by Ginger Alden
He shook his head. “It’s much better to think at night, when the air is still and others are sleeping,” he said. “Most writers and geniuses work best at night.”
I didn’t know any writers or geniuses, but this certainly seemed to be true for the man I was starting to have strong feelings for, so I continued to read with him.
As dawn approached, an aide brought in a yellow packet and placed it on the night table. These packets were routine, I realized, delivered in the same casual manner as the jug of water at Elvis’s bedside. He placed a cotton ball inside each ear again, took the packet of medication, and went to sleep.
I fell asleep beside him. A few hours later, I felt movement. Elvis was awake. “Who’s on duty?” he asked. “Can you call whoever it is for me?”
I could tell by his voice and the way he was moving that Elvis was still groggy from whatever sleep medication he’d taken. I quickly looked at his employee contact list sheet and called the room number of the person on duty.
An aide entered, assisted Elvis to the bathroom and back as he was a little unstable on his feet, then left. This was unsettling for me to witness, yet the aide had treated it as completely normal.
Elvis went back to sleep almost immediately, but I lay awake, wondering how long he’d been taking this medication and why he needed it. Because it was delivered in little yellow packets, I had no idea what he was taking, but it seemed quite strong.
I thought, too, about Elvis’s padded bedroom doors and covered windows at Graceland. I felt a sharp pang of sympathy for him. Elvis seemed to have everything, except the ability to do what most of us take for granted: just close his eyes and peacefully fall asleep.
• • •
Elvis wanted me by his side nearly every minute. I was his primary focus, and he was mine. Still, I often felt like I’d been transported to a foreign country where I had yet to understand the language or customs.
Getting to know the average person is one thing, but trying to understand Elvis, his job, and the many different people who surrounded and supported him was a steep learning curve. The best analogy I can come up with is that Elvis at work was like a champion athlete competing in an event each day, with trainers, doctors, and staff keeping him in performance-ready shape.
I would often feel tired from not getting a full “night” of sleep, but gradually I was starting to adjust to his schedule and to being surrounded by other people. Most of the people working for Elvis were friendly to me, but a little distant. They were doing their jobs rather than just visiting.
It was now Friday, December 3, and I discovered that Elvis would have two shows on weekends: one at 9 P.M. and the other at 1 A.M. It said something about his stamina, I thought, that he had the energy to do both.
We woke around four in the afternoon, as usual, and ate in the living room while members of his entourage visited off and on. A little while later, Elvis was in his bathroom and I was sitting on the bed when the phone on the night table rang. I waited to see if anyone might answer it from an outer room, but the ringing continued.
Finally, I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Is Elvis there?” a woman asked.
“Yes, but he’s busy right now,” I said.
The woman then inquired, “Is this Ginger?”
“Yes,” I replied, my curiosity aroused. “Who is this?”
“This is Linda Thompson. Do you mind if I wait?”
I was shocked. Linda Thompson? Why was she calling him now? And how did she know my name?
“No, it’s fine,” I said, and put down the receiver.
Dr. Ghanem walked into the room just then, and I told him Linda was on the phone. He went to the bathroom door, knocked on it, and stepped inside.
Elvis emerged from his bathroom, looking none too pleased. Feeling ill at ease, I left the bedroom to give him some privacy and walked into the now-empty living room, my thoughts whirling. I began to wonder if Elvis had seen Linda recently. I hoped not; I didn’t want to be in the middle of anything.
Dr. Ghanem walked out and Elvis called my name from the bedroom. When I entered, he looked bothered and said, “Sorry about that call,” then asked me to sit beside him on the bed. “Linda and me . . . that relationship’s been over, you understand? We’re friends,” he said.
In recent years, I’d seen some magazines with photos of Elvis with various women and accompanying stories that he was dating them, so I thought he was being honest and hadn’t gone out with Linda in a while. If he had, maybe it was just as friends. Still, I couldn’t help but remember Linda’s pictures in his bedroom at Graceland.
