In Those Dazzling Days of Elvis

by Josephine Rascoe Keenan

  We’d been assigned to work as a team selling ads for the high school yearbook, and Mrs. Snyder, the journalism teacher, had given us permission to go to town during sixth period and try to persuade some of the local businesses to buy an ad.

  El Dorado had bustled with shoppers on this first day of spring.

  “Folks must be buying their Easter dresses already,” Maylene had commented as she circled the square looking for a parking space. “Which is surprising, since it’s still a month away.” She turned a conspiratorial face to me. “I know what let’s do.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t be so enthusiastic, Julie.”

  “How can I be enthusiastic when you haven’t said yet what you want to do?”

  I watched her silently count to ten. “Now,” she said, exhaling, “I’ve made a vow not to be impatient with you anymore, no matter how rude you are to me.”

  I looked heavenward. “Just tell me your idea.”

  “Let’s look for our own Easter dresses.”

  “Let’s not.”

  “Jeez, Julie, you are so disagreeable these days. Oh, there’s a space. Right in front of that new store, Earl Allen’s. I’ve never been in there. Have you? I hear they have nifty threads for the teen set.”

  We had peered in the window of the new clothing store, and instantly I saw she was right. Bright skirts and tops in the latest fashions clung to sleek mannequins. Inside, the racks against the walls vibrated with color. A small section of high-styled shoes was on display. A guy who looked to be in his thirties moved swiftly from the back of the store to greet us.

  “Welcome to Earl Allen’s, young ladies. I’m Earl, the owner, and I have some perfect little numbers for both of you.” He looked at me. “What are you? Size six?”

  “I hope so.”

  His eyes switched to Maylene. “You can’t be an inch over an eight.”

  Maylene bristled. “She and I are the same, size six.”

  “We’re not here to buy clothes,” I said, putting my splinted hand on Maylene’s arm. “Would you buy an ad in the high school yearbook?”

  “But first, we have to try on some of the clothes,” Maylene cut in, edging away from me. “I can tell already they’re just precious.”

  Earl’s smile had lit up the store. “Sure, I’ll buy an ad, but first, to the dressing rooms. Sorry, I only have one vacant right now, but it’s a big one. Do you mind sharing?”

  “Not a bit,” Maylene said, pulling me along behind him to the back of the store.

  She closed the curtains to the dressing room, and I watched in disbelief as she worked at unbuttoning her dress. She scowled at me.

  “Don’t be a party pooper.”

  We could hear Earl snatching garments from the racks.

  “I can’t afford to buy anything,” I said to Maylene.

  “We sell on credit,” Earl called from outside the curtain. “Have a look at these.”

  Maylene stuck her arms through the closure in the curtains and gathered a pile of the cutest clothes I’d ever seen. Earl laughed at our coos of delight. In spite of my resolve, I couldn’t help grabbing up a navy sundress in a soft cotton fabric with a pattern of little yellow stars. With it came a flowing, see-through coat of thin cotton in the same color and pattern.

  “That’s fantastic!” Maylene said, turning covetous eyes on the outfit. “If you don’t buy it, I will. Try it on. I’ll help. It’ll take you all day to get it on by yourself with that broken finger.”

  The last vestige of my willpower evaporated, and in a jiffy I was stepping into the gorgeous dress.

  “Take your slip off,” she ordered. “That dress doesn’t need one, and it’ll only clump up underneath if you keep it on.”

  Mesmerized with excitement and forgetting everything except the fabulous outfit, I had wriggled out of the slip and had the dress above my head when her voice stopped me.

  “You’re gaining weight, girl.”

  The dress slipped from my good hand. She stood, staring at my waistline. Nothing was there, like an obvious bulge, to betray my condition, but my waist was definitely bigger. Most people would think I had simply put on a pound or two. I had sucked in and tried to twist away from her sharp eyes, but a mirror on both walls glared with my reflection.

  In a split second, I knew I had to play it down.

  “Too much cornbread and black-eyed peas.”

