The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set

by Hining, Deborah;

  “Come on, Edna Mae. You look just fine. You’ve got such pretty legs, and you’ve got a beautiful face and hair. Why, you look downright cute in that shirt and those shoes! Here, I’ll fix your hair a little, and you’ll look just like the prettiest thing in Texas.”

  She fussed at Edna Mae’s hair for a minute before stepping back to eye her critically. “Oh, honey, you look just fine!” Leaning in, she giggled, “A sight better than Jimmy Lee,” she whispered.

  It took some doing, but all four managed to squeeze into Jimmy Lee’s truck: Sally Beth sat on Edna Mae’s lap while Lamentations was relegated to the back. They made it the mile or so down the highway to the diner, but it was awkward: if Jimmy Lee shifted gears, he had his hands between Lilly’s knees, so he just chugged along in first gear the whole way. They parked in the shade so Lamentations wouldn’t get too hot, then managed to clean themselves up a bit in the restrooms before Jimmy Lee took water to his dog while the girls found a booth.

  “How are all of us going to get to Dallas in Jimmy Lee’s truck?” asked Lilly after they had ordered. “There’s no way you can sit on Edna Mae’s lap that whole way. It’s even crowded with just three in the front seat.”

  Edna Mae spoke up. “Just take me to the bus station. I can get on home from here.” This was followed by an uncomfortable silence. It did make sense for Edna Mae to leave them, but Sally Beth did not want to part company so soon, and Jimmy Lee looked stricken. It was clear he did not want to part company, either.

  “Oh, don’t do that!” she chided. “You can’t go riding in a bus in those clothes and we’d just hate for you to leave us, and we want to meet your granny and all.” She considered their dilemma. It would be difficult for them all to ride very far in Jimmy Lee’s truck. “I know! I’ll ride in the back. I just love riding in the back of a truck! I used to do it all the time when I was little.”

  Edna Mae shook her head. “No, I’ll ride in the back. I’d like to be back there with Lamentations. He needs the company.”

  “Well, we can ride back there together,” countered Sally Beth. She did not want Edna Mae to be lonesome or feel awkward, and to tell the truth, it would be terribly awkward if even three of them rode in the front seat all the way to Dallas.

  “No lady is going to ride in the back,” announced Jimmy Lee. “I’ll ride back there with Lamentations, and you three can ride in the front. And that’s the end of it.”

  There was some more arguing. Lilly kept her mouth shut. It was clear she wasn’t about to ride in the back of a pickup truck with a crazy dog all the way to Dallas. Sally Beth knew what was on Jimmy Lee’s mind: he wanted to be with Edna Mae, but he was too shy to say it.

  “I tell you what,” she said. “We’ll take turns. Lilly and I will ride in the back first, and then after an hour or so, Jimmy Lee and Edna Mae can take a turn.”

  Lilly glared at her. “Sally Beth,” she hissed in her ear, “I am not about to ride down the highway in the back of a pickup truck. In Texas. When it’s a hundred degrees and the sun is just beating down. I’ll get sunburned in about five minutes, and you know what that wind will do to my hair, not to mention yours. Besides, I went all the way to Las Vegas and worked my tail off just so I could get up in the world and could stop being a raggedy old hillbilly, and here you are wanting me to ride in the back of a decrepit old pickup truck with an old hound dog, getting beat to death by the wind! I’m just not going to…”

  She stopped suddenly, staring at the double door of the diner, her eyes wide, and her mouth open. Sally Beth glanced up, and she, too, felt her own eyes and mouth fly open.

  In the doorway, in a shaft of bright sunshine, his arms flung wide to hold the twin doors open, his jeweled, white jumpsuit glowing, stood Elvis. She blinked. He looked like an angel. An Elvis angel all jeweled and in white. She expected him to break into song, and wondered for a moment if he had exchanged his guitar for a harp. She blinked again as Elvis stepped inside, followed by another Elvis, and another, and another. Before Sally Beth even noticed that she had forgotten to breathe, the room was filled with at least twenty Elvises, all dressed alike in jeweled, white bellbottom suits. They took seats at the tables all around them.

  “Lordamercy!” she breathed, staring. She thought her heart was going to just melt in a puddle. It already felt like Jell-O, and it was warming up fast.