“Okay,” I said, but my guard was up.
Elvis must have read the closed expression on my face. “You know, my bodyguard, Sam, is Linda’s brother,” he said. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable with that, okay?”
I hadn’t known. But that explained how Linda knew my name. Outwardly I agreed, but I knew this would be awkward, not only for me but for Sam. Accepting the situation would be more easily said than done.
• • •
Showtime was nearly here. The bedroom was abuzz with members of Elvis’s staff helping him prepare. Once he was dressed, he saw me watching him use eyedrops. “They help keep the glare down from the stage lights,” he explained.
I sat with Vernon and Sandy to watch his first show, unable to fully enjoy myself because I was still feeling emotionally unsettled by Linda’s call. When Elvis sang a song called “Trying to Get to You,” I focused on the lyrics, one line in particular: “There were many miles between us, But it didn’t mean a thing.” In a way, I thought, that song related to the two of us, with the miles being our age difference of nearly twenty-two years. We were trying to get to know each other, Elvis and I, and our age difference “didn’t mean a thing.” I relaxed and listened to him sing this song, which quickly became one of my favorites.
Between the hot stage lights and his jumpsuit, Elvis perspired a lot when performing. During this show, the sweat constantly dripping from his brow irritated his eyes. Afterward, he quickly visited with a few people backstage and then hurried to our suite, where he lay on the bed.
“Will you help me, Ginger?” he asked. He wanted me to dampen a washcloth so he could place it over his eyes.
I did so, sitting beside him and gently laying the washcloth across his brow. I was happy to feel needed and useful even in this small way. From then on, after some performances, we had a ritual of me sitting on the bed and putting a warm, wet washcloth over his eyes to give him comfort.
Elvis rested for a while, then ate something before returning downstairs for the second show.
When Elvis’s performance ended, I was escorted backstage, but instead of going to his dressing room, Elvis asked me to follow him. I did—my curiosity on fire—along with a few people from his entourage.
We followed Elvis out of one of the hotel’s back doors. There, gleaming beneath nearby lights, was a brand-new white Lincoln Continental Mark V with white leather seats and a burgundy dashboard. Elvis walked toward the car and everyone gathered around it.
I was still confused about why this car was here or what we were doing. Then Elvis looked at me and nonchalantly said, “It’s yours, Ginger.”
To say I was overwhelmed doesn’t even begin to describe the enormity of my emotional reaction. I had never even owned a car before, and now I had a Lincoln Mark V?
I hugged Elvis hard, my heart brimming with gratitude as I suddenly realized that our conversation the night before had absolutely nothing to do with him wanting to buy a car for himself.
“There weren’t any white Lincoln Continentals in Las Vegas,” Elvis told me proudly, “so we located one in California and had it driven to us.”
Stunned, speechless, awed: There weren’t enough words in the world to tell Elvis how I felt. All I could say was, “Thank you.”<
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I was excited to test-drive my new car, but Elvis turned to go back inside. I didn’t know Las Vegas, understood he must be tired, and was okay with following him back up to the penthouse. I was still reeling with excitement.
Once we were back in the suite and seated in bed, Elvis asked me, “Have you ever been married before?”
“No,” I said, a little surprised by his question.
“Were you seeing anyone before we met?” he pressed.
I answered, “Yes,” momentarily thinking about Linda’s phone call. I wondered if that was what had prompted this conversation.
Elvis thought about this for a few moments, then said, “Well, I would like it if you wouldn’t see anyone else.”
He was seriously asking for a commitment!
“I won’t,” I said, certain that Elvis meant he wouldn’t see anyone else, either.
It felt good knowing that we were now taking this to a different level.
Elvis surprised me again by picking up the phone receiver and handing it to me. “I want you to call whoever you’ve been seeing and end your relationship with him.”
