Chapter Fifteen
Over coffee, Leanne flipped through the news stations to see if there were any reports of her mother, and coming up empty-handed, they once more decided no news was good news.
After a breakfast of bacon and sunny-side-up eggs with buttered toast, and a leisurely swim in the hotel pool, Nora and her mother climbed back into the Lincoln Continental, its chrome glinting under the morning sun.
Heat radiated in shimmering waves off the highway.
Given the weather, they’d decided to try taking the top down.
A surprisingly complicated task, given that neither of them had done it before.
But after some tugging, and a few exasperated huffs, the valet jumped in to help and the roof folded away like an accordion, revealing an endless blue sky to Dean’s leather seats.
They drove down the road, the wind tangling their hair, music blasting from the radio in competition with the whizzing air.
Nora dug into her backpack and pulled out her Polaroid camera. Clicking the knobs, adjusting the focus, she held it up to her eye, framing her mother behind the wheel—sunlight in her hair, head tilted back in laughter, singing like she had no cares in the world.
She pressed the button.
Click—whirr—shlunk.
The photo fluttered out the bottom, nearly snatched by the wind. Nora yelped and lunged, catching it just in time. She held it up, waving it gently in the air until the image began to appear.
She’d never seen her mother like this before. She wondered if her mother had really changed. Or had she, Nora, merely failed to look closely enough? Probably, she thought, it was a combination of both.
In the picture she held between two fingers her mother was not the household list maker or the voice reminding her to pack extra socks.
She was a woman, alive in her joy. Free.
Nora tucked the photo carefully into the glove compartment, not wanting to risk it flying off into the desert. It was important that her mother see it later. Important for her to see what Nora saw.
Another song came on the radio—one they’d heard at the concert just a few days ago, Three Dog Night’s “Celebrate”—and Nora couldn’t help herself. She started dancing in her seat, letting her arms catch the wind, hair whipping across her face as she belted out the chorus.
Her mom joined in, singing the lyrics at the top of her lungs.
When the song ended, Leanne pushed her hair back from her eyes and gave Nora a quick flash of a smile. Her hands stayed steady on the wheel, but her gaze was carefree, youthful, almost mischievous.
“Never thought I’d love that song so much,” she said.
“Never thought I’d hear you sing it,” Nora replied.
She looked at her mother again—really looked.
Not simply the woman who made her breakfast or reminded her about curfews.
But someone who had once been eighteen too.
Someone who’d had dreams and crushes and a favorite song.
A girl who had danced like this once, with her whole life ahead of her.
Maybe she should cut her mom some slack, because from where she was sitting, it seemed like her mom was doing the same.
“Did you date someone in high school?” Nora asked, keeping her voice casual, even if she felt quite the opposite.
They’d been driving for hours, the sun slanting lower across the sky, bathing the dashboard in gold. The wind carried music, and the faint scent of roadside dust and the open air made it feel safer to ask a question she’d never broached before.
Her mom had always just…been a mom. As far as Nora had ever been concerned, Leanne had skipped straight to adulthood like she’d never once been a girl who passed notes in class, had flirted with boys at school, or got butterflies before a dance.
Leanne laughed, eyes on the road. “Not just someone. A few someones, much to my parents’ dismay, although I always thought your grandmother was a little proud.”
Nora leaned her head back, smiling. “She would be. I think she’d be proud if she knew we were on this grand adventure.”
“I think so too.”
“Where did you meet Dad?”
“At an interview, actually,” Leanne said. “I’d just finished secretarial school.”
Nora gasped. “Don’t tell me he was your boss.”
“No, nothing like that.” There was something abrupt about her mom’s voice. Then she laughed and her mood went back to what it had been. “He was interviewing too. Not for the same position—he was there for something higher up. He was nervous.”
“Solid,” Nora said.
Leanne glanced at her daughter, clearly amused. “He made me a bet. Said whoever got the job second owed the other dinner. Then he asked for my number.”
“Who won?”
“I did,” she said, a flicker of pride lighting her face. “I got an offer in the interview and started work the next day. He got a callback the following week. So, we did end up at the same place.”
“And where’d he take you for dinner?”
“A cozy little Italian place in the city. Red-checkered tablecloths. Pasta, wine. The kind of place where half the men looked like they belonged in The Godfather.”
“Served by Don Corleone himself?” Nora teased.
“Could’ve been.” Leanne’s smile was wry as she teased back, “He had an Italian accent and kept muttering about a deal. I was just relieved there weren’t bullets in our spaghetti instead of meatballs. Kidding.”
Nora smiled, picturing her parents on a date surrounded by possible mobsters. Her mother, years younger, dressed up, sitting across from her future husband in a restaurant that smelled like garlic and danger. Would she have looked nervous or excited?
“Why do you ask?” Leanne slanted a glance.