  Edna Mae turned to look, then scooted farther down into the booth, muttering, “Looks like an Elvis convention. This is all we need.”

  Slowly, meaning dawned on Sally Beth. She had been all the way to Las Vegas and had not seen an Elvis impersonator the whole time, and now, here in the rough lands of West Texas, were a whole slew of them, all dandied up in their finest clothes. She couldn’t believe their good luck. Smiling broadly, she gave them a little wave. “Hi, you all. Nice to see you.”

  Lilly was just as happy to see them. She waved as well, and then, after a tiny hesitation, jumped up and went right to them. “Gee, you all look great! Where are you from? Where are you going? My sister and I are headed to Graceland, and we’re just thrilled to see you all here. We just love Elvis!”

  As much as Sally Beth wanted to join her, she was a little too bashful, so she just sat in the booth and grinned at them. She surely hoped they would come over and talk to her. They were the cutest things she had ever seen, and it was hard to hold herself back from busting out of the booth and running over to stand by Lilly.

  Lilly’s efforts were far from wasted. At least half of the Elvises warmed right up to her, introducing themselves and inviting her to join them, and then some of them moved over to the booth where Sally Beth, Edna Mae, and Jimmy Lee sat. Edna Mae made herself as small as she possibly could. Jimmy Lee looked confused and dazed, but he shook hands as Lilly urged each Elvis toward them.

  “This here is my sister, Sally Beth, and this is Jimmy Lee, a friend from back home, and this is Edna Mae; she’s a little shy, so don’t spook her. This is Elvis Tommy and Elvis Cliff and Elvis John, and Elvis Harry, and…” Sally Beth’s head began to spin with all the Elvises in their dazzling costumes. She smiled and smiled and vowed that this moment was the highlight of her life. Twenty Elvises! It even beat the Sinatra concert.

  “What are you all doing here?” asked Lilly.

  One of them pointed at the window. Outside in the parking lot was a bus with letters written in fancy script, Love Me Tender Gospel Choir.

  “We’re on tour. We just left a church service at the Baptist Church around the corner, and we stopped here to get something to go for lunch. Tonight we’ve got another concert at a church in Fort Worth, so we’re in a hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  Another Elvis spoke up. “Did I hear you say you were on your way to Graceland? We’ll end up there for the service on Wednesday. It’s the anniversary of his death.”

  “I know!” exclaimed Sally Beth, her eyes glowing. “We’re planning on being there for it. Imagine that.”

  Lilly clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh, her eyes happy and bright above it. “You’re headed for Fort Worth today?” She looked at Sally Beth, who, reading her mind, grinned back at her and gave a perky little shrug, hoping that Lilly was about to open up a world of delights.

  “Say,” said Lilly carefully. “We’re in a little fix here. My car caught fire just down the road and burned up. Did you see it?”

  “Yes, we did,” spoke up one of the Elvises. Sally Beth thought it was Elvis Tommy, but she wasn’t certain.

  “Anyway, our friend, Jimmy Lee happened to be here, and he has a truck, but we don’t all fit in, and I was wondering if maybe, if you don’t mind, and if you have room, maybe we could ride as far as Fort Worth with you?” She gave Elvis Tommy her most beguiling smile. Sally Beth added hers.

  A few of the Elvises looked at each other, and one shrugged. “Hey, Elvis Sam!” One called to an Elvis standing at the cash register. “We got room for three more as far as Fort Worth?”

  “Oh, not me!” exclaimed Edna Mae. “You
two go on. I’ll ride with Jimmy Lee.” She glanced at Jimmy Lee, smiled and blushed. Jimmy Lee looked like he had just won the lottery. He glowed through the soot he hadn’t been able to completely remove from his face

  “Just two more,” corrected Elvis. “That was their car burned up back there.”

  Elvis Sam did not look happy. He didn’t really look like Elvis, either, being short and skinny and a little old. He scowled at Lilly and Sally Beth and started to shake his head, when another Elvis spoke up. “Oh, come on, Sammy boy! These ladies are in need here. We got room to take them as far as Forth Worth. All the way to Graceland, even. They won’t cause trouble.” He winked at Lilly and said under his breath, “You look like a lot of trouble sweetheart, but I think we can handle it.” Lilly giggled and twinkled back at him.

