Page 6 of Chasing Stardust

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.”