  “Step in it. I’ll zip you, if it’s not too tight, that is,” she said, picking up the dress from where it lay in a soft heap on the floor.

  Even with an extra inch around my waist, the dress fit, and I looked fabulous in it. Turning sideways and back, I preened in the dressing room mirror.

  “Put on the coat,” Maylene said, holding it so I could easily slip my splinted hand through the gossamer sleeve.

  “Step out here and let me see,” Earl said.

  In the big three-way mirror, the outfit had lifted me out of teenage cuteness and into young adult glamour, despite my heavy saddle oxfords.

  “Get those things off,” Earl ordered, thrusting a pair of navy silk heels into my good hand. “Sit down. I’ll get you into them.”

  Back in front of the mirror in the latest-style, pointed-toe heels, my first thought was of Farrel. What would he think if he saw me looking like this?

  Maylene must have read my mind, for she called from the dressing room, “Farrel’ll go ape when he sees you in that!”

  I wanted to yank her “crown of glory” ponytail out by the roots.

  “It’s a miracle,” she said, coming out of the dressing room in a pink number made of the same soft cotton. “We can throw away those scratchy screen wire petticoats.”

  I had to admit, she looked great.

  “You should buy that.”

  “I fully intend to. And I’m buying yours, if you don’t.”

  Not in ten lifetimes would I let that happen. Hesitantly, I turned to Earl.

  “If my mother pitches a fit . . .”

  “You can bring it back. Go ahead, try on some others. I’ll go fill out the paperwork for the yearbook ad.” We heard him murmuring to himself as he walked away, “I can tell already, the move from Little Rock here to Arkansas’s oil town is going to put me in fat city.”

  I had bought the dress. Maylene bought the pink one for Easter. I couldn’t imagine where I’d ever wear mine. It was way too mature-looking for our teenage scene. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to get into it again, after the baby.

  “Better skip dinner tonight,” Maylene called when she and the rest of the carpool dropped me off after school.

  —||—

  That night at the table doing my homework I still hadn’t told Mama about the dress. She had been at work when I got home, so I’d quickly hung it in the closet underneath my raincoat. I didn’t have many wants anymore, except to wake up some morning and be like I used to be before Farrel—innocent again and this pregnancy just a terrible nightmare. Now, with the dress, I had just one more small desire—a crazy one, in light of the wish to be innocent, but nonetheless—I wanted Farrel to see me in it.

  At the sink, Mama dripped water over her cigarette butt to put it out and turned.

  “Julie, what are we going to do?”

  “I’ll think some more about it and tell you tomorrow. Right now there’s something else I have to tell you.”

  “Lay it on me. After what you’ve plunked down on our doorstep already, I can take anything,” she said with false bravado as I headed for my closet.

  I returned to the breakfast room and held up the new dress. Her eyes grew misty.

  “Oh, my poor darling.” She looked it over from where she stood at the sink, then moved toward me, her arms extended. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Thanks, Mama, for not murdering me. I can take it back. The salesman said so. I couldn’t resist having it, even for just one day.”

  “You won’t take it back. I won’t let you. I’ll pay it out.”

&
nbsp; “He said you could.”

  “And we’ll keep it here, for when you come home. We’ll make sure you get your figure back, and someday, you’ll wear this. Go try it on for me.”

  I dabbed at her cheek with my napkin, still folded on the table from dinner, but her tears did not stop, even when I reappeared in the beautiful dress.

  —||—

  The next night I opened the door to what I knew was Carmen’s knock and invited her in. I thought Mama would say “What’s this all about?” but she didn’t. She politely offered Carmen a seat—in the den.

  This time I was the one who made the announcement, having finally decided to force the issue.

  “This is my life, Mama, and I think Claudia and Carmen are right. Unless I stay here and keep the baby, Carmen and I have to change places. It’s a way out, and it’s our tough luck that there is no other way.”

  “But what if people see through it?” Mama asked in an anxious voice.

