Page 101 of Chasing Stardust

The question still haunts me nearly half an hour later as I exit the basilica and wander toward the banks of the Mississippi and the Gateway Arch, skipping every opportunity for a selfie in solidarity.

Gazing up at the monument, framed by the clear blue sky, I trace the steel curve with my eyes until I reach the very top, hundreds of feet above my head, then follow the slope back down the other side. There’s only one person who might know why they left town so quickly—why Mom never got her picture here.

With Mom’s words flickering through my thoughts, I turn back toward the Betty, pulling out my phone and keying in my grandmother’s number as I walk. I scrape my teeth across my bottom lip while I wait for her to answer. One ring turns into two, then three. Just when I think the call will roll to voicemail, she picks up.

“Well hello, sweetheart!” G-Lo’s smile carries down the line. “Did you have any problems picking up the car?”

“No.” I unlock the door and sit sideways in the driver’s seat, facing the river. “I got it just fine.”

“Good. Good. Did you, uh . . .” She hesitates for an instant. “Work things out with—”

“No.” I stop her line of questioning before it has a chance to take hold. The irony of me digging into her past while avoiding questions about my own isn’t lost on me. “That’s not why I called. I actually have a question I’d like to ask you. About your trip with Mom.”

“Sure. Go ahead. Ask me anything.”

“I’m in St. Louis, and—”

G-Lo sighs. “I had a feeling this subject would come up eventually.”

“You just left.” I hook my finger around a loose thread on the Betty’s upholstery but stop myself before tugging it free. “No pictures. No sightseeing. Nothing.”

“We did.” She lets out another heavy breath. “I simply couldn’t bear to stay.”

I glance toward a riverboat, lazily floating down the Mississippi. “What happened here that upset you so much?”

“St. Louis held so many fond memories for me. I was excited to show your mom the place . . .” Her voice cracks, and she takes a steadying breath. “But when we got there, they’d torn it down. Finding an empty lot where the building should’ve been . . . it broke my heart.”

Anxiety gets the better of me, and I wind the long thread around my finger again and tug, snapping it off at the seam. “But why?”

The question hangs like a dark cloud between us, and for a moment I think she’ll ignore it completely and move on to another topic, the way I did when she asked about Dash.

But she doesn’t.

“Back in ’72, nobody in St. Louis knew who the hell David Bowie was. The concert promoter barely sold enough tickets to fill the front row that night.”

“So they canceled the show?” I don’t remember St. Louis being scratched off the list of tour stops, but maybe I missed something.

“Cancel?” She scoffs. “Honey, that was the best damn show on the whole tour!”

Her outburst makes me laugh. “What made it so great?”

“There couldn’t have been more than a few hundred people in the crowd, so he had us gather around the stage, right there in the orchestra pit. He bantered back and forth with us all night as if we were old friends.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “I was close enough to reach out and touch him.”

The word comes out with such reverence, my pulse jumps. “Did you? Touch him?”

She laughs like a schoolgirl. “We made eye contact as he sang ‘Soul Love’—it was the first time he’d performed it live. Hand to God, I swear he was singing it directly to me.”

The line crackles between us for a long moment, and I wonder if the call dropped. Then she clears her throat.

“Your mother was conceived that night.”

I suck in a sharp breath and sputter as saliva goes down the wrong pipe.

“You okay?” G-Lo chuckles. “I wasn’t planning on sharing the dirty details, if that’s what you were expecting.”

“No! Definitely not. You just surprised me is all.” Her confession brings up more questions than answers, but I sure as hell don’t want to know any more of the intimate details when I already feel as though I’m eavesdropping on her memories. I steer the subject back to the present. “So if you didn’t actually stop in St. Louis, where do I spread Mom’s ashes?”

“We didn’t stay in the city, but we did stop about an hour away for another little adventure. Keep reading. You’ll love it!”