Chasing Stardust: A Novel By Erica Lucke Dean - 7

Heroes

“Honey, you wanna use the phone to call someone?” Becky hands me a new roll of toilet paper as I cry in the freshly scrubbed bathroom stall.

“No.” I may be a total failure, but there’s no reason for G-Lo and Jeanie to know until I salvage the tatters of my self-esteem. “I don’t want to call my family until I talk to the mechanic.”

“I suppose that’s reasonable.” Becky shoots me a side-eye. “But you should probably call and tell someone you lost your wallet. The bank maybe?”

The paper seat cover crinkles beneath my shorts as I blow my nose, and the sound echoes in the tight space. “Why would the bank care if I lost my wallet?”

“They might if you lost a checkbook or debit—”

“My debit card!” I leap to my feet and bolt out the door as if my life depends on it. The contents of my bank account just might.

“Honey, wait!” Becky swipes at my backside. “You’ve got something stuck to your britches.”

The stupid paper seat liner flaps behind me like a cape as I scurry through the diner, too focused on Clark, scribbling on another napkin across the room, to care.

My feet hit a patch of grease, and I nearly collide with the table, lips moving before my brain catches up. I realize a moment too late that I still don’t know his real name. “C-Can you help me?”

He lifts his gaze, nothing but detached curiosity reflecting in his weird eyes. “What do you need?”

“To call my bank. I-I don’t know the number, so I’ll need to search it up online and, um . . .”

Eyes still locked on mine, Clark reaches around me, snatches the paper cape from my butt, and crumples it into a ball before chucking it into the corner of his seat. Under any other circumstances, I’d be mortified. But today, I’m on a mission.

“My phone died, and no one in this godforsaken diner has an iPhone charger, so I hoped maybe . . .” I dial my smile to eleven.

He lifts his brows. “ Maybe . . . ? ”

“You’d let me use yours?”

“Yeah. Sure.” He pulls a sleek silver rectangle from his back pocket and hands it to me.

“Thanks.” I flip the device over. Other than the tiny camera lens, it’s the same on both sides. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“You—” He blows out a breath and holds out his hand, palm up. “Give it to me.” He snatches the thing from my fingers and opens it like a clam. After clicking a few keys, he presents what looks like a miniature web browser. “I assume you can handle things from here?”

“Uh . . .” I stare at the tiny screen. Mom had something like this when I was about six. When she got her first iPhone, she gave the old device to Jeanie to play with. I may have snapped it in two trying to wrestle it out of her hands. “Can’t you just ask Siri to call my bank?”

“No.” He laughs. “I can’t ask Siri to do anything.” The laugh dissolves into a groan. “What bank do you use?”

Several phone calls later, after divulging everything but my height, weight, and blood type to my bank, the Cleveland police department, and practically everyone within earshot in the diner, including the hot guy sitting across from me, I settle into my booth with Mom’s diary to watch the sun come up. Until I know how much damage the armadillo caused the Betty, there’s nothing else I can do.

“I don’t mean to pry, and I promise I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I heard you talking to the police . . .”

Clark’s statement catches me off guard—as does the sympathy radiating from his eyes.

“Oh.” So he knows the full extent of my idiocy. Great.

He glances at the silver urn sticking out of my tote and exhales a breath that smells like syrup. “When did she die?”

“It’s been . . .” I glance at the clock above the door and do a quick calculation in my head. “One week, four days, and almost eleven hours.”

He opens his mouth but closes it just as quickly.

“Cancer.” I answer his unspoken question as a lump grows in my throat. “She, uh, fought for as long as she could—chemo, radiation, even tried some experimental thing in New Mexico that sucked nearly her entire life savings dry because her insurance wouldn’t cover it—but it caught up to her in the end. Almost two weeks ago, she closed her eyes and never opened them again.” A tear slips down my cheek, settling into the seam of my lips, and I lick it away with my tongue.

Clark clears his throat. “I’m sorry. That’s rough. What about your—”

“My turn,” I interrupt. “What brings you to this greasy diner in the middle of the night? Waiting for someone? Hiding from the law? Or . . .” I narrow my eyes, studying him in the harsh fluorescent lights. “Scoping out your next victim?”

He leans in, his expression devoid of emotion. “I wouldn’t be a very good serial killer if I divulged all my secrets, now would I?”

I flinch, and he lets out a whoop of laughter.

“None of the above.” He drops his gaze to his book again, a secret smile on his lips.

“Oh, no . . .” I reach across the table and snatch the tattered thing out from under his nose, slamming it onto the stained Formica with a huff. “You do not get to do that. You know all about my failed road trip, from my mom’s ashes and my stolen wallet to my armadillo grill ornament, and I don’t even know your name!”

Lips twitching, he slides the book back to his side of the table, tucks his latest napkin doodles between the pages to mark his spot, then closes it again. “Dash Hammond. Dashiell, actually, but no one calls me that unless I’m in deep shit. I’m sort of on a road trip of my own, trying to decide between two very different versions of my future, and BB’s seemed like as good a place as any to kill time while my car charges. Trust me, you don’t want your battery to run out in the middle of nowhere.”

With a fleeting glance toward my deceased iPhone, I nod. “Are there even car charging stations in Hicksville?”

“Not for a quick charge. But if you’re patient and”—he peers over his shoulders, then lowers his voice—“ resourceful , you can charge anywhere with an outlet.”

“So here you are, patiently people-watching for the next however many hours?”