  “We’ll just have to make sure they don’t,” Carmen said. “Ain’t it gonna be fun to try?”

  Mama shook her head. “Yes, ain’t it?”

  Chapter 10

  TRYING TO GET TO YOU

  I packed only a few loose-fitting garments. Everything else had to be left in my closet for Carmen to wear.

  We’d fine-tuned the “switch” down to the last instant. Ironically, Claudia was taking a plane to New York, then on to London, the same day Mama and I were leaving: Saturday, March 30, just as I was going into my seventeenth week. The plan was for Carmen to stay with our father until Sunday evening, when Mama got back home from depositing me. Mama wouldn’t allow her to stay alone in the house.

  Carmen, Claudia, Mama, and I met one last time to go over all possible details to keep our deception a secret.

  “Just don’t flub the dub and say something to Scott or your grandparents that Julie wouldn’t say,” Claudia admonished Carmen.

  “He was so happy, he went ape when I told him I was coming over and would spend the night,” Carmen said. “Thinking I was Julie, don’t you see, you know. I don’t like the idea of fooling him. Why can’t I just be me until I move in here?”

  “Use your horse sense,” Claudia said, tweaking Carmen’s nose. “I’ll be gone. Then how would you explain that you hadn’t gone with me? Besides, you’re going to have to fool a whole lot of people. This will be good practice.”

  Carmen deflated. “At least trying to fool them. I’d feel better about this whole deal if I had a few days practice with Julie here to keep me on the right track. Why don’t I go ahead and move in here now? That way I’ll have a chance to watch her doing stuff, like putting on makeup, and listening to how she talks. You know, study her up close. And I’ll be here to pack some of her clothes to take with me for the two days I’m at Dad’s.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “She has to wear my clothes at our father’s house. We didn’t think of that.”

  “He hasn’t seen either one of you often enough to recognize your clothes,” Mama said.

  Carmen glared at her. “You just don’t want me here any sooner than I have to be.”

  Mama slapped her thigh. “Bingo!”

  I stepped in. “Mama, she’s doing us a huge favor. Don’t treat her like that.”

  Mama shook her head. “I don’t know. This whole business stinks to high heaven. I feel in my bones that something is not right.”

  “Because something isn’t right,” Claudia said. “It’s a total lie, but I have no doubt you’ll warm up to it quicker than you can sling a bull by the tail when you consider the alternative. That’ll make it smell a helluva lot better—to high heaven.”

  Those two will always despise each other, I thought. And I understood why as Maylene flitted through my mind.

  “What if someone comes to visit while both girls are here?” Mama mused, more to herself than to the rest of us.

  “We’ll just say she’s spending the night with me,” I said. “After all, she is my sister.” I punctuated that with a squeal of delight. “I’m going to have a real sister for the first time in my life!”

  Carmen and I grabbed hands and jumped up and down, screaming and laughing like girls without a care in the world.

  “Don’t do that! You’ll jar the baby and bring on a miscarriage,” Mama said.

  I winked at her. “That would solve all our problems.”

  Mama gave me a dark look.

  “Not by a long shot,” Claudia said. “Word that you’d been treated at the hospital for losing a baby would go through town quick as that wink you just gave your mother.”

  “The secret of Frances’s abortion seems to have been kept pretty tight,” I said to Claudia. “The carpool girls are suspicious about why no one else has caught the flu, but they haven’t suggested any other possible reason for her death.”

  “It gives a body hope this secret’ll keep as easy,” Claudia said.

  “The carpool!” Carmen shrieked. “I forgot about your carpool. I’ve got to stay here a few days earlier so Julie can fill me in on stuff like that. I don’t even know where all those girls live. How am I going to pick them up? This is like a spy movie. I need some training, like I’d get from the CIA, before I parade around in another person’s skin. And that reminds me of something else. You’re going to have to leave your driver’s license with me, Julie.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can drive, silly. What if, when I’m driving the carpool some day, I get stopped by a cop and have to show him my license because I don’t have one with your name on it. That would be all she wrote. The jig would be up. Everybody in town would know I’m playing you, and it’s only a baby step from there to the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say.”

