2 Ziggy Stardust
Ziggy Stardust
Our kitchen looks like Paula Deen exploded.
From the doorway, I count at least three homemade pies resting on the glass cooktop.
Assorted casserole dishes litter every available flat surface, and the light reflecting off the aluminum foil is blinding.
Stacked around the Pyrex graveyard are plastic containers in nearly every color of the rainbow, as if our house is where Tupperware came to die.
The church ladies thought of everything—right down to the tub of whipped I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!
nestled in a basket of freshly baked brown ’n serve rolls.
“Hungry?” Jeanie holds out an oval dish filled with what looks like regurgitated dog food.
The stench of boiled cabbage and scalloped potatoes slaps me in the face like a wet sneaker, making my stomach roll over and play dead. “I’d rather starve.”
“Suit yourself.” Jeanie shoves the dish into the overcrowded refrigerator before taking a seat next to Grandma. She taps a shimmery pink fingernail on the table in a quick staccato, mimicking my erratic heartbeat, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
I alternate my gaze between Jeanie and Grandma Lola. “Is this an intervention?”
Instead of answering, Grandma gives me a syrupy smile that all but confirms my suspicions.
I pivot on my heel, ready to march back the way I came. “If you need me, I’ll be in my room yanking out my fingernails, one at a time.”
“Sit!” Jeanie points at the open seat across from her.
“Fine.” I scrape my chair across the floor before falling into it with a grunt.
The two of them share covert glances, speaking in code with their eyes.
“Sooo ...” I drag out the word, filling the uncomfortable silence. “What’s the mysterious reason Mom wants us to spread her ashes between Cleveland and Santa Monica?”
Grandma finally releases her stranglehold on the urn and sets it in the center of the table. “It’s a long story.”
“It’s not like I have anything better to do.” I cross my arms and straighten my spine. If I miss the rapidly closing window to register for classes, I’ll have nothing but time.
“As you both know, I haven’t exactly lived a conventional life,” Grandma starts.
I snort. “Understatement.”
Jeanie pins me with a glare. “Let her talk.”
“As I was saying ...” Grandma folds her hands on the table. “I’ve always been somewhat of a nomad, floating from one place to another like a leaf in the wind.”
I open my mouth to mention the press pass, but she holds up a finger, preempting my question.
“I may have parlayed my love of music into an actual job, but long before I snagged my first paycheck, my cousin Penny convinced me to sneak off to Cleveland to see Led Zeppelin with her.” She gazes straight through us, as if she’s found a window into the past. “Penny was a little older than me, but far more worldly than her years. She was ‘nineteen going on thirty,’ as Momma used to say. She smoked pot, drank cheap whiskey, and ran around with the best-looking boys in town. So, naturally, I wanted to be just like her.”
Almost against my will, her story draws me in. “How old were you?”
A gravelly chuckle rolls up her throat. “Barely seventeen—and if my mother had known how long it would be before she saw me again, she would’ve nailed my windows shut.”
“You ran away?” Jeanie’s jaw drops. “Just like that?”
Grinning ear to ear, Grandma nods. “With nothing but a change of clothes, the last seven dollars from my piggy bank, and my brand-new driver’s license.”
Even in the 1970s, I doubt she would’ve gotten far on seven dollars. “How did you pay for the tickets?”
“Oh, we didn’t have tickets.” She snickers.
“Penny knew the guy at the gate. When we got to Cleveland, she not only got us into the concert without a single ticket between us, but she sweet-talked the security guards into letting us backstage to meet the band. I spent the weekend sleeping in the back seat of Penny’s powder-blue Pinto, and I never went back.
That beat-up old hatchback was practically my home for the next two years while we hit every concert in Ohio. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“So you were a rebel. What does that have to do with Mom?” I sneak a peek at my phone. Nothing.
“I’m getting to that.” Grandma takes a deep breath.
“In September 1972, a young Englishman with flaming hair and four-inch platform boots walked onto the stage at the Cleveland Music Hall and changed everything I knew about the world. I’m not exaggerating when I say he blew my mind.
None of us had ever seen anything like it before—the hair, the makeup, the elaborate costumes.
He was this glittering alien, oozing sex appeal. ”
I shudder.
Grandma waggles her eyebrows and lets out a barking laugh. “Oh, Zoey, honey, you have no idea.”