Nora shrugged, but not casually. “I guess I’ve just never heard you talk about your past…past boyfriends or anything before Dad, really. Sometimes it just feels like you two have been together since birth.”
Leanne nodded thoughtfully, but she didn’t say anything else right away.
Then, after a beat, she said, “What about you? Any romance I should know about?”
“You know Jack, my prom date.” Nora paused, tracing the rim of her leftover cup from breakfast. “He was…fine. But I told him I wasn’t really interested in a long-distance thing. He wasn’t either.”
“Understandable. You want to concentrate on college, not a boy hundreds of miles away. I think I remember him saying he was joining the army.”
“Yeah.” Nora nodded, pursing her lips on a thought, hoping Jack would be far away from the fighting. “I’m hoping boys will be more mature in college and the relationships less…silly.”
Leanne gave an assured nod. “They will be. Teenage boys are mostly just out to have fun. They have no responsibilities yet. They’re just…sowing their oats, as the saying goes.” Her mom’s tone was matter-of-fact.
Nora raised an eyebrow, imagining the boys from kindergarten growing older and spreading a bag full of oatmeal. Then she laughed out loud. “I’ve never understood the correlation between breakfast cereal and, well…that.”
Leanne chuckled. “It’s a strange one, for sure.
” Their conversation broke as she tapped the paper map and asked if the highway ahead was their exit.
After they were on another stretch of road, she said, “But once they get to college, something shifts. Most of them know what’s coming.
They’ve got to pick a major, finish their degrees, start a career.
They’re not boys anymore. Not entirely.”
“But there’ll still be parties.” Nora planned to study hard during the week to keep her weekends free.
“Plenty of them. Mixers, bar nights, bad decisions. But underneath all their wild behavior, most of them know it won’t last forever. They start to look around and think about what’s next.”
Nora gazed at the horizon, the car humming along the open road. She tried to imagine what it would be like—falling in love with someone you might actually marry.
“What if I don’t want to think about what’s next?” she murmured.
Leanne didn’t answer right away. When she did, her voice was soft. “Then don’t,” she said. “Not yet. Just live, honey. Enjoy your classes. Make friends. And when you’re ready for romance, you’ll know.”
“That makes sense,” Nora said, turning the thought over.
All the high school boys she’d known had really only lived for two days a week—Friday night and all day Saturday. And if she was being honest, she had too. Especially Saturday mornings, when she could sleep in, listen to music, and not think about anything heavier than what record to spin first.
“Do you think I’ll get to sleep in while I’m at college?” Nora joked, ready to lighten things a bit and veer away from romance.
“That depends.” Her mother flicked on her blinker, pointing to a sign for a scenic overlook.
“On what?”
“I think everyone should get to sleep in on weekends. But you have to remember—you’re at college for a reason. And it’s not to catch up on your sleep.”
“You mean to find a husband?” Nora asked, half joking…half not.
She fiddled with the Polaroid camera in her lap, spinning the lens idly. She could feel her mother’s head swivel toward her—and when she glanced up, the look of sheer horror on Leanne’s face was priceless.
Click.
She snapped the photo.
“I’d be okay if you let that one fly off in the wind.” Leanne fluttered her hand toward the sky with a laugh.
“Oh no. This one’s getting pride of place on my dorm room wall.” Nora waved the photo in the air. “A reminder of my many responsibilities.”
“Which don’t include a wedding ring,” her mother added firmly.
“Right. I’m not going to Yale to meet a husband,” Nora said, more serious now. “I’m going to be part of something bigger. A shift in America. I want to graduate from an Ivy League, with honors. I want to start my life right.”
Leanne didn’t answer at first. Looking at her mom out of the corner of her eye, she noticed her lips pressed together, the corners twitching slightly, fighting emotion.
“I’m really proud of you, Nora,” Leanne said finally.
Nora felt something warm rising and expanding inside of her.
It wasn’t that she didn’t know her mother was proud of her before this moment, but more often than not her mom was closed off.
There was something comforting about hearing her mom open up—it lifted Nora like a helium balloon.
Nora smiled, staring at the slowly filling parking lot of the scenic overlook, her hand still wrapped around the warming Polaroid.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Glancing at her again, Nora caught the soft look that slipped across her mother’s face. Nostalgic. A little far away. An expression that might’ve led to tears if she let it.
Then her mom’s expression went back to business. She clearly didn’t want to end the conversation in a puddle of feelings. Pulling the keys from the ignition, she said, “Let’s take some pictures.”
As they climbed toward the fenced-off area, Nora said. “So…did I tell you about the hot writer I met at the festival?”
Leanne blinked. “Sounds like that could be an opening line for the sequel of The Love Machine.”
Nora burst out laughing. “Maybe it could, but no. He was young—like, my age—and the pickup lines? Some of the worst I’ve ever heard.”
Leanne raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. “Do tell.”
For the first time in maybe ever, Nora felt her mother’s openness, and she was excited to spill her secrets.