by Leanna Ellis
The woman looks through the window at Elvis, then says, “Guess that’s as good a place as any. You know, Elvis spent a good amount of time in Texas.”
“Uh-huh.” She’ll never know how much time this Elvis has spent there.
After the two women disappear, I meet Rae’s gaze. “Don’t worry, I’m not taking him home. I was just throwing them off the scent.” When she nods her understanding, I add, “Thanks for noticing that they were—”
“They were trying to steal Elvis!”
“They won’t be back,” the man says.
“Yes, well, it’s over,” I say. “Maybe Elvis is considered haute decor here in Arkansas.”
“You’d be surprised.” The man grins, revealing tobacco-stained teeth.
“No harm done anyway.” I run my finger along the car door, check to make sure the door is locked still.
The small crowd that gathered when the commotion started begins to disperse. Folks entering or leaving the restaurant give us long, curious glances.
“Uh,” Ivy grunts, jerking her head toward the restaurant, “lunch is served.”
Through the window, I can see our waitress setting plates and platters on our table.
“You ladies staying or heading out?” the man asks, opening the restaurant door wide.
“Staying.” But I can’t leave Elvis. What if someone else decides to take a closer look at the King?
Rae touches my shoulder. “You go on in and eat. I’ll guard Elvis.”
“No, no. You should eat. It’s okay. I’ll stay out here. My car, my Elvis, my problem.”
“Who’s gonna steal him now?” Ivy asks.
Everyone suddenly appears suspicious to me. I know Stu didn’t ask me to bring Elvis to Memphis only to have him stolen. With a heavy sigh, I say, “Okay, there’s only one thing to do. Hold the door, please.”
I unlock the car door, unbuckle Elvis, and lift him out of the car. I wobble, then gain my footing and waddle toward the trucker. Rae shuts the car door behind me and grabs hold of Elvis’s shoulders.
“What are you doing?” Ivy asks.
Already huffing with the exertion of carrying the King, who feels as if he’s gained weight on the drive, I say, “Elvis is hungry.”
“He’s talking to you?” Ivy asks.
I grin and thank the man, who tips his hat as we pass (whether it’s to us or saluting Elvis, I’m not sure). A minute later we place the bust on the chair next to me. Ivy shifts to the other side of the table, sitting next to Rae.
The waitress does a double take as she passes, then comes back grinning. She plunks a ketchup bottle on the table. “Coffee, sugar?”
“He’s cutting back on caffeine,” I say.
“’Bout time he started to eat healthy.” She props her fist on an ample hip. “Heard tell Elvis come through these parts years ago.”
Ivy blows out a puffy breath that lifts her bangs, then she slumps down in her seat across from the King.
“Really?” I unscrew the lid and pour ketchup on the side of my plate. “Did you meet him?”
“Oh, heavens, no. But I sure do wish somebody like Tim McGraw would come through now. I’d give his wife, Faith, a run for her money. Guess I shouldn’t say that, being a good Christian woman. But he sure is somethin’.” She laughs. “You girls need anything else, just let me know.”
A husky man stops at our table, rolls a toothpick to the side of his mouth. “Where’d you get him?”
“A souvenir,” I say.
“My wife sure would like one of those.”
“Who wouldn’t?” I swirl a fat French fry through the ketchup.
“You’re not eating,” Rae says to Ivy.
The girl pushes her salad around in the bowl but hasn’t eaten anything. “I think I lost my appetite.”
“You know what Elvis would say?” I ask, putting my arm around my stiff and unresponsive dinner companion.
“What’s that?” Rae asks, her eyebrow lifting with amusement—or was it a challenge? Frankly, I had no idea what Elvis would say; I simply want to lighten the mood, add a little laughter. “Well, uh, he’d say …” I try a stumbling, bumbling impersonation of the King. After all, I’d heard Stu do it a thousand times. “Try the pie. Two helpings is better than one. Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Rae laughs first. Relief washes over me.
Then she orders a piece of pecan pie. When it arrives, she places it in front of Elvis. With a shrug, she says, “It was one of his favorites.”
* * *
“TENNESSEE,” I READ the highway sign before the bridge as our headlights pave the way. “Welcome to Memphis, ladies.”
“Over the river and through the woods to Elvis’s house we go.” Rae sits straighter and peers through the windshield.
We can’t see much but concrete and steel.
“Could you reach in the glove compartment and get the map?” I ask Rae. Before we left Dallas, I printed off a map and directions leading to the hotel.
She pushes the button, but the door doesn’t budge. “It’s now,” she sings out in her best imitation of Elvis, “or never.”
“You have to push really hard,” I say.
She does and the compartment door clunks open. Pulling out the map, she reads the directions.
“Stay south on 55,” Rae directs.
I avoid a big semi that doesn’t seem to see me.
“Not much has changed,” she says, more to herself than me. “And yet I don’t recognize any of it.”
I glance in my rearview. Ivy uses her backpack as a pillow propped against Elvis’ side. Her eyes are closed. We’ve been driving since Little Rock, almost two hours of straight, flat highway and no restroom stops. I’m glad for the darkness that has fallen as I feel less conspicuous with Elvis riding in the back seat.
