Chapter Nineteen
Eleanor was backstage strumming a few chords one minute, laughing with the band, feeling light and almost…sprightly, like the girl she used to be.
The next moment, everything was bedlam.
Someone grabbed her by the arm, her shoes slapping against the grass as they rushed her out the back. She’d barely had a chance to pick up Roxy. The stadium loomed behind them, smoke curling into the sky like a question mark.
“Is there a fire?” Her breath caught, and she inhaled slowly through her nose, trying to calm her breathing and her sweet pup.
“No,” said one of the band members, peering over his shoulder. “Cops.”
“Cops?” Her voice went up in pitch. For the briefest paranoid second, she had the ridiculous thought that Leanne had called the police. Was it even possible that her daughter had somehow tracked her down and sent officers to drag her home like a runaway teenager?
No. The thought was shaken off before it could settle. Every step had felt careful—at least, that was the intention. From what she could remember, she hadn’t left much of a trail, and she knew for certain she hadn’t told Leanne where she was going.
“Yeah, some folks were causing a scene.” He shrugged, unconcerned like riotous outbursts were as common as encore requests.
But it wasn’t usual for Eleanor. Her body started to shake as the sudden rush of adrenaline that had come from their performance drained away.
Concerts in her day had been mellow. Civilized. A sea of cigarette smoke, not tear gas. People dancing, not fistfighting. She’d been to jazz shows where the loudest noise came from a high hat. Now, the atmosphere outside the van buzzed with something else—something dangerous.
Megan whipped open the van door, and Eleanor filed inside with the rest of the band members. The van smelled like vinyl and the musk of the road and something more lived-in, like the feeling of freedom after a lifetime of restraint.
Shep sat beside Eleanor, wrapping a casual arm around her shoulders, steadying her. Almost instantly the shakes started to subside.
“Don’t worry,” he said gently. “Just the system pushing back. You were electric up there. You belong here.”
But Eleanor wasn’t sure anymore. Her fingers still tingled from the chords she’d played, but her heart thrummed with uncertainty.
Was this what she came for?
Eleanor’s gaze was pulled out the window, watching the throngs of people escaping. The van engine rumbled to life, exhaust fumes curling into the air behind them, and she wondered—had she brought herself to the edge of independence…or the end of something else entirely?
Leaning into Shep, she was grateful for his weight and warmth beside her. His steady, solid presence. It had been so long since she’d had someone she could lean on without apology. Without needing to explain. At times like this, she missed Henry so much.
“What are we going to do now?” Her voice had gone soft against the thrum of the crush still pulsing outside the van.
“Wait it out if we can.” Shep slid a cigarette from his shirt pocket, flicked open a silver lighter. The flame caught with a metallic snap. He took a slow drag, exhaled a curl of smoke, and passed the cigarette.
Eleanor accepted it with practiced fingers, lifting it to her lips and inhaling. The familiar bite of tobacco hit the back of her throat, burning away just enough tension to make her shoulders drop.
“And if it doesn’t calm down?” she asked, glancing toward the tinted windows.
“We grab a bite and head out. Got a show in Atlanta next. You in?”
Eleanor didn’t pause, just nodded. The nod coming before any thought had a chance to intervene. The decision was already written in muscle and instinct. She craved the open road. Was drawn to him. And the music, the music thrummed in her veins. The rhythm pulling her forward.
But should she go…and did she want to go—those were two different questions.
Shep leaned back, one hand draped over the vinyl seat.
Outside, the smoke had started to clear, but Eleanor’s thoughts still hadn’t.
At some point, she was going to have to find a pay phone.
Call Leanne. Let her daughter know she hadn’t been kidnapped, hadn’t fallen off the face of the earth.
But with every mile she put between them, she forgot a little more of what had once held her back.
Roxy gave a little yip from her lap, her tongue flicking out. Eleanor smiled faintly, fishing a treat from her pocket and placing it gently in her dog’s mouth.
“I’ve got a sandwich left.” Shep patted the cooler beside him. “My old dog would’ve killed for a bite.”
Eleanor looked down at Roxy, who was eyeing the cooler like it held the secrets of the universe. “Well, mine might just stage a full-blown mutiny.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m a generous man.”
She narrowed her eyes, playful. “Generous, or looking to impress?”
He grinned and took the sandwich out of the cooler. “Can’t it be both?”
She laughed softly, listening to the crackle of the wax paper while he unwrapped the sandwich. “Just don’t expect me to share with you. Roxy takes priority.”
“Smart girl. I’d choose her over me too.”
Roxy’s little pink tongue lolled out, and a string of drool landed squarely in Eleanor’s lap. “Oh, you have no shame,” she said, scratching behind the dog’s ear.
Not until she watched Roxy tear into the club sandwich—lettuce and tomato hanging from her crooked miniature teeth—did Eleanor realize she was also starving. Her stomach let out a low, hollow grumble.
