Chapter Eighteen
Nora could not remember a time—any time—she’d seen her mother helpless.
Leanne Miller didn’t fall. She glided, always graceful and upright.
Standing firm like a mannequin in a department store window.
When Nora was little, she used to stare at her mother’s feet to see if they actually touched the ground.
And then she’d go out into the backyard, barefoot in the grass, practicing her mother’s walk.
Somewhere along the way, that glide had become her mom’s armor. Her poise, her power.
Until now.
Nora’s breath caught in her throat, watching helplessly as her mother sprawled over another person, pinned by the tide of bodies.
People kept tripping over them—stumbling, shouting, shoving forward like a herd of antelope running from a lion.
They ricocheted into strangers, some falling to the ground.
No one tried to help or stop the stampede.
When Nora tried to breathe, it was through air that was thick with tear gas, with fear, with the crush of human heat.
Nora watched in horror as, curled in on herself, her mother wrapped her arms tight, trying to shrink into the dirt. Each attempt Leanne made to rise was met with another foot slamming into her back or shoulder, sending her crashing down again like a rag doll on top of the other person.
Nora screamed, her voice cracking. “Stop! You’re crushing them!”
The air burned her lungs, and her words came out in broken pieces, swallowed by the screech of pandemonium and the music still blasting from somewhere above.
“Stop!” she yelled again, shoving back at the surge of bodies. A man in a denim vest collided with her back, and she nearly lost her footing.
She couldn’t fall. She wouldn’t fall. Her mother needed her.
Nora dropped to her knees, coughing, grabbing her mom’s arm, tugging—pulling her back to the surface, out of the crush. But there were too many people. Too much movement. Too much panic.
“Mom!” she croaked, voice trembling. Her eyes stung, not just from the tear gas but from the sudden, terrifying grief of it all.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Not to her mother. Not to the woman who walked like royalty, who never faltered. Who was always the one to reach out a hand.
Now, Leanne was the one on the ground.
And Nora had never been so afraid in her life.
Leanne pushed herself upright, just in time for someone to leap over her, using her back like she was part of some twisted game of leapfrog.
“Hey!” Nora shouted, her instincts kicking in. She shoved one idiot midair, and he stumbled, arms flailing, crashing to the ground.
Her mother’s face was blotchy, red, wild-eyed. She looked on the edge of panic, tears shining on her lashes. And that—that—was worse than anything else. Nora couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother cry.
Grabbing hold of Leanne’s hand tight, she refused to let go. They began pushing through the mass, both of them suddenly more aggressive and desperate.
And then—
“Nora,” a voice called from her left, his voice calm and reassuring and at odds with their current situation. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
With a sharp turn of her head, Nora scanned the madness for the familiar voice.
Joe.
“I hardly think a soda line and a riot are in the same category,” she shot back.
Joe gave a lazy shrug, all effortless swagger and practiced indifference. “Depends how thirsty you are.”
His grin was crooked, and she should’ve rolled her eyes at his terrible timing and joke—but relief flooded her chest instead.
Seeing him there, solid and focused, made her feel grounded.
He lifted his arms protectively, creating space in the chaotic crowd.
Taking the brunt of people running into his body but remaining still where she and her mother had been knocked aside.
“Let me help, Nora.”
Without hesitation, he reached out, taking Nora’s hand in one of his and her mother’s with his other.
He shifted them slightly behind him—as if he were the prow of a ship.
Nora let herself be pulled forward as Joe shouldered past people.
She couldn’t stop glancing toward her mother, worried she’d fall again.
And all the while, acting as a barrier, Joe moved forward with purpose.
When Leanne did stumble, Joe caught her, easing her upright before she could be overtaken by dozens of feet again.
For a bizarre second, Nora thought of the Vietnam footage they showed on the nightly news. Young men wading through bomb smoke and screaming, pushing forward through the mayhem of war, unsure if they’d ever get out.
She pushed the images away with a shudder, knowing that a crush at a concert was nothing compared to war.
Then, suddenly, the crowd broke open. The air shifted. Cleaner, clearer, cooler.
They’d made it outside of the stadium.
Leanne bent over, hands braced on her thighs, sucking in heavy breaths like she’d just run a marathon at top speed. Nora’s chest squeezed tight at the sight.
“Mom?” Nora pressed a hand to Leanne’s back, afraid her mother might have suffered an injury and was breathing with pain rather than residual fear.