“This is so wrong.” Groaning, I cover my face with both hands. “You’re my grandmother . I don’t want to think about you cavorting with oozing rock stars.”
“I wasn’t always your grandmother. And trust me, Bowie oozed.
The man was out of this world. I was ..
. more than a little obsessed to be honest. I practically got down on my knees and begged Penny to follow Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars to Memphis for the next stop.
She was up for almost anything in those days, so we hopped in the Pinto and followed the tour bus the whole way there.
The first several stops on the tour were hardly sellouts, but it gave us a chance to get to know the band.
To talk with them. Party with them. I may have only been nineteen, but I was mature beyond my years. ”
“That’s a fascinating story,” I deadpan, stealthily checking my messages again.
Finally, a text from Damian: Hey babe, whatcha doing?
As if he doesn’t know.
But since I can only fight one battle at a time, I simply text him a quick call ya later before pocketing my phone and going back to the conversation at hand. “I still don’t see what any of that has to do with Mom.”
“Your mother was conceived somewhere between Memphis and Malibu.” Grandma’s smile turns wistful, as if reliving the moment.
Jeanie leans in, hanging on every juicy word.
“So you ... hooked up with one of the roadies or something?” No wonder Mom never wanted to talk about her dad.
“No.” Grandma laughs. “Not one of the roadies.”
“Another groupie?”
Jeanie cackles as if she already knows the answer.
“No, Zoey. I didn’t sleep with some random groupie.”
Frustration finally gets to me. “Then who?”
Grandma’s green eyes sparkle with untold secrets. “Ziggy Stardust himself.”
“Wait ... you’re going where?” Damian’s voice roars down the line, and I pull the phone away from my ear. All things considered, he’s taking the news about as well as expected.
Swallowing a groan, I shove my old Pooh Bear to the side and fall into a stack of pillows. “Cleveland, for starters.”
He snorts. “Why the hell would you go to the Mistake on the Lake on purpose?”
Ignoring his tired joke, I switch the call to speaker and gaze down at the old photo of him grinning up at me from the phone display.
His olive complexion is even darker in person, especially now that it’s warm enough to be outside all day.
I reach for the discarded bear and hug it to my chest. “I’m going with Jeanie and my grandma to spread my mom’s ashes. It’s a long story.”
“Oh. Right.” He clears the attitude from his throat and lowers his voice. “How long will you be gone?”
“Not sure yet.” I pick at a loose thread on Pooh’s butt. Mom probably sewed the same seam over a hundred times since I was a toddler. “A week ... maybe longer?”
“For Chrissakes, Zoey! You’re supposed to be registering for classes and coming to look at apartments with me this weekend.” And just like that, the attitude’s back.
“I didn’t plan this, you know?” Everything—Mom’s death, Grandma’s bombshell, the road trip—weighs down on me until I damn near boil over like a pot of potatoes.
Damian lets out a defeated sigh. “I’m sorry about your mom, Zo. I, uh, would’ve been at the funeral but ... you know I’m not good with emotional shit.”
“Yeah, I know.”
His aversion to “emotional shit” is one of the many reasons for rethinking my decision to join him at Penn State.
The plan was always to go to college together.
I enrolled—went to orientation and everything—but then right after graduation, Mom took a turn for the worse, and I couldn’t leave.
Now that she’s gone, I’m not sure I want the same things I did two years ago.
My eyes and nose prickle as I fight back tears.
“Don’t cry, baby,” he pleads.
“I’m not a baby ... and I’m not crying!” My voice cracks, taking a bite out of my anger.
Damian releases a ragged breath. “Don’t worry about school right now, okay? Do your thing and come back.”
“Thanks,” I say, the word bitter on my tongue.
How dare he act as if I need his permission to spread my mother’s ashes. He doesn’t need to know I hate the idea. Or how many times I tried convincing my sister to spread Mom’s ashes damn near anywhere else. How I’m only going because she gave me no choice.
“Will I see you before you leave?” he asks.
“Maybe.”
Shouldn’t he be more concerned about your emotional state than whether or not he gets laid before you go? The voice in my head sounds a whole lot like Jeanie’s, and I quickly block it out before it says something I can’t ignore.
“I don’t know. I’ll ask Jeanie and call you in the morning.” Or maybe I won’t, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it.
“Whatever. Have a nice trip.” Damian hangs up, still fuming over a decision even I don’t understand, and I’m more than over his childish dramatics.