I knew the object of my affection now was Elvis, but this put me in an awkward position. Although I had spoken to Larry about Elvis, he had still held out hope that we’d get back together, and I knew finalizing our breakup over the phone would hurt him. This would be insensitive and I didn’t want to hurt someone who had been nothing but nice to me. I owed it to Larry to do this in person.
“Elvis, I can’t do that right now,” I said.
I started to explain this when suddenly, Elvis’s mood changed. For the first time, I saw that he had a hair-trigger temper as Elvis picked up a full bottle of Gatorade from his night table and stormed out of his bedroom and into the middle of the suite.
I followed him, completely stunned, into his road manager’s room. In front of Joe and his girlfriend, Elvis took the Gatorade container and threw it against the wall. Its contents splashed all over.
Shocked and embarrassed, I again tried to explain my feelings. None of this made any sense! I had never meant to anger him.
Joe and his girlfriend didn’t have a clue about what was going on. I wasn’t sure, either.
I realized for the first time, that if Elvis and I continued our relationship, it would most likely be played out in front of his entourage and, at times, in the public eye. I was also going to have to come to terms with the fact that others might speculate about me, and about my relationship with Elvis, without fully understanding what was going on with us in private. Could I live with that?
I had to, if I wanted to be with Elvis.
Joe said a few words to Elvis and, between the two of us, we managed to calm Elvis down after a few minutes. I followed Elvis back into the master bedroom, where he shut the door and remained silent as he got into bed. I tentatively sat down beside him, wondering why he’d gotten so angry. Had this been a big misunderstanding? Had he misinterpreted me saying, “I can’t do this right now,” to mean I wasn’t going to commit to him? Was it simply because I hadn’t done what he wanted when he asked?
It troubled me that Elvis had flown off the handle like that and I was still reeling a little with embarrassment. As odd as this sounds, it also made me feel good to think that Elvis was really that serious about us. But how could I be sure?
What Elvis did next made me believe he felt as deeply about me as I did about him. Without saying a word, Elvis suddenly leaned in and kissed me on the mouth, but not a light kiss like before. Then he slowly began removing my bathrobe.
I felt chills as he touched me. Was this it? Were we finally going to make love? I was aroused but anxious, barely able to breathe.
I had been afraid of letting go of my feelings, terrified of being hurt by sleeping with Elvis and then have him move on to someone else, but at this moment, I wanted to make love with him. I stayed completely still, letting Elvis open my robe and begin touching me.
“I don’t believe people should be completely undressed until they’re married,” Elvis said softly, kissing me again.
Then, still partially dressed in our sleepwear, Elvis and I made love for the first time. This crazy tension and our heightened emotions made our intimacy all the more intense. Elvis’s lips were soft and his kisses were filled with passion. He was gentle, yet I felt his determination to prove that he should be the only man in my life.
He succeeded. I was experiencing emotions and physical sensations that were completely out of control, and, in keeping with Elvis’s TCB motto, it was all happening lightning fast.
There was no doubt about it. I was falling in love with Elvis.
CHAPTER 8
Making love with Elvis helped forge an even deeper emotional bond between us. I felt like I was completely his, in every way possible. I no longer had any control over my feelings for him. In our brief time together, Elvis had already turned my sleeping and eating patterns upside down, and almost everything else in my life as well. Now things were rapidly moving beyond any normal frame of reference for me, and all my intuitive guideposts were falling by the wayside. The new normal for me was that there was no normal.
The very next afternoon, Elvis and I eagerly awaited his daughter’s arrival. Now eight years old, Lisa had been living in Los Angeles with her mother since her parents divorced in 1973. Having the two of us meet, I felt, was one more way for Elvis to bring me into his life.
I was sitting beside Elvis on the sofa in the living room when the door to the suite opened and a petite blond-haired girl came in, followed by a nanny. Lisa’s resemblance to Elvis was uncanny.
