Today's Reading
She'd been a musician ahead of her time, chasing rhythms and riffs the world wasn't ready to hear in the 1920s.
Her fingers, still elegant despite the years, released the papers, letting them fall to the floor like an afterthought. She stood, feet aching from the heels she'd kicked off, but back straight, and crossed to the record player. Gently, deliberately, she lifted the record from its spindle, set it aside, and replaced it with something with a little more pulse.
Jimi Hendrix.
As the first notes of "Purple Haze" crackled to life, the chords curled around her like smoke. A faint smile came to her lips. This room, this purple couch—it had all been shaped by the echoes of a song, by the girl she used to be.
That girl wasn't entirely gone yet.
With no one here to watch, Eleanor let herself be that girl again. Fingers strumming invisible chords in the air, she twirled through her living room, legs kicking, hips swaying, her body bending and flowing as if she were one more instrument in the band. The music surged through her, wild and free, and she moved like she'd never stopped, like the aches and pains of age didn't exist.
Certainly not how anyone imagined a grandmother should dance—not her daughter, not her granddaughter, and definitely not the friends she swapped casserole recipes and polite conversation with. But they'd never known her secret.
The secret she'd tucked away for the past four decades, folded between grocery lists, laundry, and dirty diapers.
That Eleanor Bell, if the world had let her shine, would have been wild and free—a musician with an unforgettable voice, a wild style and a long list of lovers. Someone who stayed on the stage and evolved as the music did. Maybe even now, she would've been the greatest damn rocker of all time.
Close behind the bully death was time, and time had stolen so much from her.
She spun faster, her laughter caught in her throat, feet skimming across the floor like those of a woman half her age. She let herself believe she had no cares, no doctor's words sitting heavy on her chest, no shadow creeping in to steal the edges of her mind.
But the fact lingered there anyway. Just out of reach. Soon, maybe tomorrow, maybe years from now, her memories would begin to slip like a broken record. Memories of her husband's hand in hers. Her daughter's first cry. The warm weight of her granddaughter curled beside her on Sunday mornings.
And perhaps worst of all—the flashbulb moments she'd hoarded for herself, the ones she replayed when no one was watching. Bright lights, sticky bar stages, the roar of a crowd. The nights before she'd been a mother, a wife. When she had been the Bell of Wartime Music. Sought after, cheered for.
She feared the loss of those memories, of being on the road, a young singer, a budding star. Moments she'd cherished over the last decades raising a family. Moments she'd relished in the night when no one was paying attention or when she was knee-deep in laundry or dirty diapers. Those memories had kept her alive and kept her going. Nights when the hot spotlight of the stage lights had warmed her skin.
To lose those felt like the end of the world. The door closing on a dream.
By the time Jimi crooned his final line, her chest was heaving, sweat beading at her temples. A nostalgic smile on her lips, she was breathless and a little dizzy, as though the song itself had transported her back to who she used to be. At her feet, Roxy yapped and twirled, the little Chinese crested equally giddy. Eleanor scooped up the dog, burying her face against her soft tuft and warm, hairless skin, holding on as if she could bring time to a halt.
"What's that you say, Roxy?" Eleanor asked the little dog in her arms. "You think I should return to my roots, become a star again?" She scratched behind Roxy's ear, staring into her devoted brown eyes as if that would give her the answer. Heat tunneled up her spine. "Me too."
The thought of striding onto a stage, a guitar slung across her shoulder, silver hair wild, her wrinkled and veined fingers plucking out chords as naturally as breath, made her laugh out loud. Her voice might be raspier now, might creak like old floorboards, but damn if she didn't believe it could still hold a crowd spellbound.
Join the Library's Online Book Clubs and start receiving chapters from popular books in your daily email. Every day, Monday through Friday, we'll send you a portion of a book that takes only five minutes to read. Each Monday we begin a new book and by Friday you will have the chance to read 2 or 3 chapters, enough to know if it's a book you want to finish. You can read a wide variety of books including fiction, nonfiction, romance, business, teen and mystery books. Just give us your email address and five minutes a day, and we'll give you an exciting world of reading.