Had she eaten today? She must have. Maybe even a sandwich just like this. She’d been with Shep all day, hadn’t she? If he’d eaten, surely she had as well. That’s how it worked…wasn’t it?
Outside, the disorder still pulsed as she finished the part of the sandwich Roxy didn’t want.
Feet pounded. People shouted. Fists slapped the side of the van.
Bodies rushed past. But Eleanor closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against the cool windowpane, letting the hum of adrenaline and music dissolve into stillness. She was safe in the van with Shep.
Roxy curled in her lap, full and satisfied, her diminutive body already vibrating with gentle snores.
Eleanor drifted off, lulled by the rhythm of Roxy’s breath, her solid warmth, and the distant drums thumping from the stadium where the musicians continued playing despite the pandemonium.
There’d been an incident like this when she’d performed on vaudeville.
The Gerry Society busting underage performers and their parents.
She dissolved into the memory, recalling how one young singer had asked Eleanor to hide her underneath a colossal paper-mache cake.
Eleanor jolted upright, heart hammering. Her vision swam, the present coming swirling back.
She was alone.
The van—dim and unfamiliar—seemed to press in on her. The walls too close. The silence too deep. Roxy, more bangs than mane, dozed in her lap, twitching. A scrap of paper crinkled in Eleanor’s hand.
Staring at it as if it might bite, she unfolded the paper with trembling fingers, but the letters floated in front of her eyes, not making sense.
She blinked once, twice, a dozen times, trying to decipher what she was seeing.
Finally, the letters aligned, and her brain decided not to punish her, forming words.
Went to grab hot dogs. You looked too peaceful to wake.—S
Her breath hitched.
Who was S, and why had they gone to get hot dogs?
Where was she?
The question opened up a vacuum in her chest, a swirl of disorientation and dread.
Her hands shook, and the motion jostled the little animal in her lap.
The dog’s eyes blinked open and she cocked her head to the side, the little mop of hair flipping to one side.
Eleanor had a feeling she should know this weird little dog.
A tug at the corner of her brain, too weak to pull back the curtain.
She touched its tag. Roxy.
And with that one name, her mind began to reassemble itself, piece by fragile piece.
She was Eleanor Bell once more.
She was at a concert.
She was—God help her—the Dame of Rock and Roll.
She let out a long breath, her free hand fluttering to her chest, steadying herself. These moments seemed to be coming quicker, and she feared that the time on the road away from familiarity was the cause.
Outside, the uproar was fading, replaced by laughter and song. Shep would return soon. Roxy snorted and nestled back in.
Eleanor stroked the tiny dog’s back, whispering, “I’m still here.”
This was a van.
A van owned by her…what, exactly?
Friend? Companion? Beau?
Sometimes, Eleanor saw Shep as the man she’d lost all those summers ago—his laugh familiar, his touch even more so. Other times, she saw him as he truly was—a stranger, two decades her junior, wrapped in rhythm and smoke, cloaked in youth and dreams he hadn’t yet given up on.
But what she preferred, what she needed, was to think of him as a chapter. A chapter named Now.
Because this trip, this music, this fleeting blur of smoke and song and memory wasn’t about reinvention. It was about reclamation.
Eleanor Bell had come here to live the life she never dared claim. The one she’d tucked away with her guitar behind chiffon blouses and silk scarves. The one she’d handed over in pieces. First to duty, then to love, then to motherhood, and then to the silence that came after.
And soon, she’d have to go back.
Back to New York. Back to being just regular Eleanor Bell Strickland. Widow. Mother. Grandmother. Housekeeper of memories and maker of casseroles.
She hadn’t grown up imagining she’d be defined by titles with such hollow rings. Somewhere along the way, she had deemed herself unworthy of ambition, of artistry.
And when she did, Eleanor Bell, the musician, disappeared like the wisps of cigarette smoke on a windy night. And in her place stood Mrs. Strickland, somebody’s something—someone’s mother, someone’s wife, someone’s something else, but no longer someone’s dreamer.
Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back against the van door. She wished she could fall asleep and wake up in some beautiful elsewhere, free of the weight of memory.
But if she forgot the life she’d lived—the good, the hard, the music that had carried her through—how could she fully honor this chance to feel it again?
Opening her eyes, Eleanor glanced down at Roxy, who gazed at her with lazy affection, her head cocked and tongue cockeyed. That little tuft of hair still made her laugh.
Eleanor patted her silly dog on the head, then eased the van door open.
The air was cooler now. In the distance, music mixed with laughter. Gone was the disorder of the night. A hot dog stand flickered in the sun like a lighthouse, surrounded by people.
Eleanor Bell—musician, widow, goddess of second chances—tucked her hair behind her ears and went in search of a hot dog and the chapter she was living.