Eleanor exchanged a look with Shep, and he just smirked, passing her a marker as if they’d rehearsed this a thousand times. And maybe they had in their dreams.
She signed her name on a concert program. On a tie-dye headband. On a girl’s bare shoulder. Someone handed her a napkin. Someone else a torn-up road map.
Eleanor Bell wasn’t just chasing a dream anymore—she was the dream.
Chapter Thirty-Two
After nearly three weeks and nearly two thousand miles of two-lane highways, back-seat naps, diner meals, astronaut landings on the moon, and Nora’s fake, sultry voice as she readThe Love Machine, making both women giggle like schoolgirls, Leanne finally saw the WELCOME TO WASHINGTON sign flash past the windshield. They’d taken this drive easy knowing the festival was just shy of three weeks away.
Instead, they’d followed the trail of sightings for the Dame of Rock and Roll and Shep Moon, reported in the papers, on the radio, and even an episode ofJohnny Carsonwhere Eleanor had smiled widely into the camera, seeming perfectly sound of mind. And yet, they were always a step or two behind. Partially because they were following news a day late but also because Leanne wanted her mom to have these moments in the spotlight that she’d so clearly craved. Moments to live to the full extent of her dreams before life so cruelly ushered the memories from her mind. Before her fingers forgot how to strum the notes. Before her voice faltered and shuttered.
And all the time, the barriers between Leanne and Nora dropped, one piece at a time. From the way they smiled and teased, no onewould guess that a month ago tempers had simmered and walking around each other had been asking for an eggshell to poke in the bottom of their feet.
And Dean. There’d finally been a few rushed telephone calls that only made her question their future more and more.
Seattle was just a few hours off now. One last stretch. One last push. Then—hopefully—clean motel sheets, a working ice machine, and a bathroom that didn’t smell like mildew and broken dreams as several of the gas station restroom stops had.
Nora was curled up in the passenger seat, cheek smushed against the window like a kid’s after summer swim lessons. Her dark lashes fanned over her cheeks, her mouth parted slightly, and her fingers still curled around the edge ofThe Studby Jackie Collins, which had just been published and which they’d found at a bookstore somewhere in Missouri. She’d fallen asleep mid-passage, like she used to do with fairy tales.
Leanne’s chest gave a tight little squeeze. How was it possible for someone to look like a child and an adult all at once?
“Bad Moon Rising” fizzled in and out through the radio static, sounding a bit like the universe was trying to hum along, off-key.
And just like that, Leanne’s mind drifted. Not gently either. It crashed backward through time—through school drop-offs, PTA meetings, meat loaf Mondays, and beach weekends with Dean, where the sand was always too gritty and the vacation was always too short. “Just in case the office calls,” he’d say, propping up his briefcase like it was the third member of their marriage. Every hotel concierge had been instructed to get him immediately should the firm interrupt.
They’d built a beautiful life, hadn’t they?
The house with the white shutters. The country club membership. The Japanese maple in the backyard that Leanne still wasn’t entirely sure how to prune.
She had a closet full of pastel dresses and a kitchen stocked withTupperware she’d bought from Marjorie down the street, but she’d forgotten how to hear herself think somewhere along the way.
What good was any of it—any of the things—if the person living inside the picture-perfect life didn’t even know what they wanted?
This road trip, this cross-country detour through music festivals and mystery, had cracked something open inside Leanne. An untempered, aching desire to be more alive. She’d danced barefoot in the rain in Atlanta. She’d worn bell-bottoms that weren’t even hers. She’d drunk cold beer and eaten fried chicken with her daughter in a dive bar in Tennessee and felt more like herself than she had in two decades.
She glanced at Nora again, her chest rising and falling softly. There were more times on this trip when she saw her daughter not just as a child but as a curious, passionate, powerful young woman who was just beginning to shape the life she wanted. Something she hadn’t seen or felt before they’d climbed into the Lincoln to find Eleanor.
Leanne wasn’t sure what scared her more—that Nora would end up just like her or that she wouldn’t.
Because if Nora carved her own path, what excuse would Leanne have for never carving her own?
She adjusted her grip on the steering wheel, fingers flexing against the smooth plastic. The road ahead was long and winding, and for once…that seemed like a good thing.
The entirety of Leanne’s adult life had been one long inhale—waiting for permission to exhale. And now, perched in her mid-forties with a stretch of highway unspooling before her and her daughter asleep beside her, Leanne realized she’d been holding her breath for twenty years.
Nora’s generation—God love them—wasn’t doing that. They were loud and fearless and curious, marching with daisies in their hair and defiance in their throats. They were rewriting the rules in real time, tearing down what no longer served and building something entirelynew.
Leanne admired them. Maybe even envied them. A kind of terrified admiration that thudded against her ribs like John Bonham’s drumsticks on a Led Zeppelin snare. That thought made her laugh. She’d never even known Led Zeppelin existed until this summer. So much had changed on this trip.
But pushing back? Speaking up? Choosing herself?
That was terrifying.
She wasn’t ready to admit it aloud. Hell, she wasn’t even sure she was prepared to admit it in her head, but she was afraid. Afraid of being afraid. Afraid of what it would mean to finally name what she wanted, only to find that no one in her life had room for her wants.
Afraid of being alone.
Because Dean wasn’t a man who embraced change. He’d worn the same pair of brown wingtips since Dewey was governor, and when those finally wore out, he’d bought another identical pair. He still read the morning papers in the same order with his coffee, still insisted on his handkerchiefs being ironed. If she shook the foundation of their marriage even a little, there was a good chance it would crack wide open.