The electronic beeping of a rock beat interrupts Elvis’s rockabilly rendition of “Little Sister” playing on the stereo. “I think that’s yours, Ivy.”
She wakes quickly, which makes me wonder if she was only playing possum. “Yeah,” she says brusquely into her cell phone. “I don’t know.” She leans her arm on the front seat. “Where are we?”
“Memphis. Is it your dad?”
“You wanna talk to him?” She shoves the phone toward me. Placing my left hand on the steering wheel, I hold the phone with my right. “Ben?”
“What happened to Ivy?” he asks, his voice sounding amazingly clear.
“She handed me the phone. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Where are you now?”
“Memphis. But we haven’t reached the hotel yet. I can call you with our room number when we get settled. I reserved us a suite, so we’ll be together.” A room together seemed the safest solution with a minor. But a suite will give us more room and some privacy.
“Sounds good,” he says. “How’s she doing?”
“Okay.” I shift my gaze to Rae, remembering her concerns. I wonder if she’d tell Ben. But now isn’t the time. No need to worry Ivy’s dad when I have no facts, no way of knowing anything delinquent about his daughter yet. “We’re all kind of tired from being in the car all day.”
“What took you so long? You didn’t have car trouble, did you?”
“Oh, no. We, uh …” I glance at Ivy in the rearview mirror as she digs through her backpack. “We just made more stops than we anticipated.”
“She’s not being a pain, is she?”
Red brake lights flash in front of me, and I touch my foot to the brakes. After a moment the long line of cars moving along the highway slowly picks up its pace again.
“No, not at all.” Ivy is respectful. Just quiet. Yet I also know, or suspect, something is wrong. But I can’t say so in front of Ivy, or even over the phone.
“You’d tell me, right?”
“Of course.” When I have something to tell. Until then …
“Take the next exit,” Rae says.
“We’re almost there,” I tell Ben on the phone.
“O
kay, call me later.”
“You should have come with us,” I say.
“Nah. Somebody has to hold down the fort.”
“Okay, Dad,” I tease with a wry smile, as I know he’s going to worry about all of us until we arrive safely home. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“Here,” Rae says, pointing to Elvis Presley Boulevard. “This is it.”
“Okay.” I fumble with the steering wheel and the phone, letting it drop into my lap and yell, “Bye!” as I signal and take the exit. “Imagine having your own street named after you.” In the rearview mirror, I catch Ivy’s eyes rolling upward. I consider keeping a count of that particular expression. I bet we can break one hundred before the end of the trip. “I wonder what it must have been like for Elvis.”
“Confining,” Rae says, folding the map.
“Let’s get checked in, then we’ll find some dinner.” I turn right on Lonely Street and then veer left into the Heartbreak Hotel parking lot.
* * *
“SEE SEE RIDER” blares out of the hotel’s sound system and can be heard throughout the parking lot as we unload our suitcases. Temporarily, we leave Elvis in the back seat.
In the lobby a small old-style television shows Elvis boxing in Kid Galahad. The hotel boasts Elvis movies twenty-four hours a day. Already I’m getting weary of the King.
The Heartbreak Hotel is as worn and weary looking as I am after a long day of travel. We pass the cherry-red couch and purple chairs to check in at the desk. Then we head up to our rooms and settle in.
The suite is large and roomy, and we each go to our separate rooms to unpack. I lay on the bed for a minute, stretch my back, and wish I were home. A rumbling in my stomach gets me back on my feet.
I knock on Ivy’s door.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me.” I open the door a crack. “Are you ready?”
She sits up on the bed, her suitcase open, her backpack slung over the chair in the corner.
“Are you hungry?” After checking into the hotel and unloading our luggage, we all took a few minutes to freshen up for dinner.
“Not really.”
“But we haven’t eaten since our late lunch. Come on.”
“I’m tired.” She has dark circles under her eyes. Or is it remnants of mascara?
“We could order room service—”
“Go to dinner. I’ll be fine here.”
“We might need your help.” I try to figure out a way to get Ivy to come with us without demanding it and alienating her in the process.
“With what?”
“Elvis.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“We’ve got to get Elvis into the room. And we don’t exactly want to make a big deal of carrying him through the lobby.”
“Embarrassing, huh?”
“And heavy.” I lower my voice. “It might be too heavy for Rae. You know?”
She puffs out a hefty breath. “Okay.” She scoots to the edge of the bed. “I’ll come.”
“Good. You never know. You might be an Elvis fan by the time this is all over.”
She sticks her toes into her flip-flops. “Not likely.”
Chapter Eight
(Now and Then There’s) A Fool Such as I
We’re not taking him to dinner with us, are we?” Ivy asks, standing outside the Cadillac.
Elvis lies in the back seat hidden beneath a beige hotel towel. We brought several out to the car as the towels are small. I covered him so no passersby would decide to make off with him.
“No, of course not.” I remember the ruckus he caused in Arkansas. “But we shouldn’t leave him in the car either.”
Rae nods. “We’ll take him into the hotel for safekeeping.”