  Another Elvis cajoled, “Yeah, Sammy, they’re damsels in distress. Elvis would never leave distressed damsels stranded. This was followed by a general chorus of, “Yeah, Sammy. Come on!”

  A few minutes later, Sally Beth and Lilly climbed aboard the Love Me Tender Gospel Choir bus, bag lunches grasped in their hands, and waved goodbye to Edna Mae and Jimmy Lee. All four of them thought they had died and gone to heaven.

  Eight

  Sally Beth was too excited to eat her lunch. The Elvises argued over who got to sit next to the girls, and her heart was all aflutter because they were all so handsome, and most of them looked so much like the real thing that she had to remind herself that the real Elvis was dead, and these were just pretend. She so wished her mother could have been there to see it, and she sent a little prayer heavenward to ask that if she could take the time, would she just take a glimpse down here and see what her girls had landed in.

  She settled by the handsomest one in her opinion. He was a little rough looking, with a bit of burr on his face, and he had a nice smile with even, white teeth. He was the biggest of all the Elvises, too. His name was Elvis Chuck. Lilly took longer to decide which one to sit beside, and spent a good forty-five minutes taking pictures and talking to each of them before she finally settled on sitting in the back with Elvis Tommy. As thrilled as Sally Beth was, she was even more thrilled when Elvis Sam stood in the front of the bus and blessed the meal before anyone took out their sandwiches and cups of Coke. Not only was she on a bus full of Elvises, but a bus full of Christian Elvises. Christian Elvises who could sing! Her heart sang its own little number over that.

  She turned to the one beside her. “Do you do this all the time? Be Elvis, I mean.”

  “Pretty much. We travel a lot, and we’re especially busy right now, it being the anniversary of his death.” He laughed shortly and leaned in toward her. “Although some people who should know say he isn’t really dead.”

  Sally Beth drew up in surprise. “I had heard that, but I thought it was just a rumor. You mean he really might not have died?”

  “That’s what they say. He faked his own death because he was sick of the way his life was turning out, and he just wanted to retire. Supposedly he lives over in Hot Springs now.”

  “Do you think it could be true?” Sally Beth tingled at the possibility.

  Elvis Chuck shrugged. “Could be. I’m not going to dispute it.”

  Elvis Sam stood up at the front of the bus again. “Okay, boys, we need to practice before we get to Fort Worth. This show’s going to be a little longer than the others, so I want you to leave the ladies alone while we add four more numbers.” He pulled out a pitch pipe. “It’s been a while since we ran through “I’ll Fly Away” so let’s try that one first.” He blew into the pipe, and suddenly, heavenly voices rose up all around Sally Beth, and they all sounded just like Elvis!

  Some bright morning, when this day is o’er, I’ll fly away

  To that home on heav’n’s celestial shore, I’ll fly away

  I’ll fly away, Oh, Glory, I’ll fly away

  When I die, hallelujah, by and by, I’ll fly away!

  She and Lilly couldn’t help themselves. Within the first two lines, they were singing along with the choir. After that, they ran through “Are You Washed in the Blood?”, “In My Heart There Rings a Melody”, “The Old Rugged Cross”, and many more. They sang until their voices were tired, they sang to the glory of heaven. They sang with their hearts making more music than their voices. It was heavenly, this trip down the dusty Texas highway in the plush, air conditioned bus, sitting beside a handsome Elvis, and Sally Beth thought her heart would fly away, right out of her chest and up into the sky where her mama and daddy and her good friend Holy Miracle Jones, not to forget Jesus, watched and smiled.

  All too soon, Elvis Sam made them stop so they could rest their voices, and the bus grew quiet. She and Elvis Chuck talked. Rather, Sally Beth talked while he mostly just looked at her, smiled, and nodded. Sometimes he asked her a question. She talked until she was hoarse, and then she laughed about how much she had talked, and Elvis Chuck looked at her and smiled and told her about his home and about how she reminded him of his mother, in a way, who was from Denmark and whose hair had been the same color when she was younger, and how her face was the same shape. He stopped talking after a while and started looking at her funny, and before she knew it, she wanted to lean in toward him and smell his skin, and maybe ruffle his hair a little and smooth out that cowlick right in the front. She got to wondering what it might feel like to place her palm on his cheek and feel the whiskers there. But he was a professional Elvis impersonator, and she was just a country girl from a hick town, and she knew she was being silly, and she hoped she hadn’t acted foolish. When he leaned toward her, as if to kiss her, she shrank back a fraction, smiled and looked away. It made her sad to think about how many girls he probably had kissed, and she didn’t want to be just one in a long string of them.