Elvis and I stood up as Lisa ran toward him and they hugged. He introduced me to her and we sat back down. Lisa was seated between us, but she remained completely focused on her dad. It was clear that she adored him. At one point, Lisa accidentally rested her hand on my knee and glanced my way, but was quick to turn her attention back to her father.
I enjoyed watching Elvis with her. His face really lit up around Lisa, and I sensed he was a caring, proud dad. At one point, Elvis looked at me over Lisa’s head and said, “When Lisa was born, I heard my mother’s voice say, ‘She’s beautiful, son.’”
I loved children as well and had been an aunt since I was ten years old, so I was happy to have Lisa with us.
When it was time for Elvis to prepare for his first show, Lisa and her nanny went off to her room and I left for my bathroom to get ready. In the middle of applying my makeup, I looked in the mirror and was startled to see Lisa’s reflection. She had been standing behind me and silently watching.
“Hi,” I said, and turned around to smile at her.
“Hi,” Lisa said, then sat down and began trying on some of my shoes.
I didn’t mind. I was glad that she seemed to be so comfortable with me. Then she surprised me again.
“I thought you were Linda,” Lisa said, glancing up at me.
It was an innocent remark on her part, yet I was suddenly aware that Lisa may have gotten close to some of Elvis’s former girlfriends. I was a new face in Lisa’s life, and we both needed time to get used to each other.
“Well, I’m not Linda,” I said gently, and went back to the business of putting on my makeup, chatting with her a bit as she continued playing.
• • •
I may not have gotten a tour of glittering Las Vegas yet, but that didn’t stop Elvis from bringing more sparkle to me. Disregarding what I’d told him about not really being a jewelry person, he surprised me with a beautiful diamond and emerald necklace before his next show. That was followed shortly by the gift of another diamond necklace and a diamond watch. When I told him, “This is really too much,” he shook his head.
“People love to see beautiful things when they wake up,” he said.
I felt this was an insight into Elvis’s thinking. He saw himself as someone who was in a
position to enhance other people’s lives by bringing beauty into it, because he thought that would make them happy. He was not only a generous man but he had a fundamentally generous and kind spirit; he wanted to make life better for those he touched in all ways that he could both through music and in his everyday life. He was a giver in the most decent way, not a taker, and this was one of the things that drew me to him.
Elvis wanted me to wear all of my jewelry at the same time for his shows. Although I did feel regal, I also felt overdressed. I wasn’t used to this. I reminded myself that I was with Elvis, and needed to dress in a way that complemented his style.
In the showroom, Lisa sat with Vernon, Sandy, and me. Elvis came onstage dressed in a beautiful Inca Gold Leaf jumpsuit, and I wondered what was going through Lisa’s young mind as she listened to her father sing. She must be so proud, I thought.
Fans yelled out various requests during that show, as they so often did, and Elvis did his best to give them what they wanted.
Elvis’s audience may have begun to age, but they wanted him to remain timeless and perform the moves that had made them fall in love with him. As a showman, he was a perfectionist with a keen ear. Any time he heard the smallest thing that didn’t sound quite right—feedback from a microphone, a strange noise, an off note—Elvis would stop, apologize to his audience, and usually start over.
That night, Elvis introduced Lisa and his dad to the audience, prompting a large stage light to sweep across the room and settle on the two of them. Smiling, Lisa stood up and Vernon waved.
The singers Roy Orbison and Engelbert Humperdinck were there, and Elvis acknowledged their presence as well. He was in a jovial mood, joking with his band and trying on various hats handed to him by members of the audience. I sat in wonder, struck by what a charismatic performer he was. One moment, Elvis would be delivering an electric musical performance. The next, he was playful and flip, using humor to segue from one song to another.
Charlie, always ready with lyric sheets, handed one to Elvis before he sang “Bridge over Troubled Water” that night. It was a lengthy song, but Elvis only read a line or two and then discarded the sheets, giving me the sense that he really knew the song, but wanted to make sure he didn’t risk missing a single word.