He checks his watch. “It probably has enough juice to get me the rest of the way to Memphis. I can get a rapid charge there, but . . .” He shrugs. “I’m not in a hurry.”

“And you’re not tired?” The instant I get the words out, I realize how exhausted I am. A yawn catches me off guard, and I laugh.

He holds up his coffee cup as if staying out all night is normal. And maybe it is . . . for nerdy superheroes on cross-country road trips.

“I’d give just about anything for a warm bed and a hot shower.” I catch myself gawking at his eyes again and quickly look away.

Dash throws another glance over his shoulder, this time toward the parking lot, where the first streaks of morning light color the sky. “What are you going to do if they can’t fix your car?”

“I don’t know what I’ll do if they can . As soon as I charge my phone, I guess I can use Apple Pay in place of a credit card, but . . .”

“But you canceled all your cards, didn’t you?” Dash rests his elbows on the table as if he didn’t just light my last shred of hope on fire.

“Damn it.” I let out a breath, strangling the napkin in my hands. “I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to call my boyfriend to rescue me. He’d get far too much satisfaction from that. I’d sooner become vulture bait than ask him for help. My sister can’t drive with a broken leg, and my grandma can’t drive Jeanie’s car because it’s a stick shift. Maybe I should count my losses. Go home. Nobody expected me to get this far, so they won’t be shocked to see me crawling back with my tail between my legs.”

Dash slides his glasses down his nose and stares at me over the top. “Cop out much?”

“Are you kidding me? I snorted ashes in Cleveland. Had my wallet stolen. Got lost. Twice!” With each item I list, I stick up a finger. “Damn near died in a rainstorm, thanks to my grandma’s beat-up Cutlass, and crashed into a freaking ninja armadillo! I don’t normally believe in signs, but trust me, I got the message.”

“Hold up.” Dash laughs. “You snorted ashes? Like on a dare?”

“Not on purpose. It’s a long story.” Defeated, I sink into the booth.

Shaking his head, he settles back against his bench. “Long or short, quitting still sounds like a cop-out to me.”

“Listen, Mr.”—I glance at his well-worn copy of On the Road —“I-read-Jack-Kerouac-for-fun, you and your hipster friends might not think twice about wandering the country like nomads, but going on a cross-country quest to spread Mom’s ashes wasn’t my idea.”

“Did you just call me a hipster?”

I cross my arms and cock an eyebrow. “If the glasses fit.”

“I prefer beatnik.”

“Whatever, same difference.”

“No.” He chuckles. “Not even a little.”

Groaning, I drag my gaze away from his spectacular face and eye the busboy as he clears tables. “If you say so.”

“Come on, I’m curious.” He leans forward again, folding his arms on the table. “I get that your trip is about spreading your mom’s ashes, but what I don’t get is why Cleveland? And why Memphis? I’m guessing that’s your next stop.”

I nod.

“And what’s after Memphis?”

“New York. I think.” I grab the diary from my tote and flip to the next entry after Memphis. “Yep, New York. And after that, Boston. Then . . . I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“That’s an impressive trip. Kinda random, though.”

“Not random at all. I’m basically taking the exact trip my mom took in ’92. She and my grandma spent two weeks retracing the steps of the ’72 Ziggy tour. She wrote everything down in her diary, and I’m supposed to be re-creating the pictures—”

“Wait. Go back.” His eyes light up. “Are you talking about David Bowie’s 1972 Ziggy Stardust tour?”

I realize too late that I offered more information than I intended. The last thing I want is to air my family’s dirty laundry to a stranger.

He locks his gaze on me, giving me his full attention. “Why did your mom and grandma go back and visit all the old Bowie tour stops?”

I shrug and flip through the pages of Mom’s diary, avoiding eye contact. “Just because.”

“No way.” He shakes his head. “No one embarks on a cross-country road trip, visiting the stops of a twenty-year-old concert tour, ‘just because.’”

“Fine.” I lower my voice. “Grandma Lola was a rock groupie in the seventies.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Are we talking Penny Lane from Almost Famous ?”

I snort. “I don’t know about then , but now she’s more like one of The Banger Sisters .”

He waves his hand like he’s tugging the truth out of me at the end of a rope. “Keep going.”

I give the diner a quick scan, then lean in and whisper, “According to her, my mom was conceived during that particular tour.”

“Was your grandfather someone famous?” Dash brings his head closer, lowering his voice so we’re both speaking in hushed tones.

My cheeks burn. I know a lot of girls who would jump at the chance to tell the world they had even the shakiest connection to a rock legend, but I have zero interest in that kind of attention. I haven’t even told Damian about the whole Bowie thing. I’m not about to tell Dash.

“Well?”

“You’ll laugh.” With a nervous chuckle, I move to lean back but he grabs my wrist, holding me hostage in the center of the table. My first instinct is to snatch back my hand, but his palm is so warm, I don’t.

“Come on, Zoey,” he whispers. “You can’t leave me hanging here. I’m invested in the story now.”

The soft rumble of his voice turns my guts to mush, and my throat threatens to close. I swallow hard. “It’s not like I believe her, anyway. She smokes a lot of pot.”

Dash laughs, then releases my hand and settles against the bench again. “I don’t know what your secret is, but if it has you this twisted up, it must be good.”

“It’s really not.” I collect the shredded remains of my napkin, twisting the pieces into corkscrews. “My mom was pretty high on pain meds when she asked us to spread her ashes across the country, but a promise is a promise.” And the truth definitely won’t set me free.