“I’m okay.” Leanne straightened slowly, wincing as she wiped at the sweat on her brow. “Thank you.” Her voice was hoarse but measured, and she gave a grateful nod.
“No problem,” he said. He tried to sound cool, but he too was clearly shaken by the crowd crush they’d just escaped. “I owed Nora here.” He tilted his head.
“Owed me?” Nora shot him a quizzical glance. “How?”
“For the Coke,” he said with a wink.
Heat bloomed beneath her skin, making Nora’s cheeks flush.
“You two know each other?” As Nora turned toward her mom, she noticed Leanne’s gaze had fully sharpened into parenting mode.
“No,” Nora said quickly, at the same time Joe replied, “Sort of.”
Leanne’s spine straightened a little more, an interrogation queueing up in her mind like festivalgoers at the ticket booth.
But Joe, who interviewed strangers for a living, held out his hand with confidence and offered a charismatic smile.
“Joe Dumas. At your service, ma’am.”
Nora’s mind whirled at hearing his last name. “Wait. Your last name is Dumas? As in Alexandre Dumas and The Three Musketeers?”
Joe let out a short laugh. She thought she detected the slightest blush on his cheeks.
“‘All for one, and one for all.’ Long-lost relation. And look at the three of us now—clearly something out of my great-great-great-something-grandfather’s novel.
‘Never fear quarrels,’” Joe quoted with a wink, “‘but seek hazardous adventures.’ Which I guess means I was meant to find you in a mutiny.”
Her mother held her tongue, but Nora could practically hear the questions bubbling up behind her eyes.
She just knew when they climbed back into the Lincoln, the questioning would start firing off faster than the flame juggling act they’d seen at the Madison Square Garden circus last summer.
Starting with, Was that the hot writer you mentioned meeting?
But her mother broke eye contact quickly, whirling in a circle, her frantic gaze scanning the crowd, no doubt praying for a sign of Eleanor.
Nora rubbed at the gooseflesh on her arms, then brushed a tendril of hair off her cheek, still breathless from the turmoil.
It suddenly occurred to her that if anyone had seen Eleanor Bell, it would be the journalist following the Grandma Rocker story like a heat-seeking missile. “How’s your story coming along?”
Joe’s face lit up. “The Dame of Rock and Roll killed it earlier. Did you miss her set?”
Leanne practically jolted. “You saw her?”
“Yeah,” he said with an air of nonchalance. “She was onstage with Shep Moon and his band earlier before they took off.”
“They made it out safely?” Leanne asked, her body stiff.
Joe nodded. “Pretty sure. The riot really only affected the crowd, not the bands.”
Her mother blew out a long breath, her shoulders lowering. “And she was with Shep Moon’s band?”
“Yeah. A full-on collaboration onstage. Like…planned.”
Leanne muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like un-fucking-believable.
Nora blanched. She must’ve misheard that. Her mother didn’t curse. Her mother didn’t even abbreviate curse words. And Nora had definitely had a bar of soap in her mouth for saying less.
“What song?” Nora asked.
Joe launched into a verse, his voice unexpectedly rich—low and a little raspy, like he’d listened to too many Sam Cooke records.
Nora raised an eyebrow, trying for cool confidence even as her heart beat faster than Creedence Clearwater Revival’s drums. “Let me guess—your other ancestor was a famous musician?”
Joe didn’t miss a beat. “Actually, yes. Why?”
Nora’s mouth fell open a little. “Seriously?”
Joe pressed a hand to his heart. “As a journalist, I have sworn not to lie in my reporting. But I also can’t confirm. If the family legends are true, my uncle was a blues guitarist from Memphis. Played backup for B.B. King once before he died.”
“Oh my God.” Nora glanced at her mom, who seemed to be breathing easier, then back at Joe. “You’re like a walking Rolling Stone article.”
“Flattery,” he said, flipping his collar up, “will get you far. Keep it coming.”
Leanne still hadn’t spoken. Nora watched her mother’s face, reality settling in. Eleanor hadn’t just come to a music festival. She’d performed. With Shep Moon. And had become, somehow, some way—the story.
If not for Joe, Nora might have been speechless too. And then he said, “She’s got an incredible story. I had a chance to speak to her briefly,” taking any remnants of words from her brain.
Time to tell Joe just who the Dame of Rock and Roll was.