weaving between driveways—something shifted. Nora had never admitted it out loud, but the idea of seeing Janis Joplin or Joe Cocker in person made her stomach flip. She’d read about them inRolling Stoneand studied their photos like they were gods. And now she was heading west, toward the sound.
She tapped her fingers along the dashboard in rhythm with the song, her voice soft at first, then growing louder with the chorus. Her mother said nothing—but the nascent smile on her lips grew.
Maybe this wouldn’t be completely terrible.
Or maybe it would. By the fourth song, Nora felt the familiar itch of restlessness. She picked her copy ofThe Godfatherback off her lap where she’d laid it, running her fingers over the black cover and gold lettering. She was still shocked that her mom had agreed to let her read it aloud on the road. It wasn’t exactlyLittle Women.
She’d first picked it up last year in English class during their “choose-your-own-book” unit—a rare rebellion from the usual syllabus of dead British men. Her teacher hadn’t exactly been thrilled.
He had likely expected Austen. Maybe Woolf. Possibly something “respectable,” likeTo Kill a MockingbirdorA Room of One’s Own.
Instead, Nora had slapped down a Mafia saga full of blood, sex, betrayal, and men who made decisions with their fists. It was dark. Violent. Raunchy. And absolutely intoxicating.
The teacher, Mr. Boone, had raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure, Nora?”
She’d nodded without flinching. “Positive.”
Because what she loved wasn’t just the crime or the swagger—it was the storytelling. The pulse of it. The way the book moved—no frilly subtext, no polite metaphors. Just pure power in every sentence.The Godfatherwas the first book that made her feel like storytelling could be dangerous.
And she’d started a trend.
By the next day, two other students had walked in with their own dog-eared copies, Mafia-style grins as they slid the paperbacks onto their desks like contraband. Mr. Boone had bristled, clearly rattled by the sudden literary mutiny, and Nora was sure he’d scrap the whole assignment, and reimpose top-down order.
But in the end, he’d let it stand.
Now, curled into the passenger seat of an outlandish red Lincoln Continental rumbling west on the highway, she cracked open the book to page one and prepared to narrate the story aloud.
She just hoped she wouldn’t get carsick. Reading in the car had never bothered her when her dad was driving. But her mother’s style behind the wheel was…different. As if on cue, her mother changed lanes in a not so smooth fashion.
“Ready for me to start?” Nora asked, looking over at her mom and wondering for a second whether there was more to the woman behind the wheel than tight waistbands and Jell-O molds, and coming to the conclusion there wasn’t.
Leanne glanced over with a glint in her eyes that Nora hardly recognized. It hit her with a weird sort of nostalgia, like a half-remembered winter evening. Snow piled high outside, cocoa cooling beside the fire, and her mother reading aloud from a library book while she curled under a blanket. Before things got more complicated. Before everyone got so tired.
“I am ready.” Leanne’s voice was mischievous but at the same time almost conspiratorial. “But first, I want you to see what I brought.” She nodded toward her purse, nestled between them on the bench seat.