  “What if I have to drive while I’m out in Texas?” I asked.

  “You can take my license.”

  I shook my head. “But I won’t be pretending to be you.”

  “Okay, I’ll keep them both.”

  The license business did the trick. Carmen was allowed to move in three days before Mama and I were to leave. She shared my room, of course, and for the most part we delighted in the novelty of having each other around. Talking and giggling until late in the night and sharing secrets was like being real sisters.

  She fit easily into my clothes and shoes and said they were classy. This came as a surprise to me from one whose own choice in clothes made her look cheap and loose. She especially liked the new dress I’d just bought at Earl Allen’s.

  That night before we fell asleep she said, “I want to wear the new blue one with the see-through coat to the junior class party.”

  “You can’t wear that one. Even though Maylene was with me when I bought it, it’s special to me. I’ve never worn it, and Mama and I are saving it for when I . . .” A knot swelled in my throat.

  “Don’t start,” Carmen said. “I won’t wear it, if you don’t want me to, but won’t it arouse Maylene’s suspicions if you don’t wear it to the party? Hey, girl, it’s nothing to squall about.” She patted my hand.

  “I don’t want to go away. Why can’t I just stay here and have my baby?”

  “You can, if you’ve got the guts,” Carmen said, rolling over and reaching for the pack of cigarettes on her night table.

  “You can’t smoke in bed. Mama will kill you.”

  She jumped onto the floor, flipped her lighter, lit up, and took a long drag.

  “Gee whillikers, that tastes good. Oh pooh! I’m going to have to quit. You don’t smoke. This is my last one.”

  —||—

  The next night, late, as we lay talking in the darkened room, I brought up something that had been worrying me.

  “Carmen.”

  “Huh?” she said in a sleepy voice.

  “What will you do if Farrel calls?”

  “What?”

  “If Farrel calls you . . . uh . . . me and wants to go out?”

  “I don’t know. Go out with him, I guess.”

  I sat stra
ight up in bed. “Carmen, you can’t! After what he did to me, I don’t ever want to see him again.”

  “As I recall, he didn’t do anything to you that you didn’t invite. And besides, it won’t be you seeing him. It’ll be me.”

  “But he’ll think it’s me. No, Carmen, you can’t. Promise me you won’t.”

  “I don’t understand why.”

  “He’s mine, that’s why!”

  “I thought you never wanted to see him again.”

  “I don’t, but if you go out with him, he’ll think you are me, and that he can just walk all over me and I’ll let him come running back.”

  “He’s asked twice if you’re preggy-poo-pie. That don’t sound like treating you bad to me.”

  “Doesn’t,” I said.

  She looked perplexed. “What?”

  “You’re here early to polish up your grammar. Do it, or you’ll never pass for me.”

  “Okay, okay. It’s not that I don’t know better. It’s just that talking like you and the rest of your in-crowd sounds so put-on, so hoity-toity.”

  She went to my desk chair and sat, smoking and looking out into the night.

  “It might be better if I did go out with him.”

  I pulled my hair with both hands. “Jeez Louise! How could it be better?”

  “It would definitely prove to him you hadn’t gotten pregnant.”

  “Thinking it’s me when he sees you around town will do the same thing.”

  “Look, Julie,” she said, “there’s a ton of things I’m gonna have to deal with, most of which will come as a huge surprise, no matter how much we try to plan ahead. You’re going to have to trust me a little. I’ll do the best I can, but sometimes I won’t know until the situation crops up exactly what I need to do to keep your deep, dark secret from getting out. I’m doing you a favor, you know.”

  “Actually, Carmen, I’m doing you a favor too. Otherwise, you wouldn’t get to stay here in town and go to school. Which brings up another issue. I’ll be back right after the baby is born. Where will you go then, and how will we explain it when both of us are here in town and your mother is gone?”