Joe grinned, flipping open his notebook and skimming his fingerover the page before tapping. “They’re calling you the Dame of Rock and Roll after your performance in California. And surely after tonight, it’s a name that will stick.”
Stunned, Eleanor stared at him for half a beat. Maybe this was a dream, a hallucination. Any second now, she would wake up, sprawled on her purple velvet couch at home. But someone coughed a few feet away, and in dreams, did people ever cough?
Eleanor laughed softly, her fingers tapping against her arm as if it were her guitar. “‘The Dame of Rock and Roll’?” She let the name roll off her tongue, feeling out the syllables. “I guess that’s better than ‘Rocking Grandma’.”
Joe’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “So, you like ‘the Dame of Rock and Roll’?” he asked.
A sense of pride filled her, and she lifted her chin slightly. Despite the ache in her joints, the heat in her throat, there was a spark in her chest that hadn’t been there in years.
“I think,” she said with a smile, “it has a damn good ring to it.”
“Good, because I gave it to them.” He chuckled. “You hungry?” Joe tucked his notepad back into the pocket of his jacket.
“Famished.”
“Well then,” he said, already half rising, “what do you say I find you something to eat?”
Eleanor narrowed her eyes at him, amused. “If this is you trying to butter me up for questions, you don’t have to. I’m happy to answer.”
“The Dame of Rock and Roll is feisty,” Joe teased.
She smirked. She’d never thought of herself that way, but now that he’d mentioned it… “You could say that.”
Her gaze drifted to the cigarette in his hand—unlit, forgotten.
“Are you going to smoke that?” she asked.
He looked down as if he hadn’t even realized he was holding itbetween his fingers. “No,” he said. “Would you like it?”
“I would.” She hoped doing something as simple as puffing on a cigarette would bring her back to earth.
He passed it to her without hesitation.
“Got a light?” she asked.
Joe struck a match, shielding the flame from the wind with his palm, and she leaned in. Eleanor took a long drag, the cherry flaring red in the low light. She held the smoke in her lungs for a beat, then exhaled slowly, watching the grayish curl drift toward the stars and seeing something different in her mind. Memories of other nights when she’d sung, followed by a cigarette and a boy with a match.
Her body still buzzed from the performance. Her voice still felt warm, alive. The music was still in her blood.
Joe watched her with the cautious awe of someone who knew they were witnessing something more significant than a good story.
“So,” he said, voice soft, “what does your family think about you starting a singing career this late in life?”
Eleanor took another drag, the edge of her lips quirking into a smile. She thought of her daughter. Her granddaughter. The house. The years she’d spent in silence.
Then she looked him square in the eyes.
“I wouldn’t say it’s so much a new beginning as a return,” she said. “And I believe it’s never too late to do what you love.”
Chapter Seventeen
After days on the road, Leanne parked the Continental in the only spot left—a crooked sliver of grass between two psychedelic-painted vans. The motor fell silent, and she just sat there for a beat, letting her joints recalibrate.
Road-tripping was not for the faint of heart. And when they finally got back to New York, she might boycott automobiles for the foreseeable future in favor of walking, even if it took her the entire day.
When she finally swung the door open and stepped out, her entire body groaned in protest. Knees stiff. Back sore. If she hadn’t been driving for hours on end she might have worried she was suddenly ninety. The time on the road certainly had felt like longer than fifty years.
She stretched her arms over her head, twisting right and left from the waist up, feeling her muscles loosen. Music thundered from the stadium—deep, pulsing, relentless. Lights shot into the night sky like flares. The whole scene was alive, pulsating with energy.