  Sally Beth was saving herself for the right man. Oh, she had kissed plenty of boys before, at least five to her recollection. There had been Darryl Millsap whom she had loved in the ninth grade. She was sure he was The One, but then he moved away when his daddy got transferred to Charleston, and although they swore they would write and stay true to each other forever, the long distance relationship had lasted only about six months. She had not been good at writing—every word had been a struggle, and then she had gotten so busy with the horses, she didn’t really notice when his last letter came. Then, when she was in the eleventh grade, there was Lonnie Odem. She had gone out with him for a few months before she realized she liked his twin brother, Johnnie, better, after she had been caught in a rainstorm and he picked her up and drove her home, and then, when she was just about to get out of the car, he leaned over and kissed her, surprising her both with the suddenness of it and the fact that her insides disintegrated into effervescent fire, and she realized she was with the wrong brother. She had kissed him back like she had just discovered kissing, but afterwards, she felt bad about cheating on Lonnie.

  It wasn’t fair to break up with Lonnie and then start dating Johnnie, so she just quit going out with boys altogether until after high school, when she started keeping company with Sam Abel, a nice Quaker boy her parents really liked, but it didn’t take long before she realized he was as dull as dirt. It was hard to break up with him because he really loved her, but she thought she would go out of her mind if she had to sit through one more evening of him talking about his prize heifers. Besides, he didn’t care for music and couldn’t sing a lick. He tried for her sake, but she found it painful to listen to him.

  And finally, there was Jay Hambly, who she thought was going to be The One as well, but they broke up last year after she got her cosmetology license. He got to acting funny and implied that she was going to start putting on airs now that she would be traveling in high-fashion circles. He wanted her to get a job down at the mill with him until they got married and started having children. She didn’t pay much attention to that until he started talking about some of the things dutiful wives were supposed to do, and being an independent woman with her cosmetology license was not one of them.
She woke up one morning realizing she could do a sight better than Jay Hambly.

  Now that she was free, she could have kissed anybody she liked, and although she certainly found Elvis Chuck very attractive with lips that looked kissable, she cautioned herself that he was a stranger, someone who didn’t know her, and neither one of them could possibly know the true value of one another. Her mama, and her daddy, too, had talked to her about how important it was for her to guard her heart, and how she should keep her love safe and pure for The One that God had picked out for her, who would be with her all of his days, and she well knew the veracity of their counsel. She remembered how her old friend Holy Miracle Jones had teased her about when she would find that man.

  “He is both near and far, Sally Beth,” he said to her once, “and he will flee you before he comes running to you. And he will love you truly for all of his days.” Holy Miracle always spoke in riddles that way, but he knew what he was talking about, and she did not doubt the truth of any of his words. Elvis Chuck was near now, and his traveling would take him far, but in her heart she knew she probably would never see him again after today. Besides, he wasn’t fleeing her now. It wouldn’t do to think of him as anything other than a happy afternoon on the Texas highway, and it certainly wouldn’t do to be leading him on by letting him kiss her when she knew there was no future for them.

  She smiled at him, drew a breath, and launched into a new topic, and the moment passed. Elvis Chuck was funny and kind, and she was having such a grand time that she wondered if Lilly was having fun, too. When she turned around to look for her, she was shocked and pained at what she saw.

  Lilly was in the back seat of the bus with Elvis Tommy, her arms were wrapped around him, and she was kissing him for all she was worth. She was practically lying down on the back seat and Elvis Tommy was just all over her! At least she thought it was Elvis Tommy, it was hard to tell with them all in a tangle like that. He had taken off his pearly, jeweled jacket, and he was kissing her as if he had earned the right to. If her daddy had been here, he would have given him a good talking to about how he was being disrespectful to Lilly and that he certainly had not earned any rights at all regarding his baby girl.