“I don’t think I can carry him that far alone.” I glance across the parking lot at the five-story hotel and think of the
walk to the elevator, then to the suite. “It’s a long way.”
“Not to worry.” Rae touches my elbow. “I’ll help.”
Ivy laughs. Both Rae and I stare at her, surprised since she’s been somber all the way to Tennessee. “I can’t wait to see you two carrying this thing through the lobby.”
I smile, but it feels strained. I was hoping Ivy would help carry him, not Rae. “I don’t want to advertise that we have him. Most people who stay at the Heartbreak Hotel are Elvis fans. Someone might get the idea to steal him.”
“Can’t imagine that happening,” Rae says with a grin.
“We’ll have to sneak him in through a side door.”
The clerk at check-in didn’t encourage us to use any door but the front one. But a side one is available.
“Is there one of those carts for luggage?” Ivy asks.
“Not that I’ve seen.” I want to ask someone to turn off the Elvis music that carries through the parking lot like the odor from a fast-food restaurant. “I didn’t even see a bellboy.”
“We’ll have to carry Elvis,” Rae says. “Ivy, you run ahead of us to the side door. We’ll go in there.”
“Maybe you should hold the door, Rae,” I suggest.
“Are you saying I’m too old?”
“Of course not, but—”
“Ivy doesn’t look strong enough to pick up a toothpick. I’ll help carry the King. Besides, I knew him personally.”
“Okay.” Not wanting to hurt her feelings or risk an argument, I open the car door and lug the Elvis bust out of the back. The towel slips to the concrete, and Ivy picks it up and holds it until Rae and I balance Elvis horizontally between us. Then Ivy lays the towel over his face, shrouding him like a corpse. I start to laugh, then Rae joins in, followed by Ivy. We look as if we’re pallbearers for one of the munchkins from the land of Oz.
The bust starts to tip over, and I almost lose my grip on Elvis’s ear. We sober immediately.
“No more laughing,” Rae says, taking on a stern expression, “or I won’t be able to hold onto him.”
I nod, fighting a sudden need to giggle. Together we begin the slow, shuffling walk across the parking lot. I walk backward and Rae cautions me, “Slowly, slowly. One more. Careful of the speed bump.”
Ivy walks far ahead of us, turning to look back occasionally to see if we need help, but I can tell she doesn’t want to be seen with us. Not sure I blame her.
“Wait!” I yell as the towel starts to slip off, revealing half of Elvis’ face. I edge closer to Rae, pushing his pompadour into my stomach, propping it with one hand beneath, and pull the towel over his face again with my other hand. Rae grimaces under the weight.
When we reach the corner of the building, we wait for a car to pass, then another. I’m thankful for the cloak of semidarkness. Then we toddle along again and begin the slow trek toward the side door. A motorcycle zips behind me, roaring as it goes. I gasp. Rae yells, “Hey, buddy! Slow down.”
“Careful,” I say. “Don’t drop him.”
Ivy jogs ahead of us to the side door. By the time we inch our way up onto the sidewalk, she comes back. “It’s locked. We need our room key to get in.”
We stop. Elvis nudges my hip. My arms start aching. I know Rae has to be tired too. “Should we set it down here?”
“No, no.” Her breath comes in little huffs.
“Ivy, grab the car keys out of my pocket. The room key is in my purse in the Cadillac.” My words come out gruff. My fingers have gone numb. Standing still takes effort as Ivy fishes in my pocket and removes the keys.
“I’ll be right back.”
We wait at the side entrance, losing patience and strength with each passing minute.
“Could she be lost?” Rae asks.
I shrug, then regret it as the towel slips off the bust and falls in a heap on the concrete. “She might have needed to pee again.”
Rae chuckles.
“Let’s set it down for a minute. Give our arms a rest.”
The base clunks against the concrete.
“Whoa!” Rae loses her balance on the wheelchair access ramp an
d tips over backwards, landing on her rump.
The bust teeters on a corner of its base. I reach for it, but it flops forward. The King nosedives into my aunt’s lap. With my arms outstretched, I freeze, unable to move, to believe my eyes. “Oh, Rae! Are you okay?”
She tilts her head back, fluffs her long hair Mae West style. “I could use a cigarette.”
Chuckling, I lean forward and pull the King off my aunt.
“He always was a bad boy,” she says.
I feel my face reddening and am grateful for the darkness. I give him a playful slap on the hard cheek. “Behave yourself.”
“He never could keep his hands off me.” Rae demurely rearranges her skirt to cover her long legs.
Shaking my head, I say, “Need a hand up?”
“I think I’ll rest here for a minute. But I’m okay.”
I push Elvis out of the way of the door and cover him with two towels, just in case anyone walks by. But if someone does, they’ll think it’s E.T. in his Halloween costume. Then I plop down on the sidewalk beside Rae. “You don’t really smoke, do you?”
“Not anymore.”
“Well, I’m glad you quit. It isn’t good for you.”
“I have so much to live for.”
Her statement surprises me. I give her a sharp glance. What I thought was sarcasm seems genuine and somehow pricks my soul. I remember what she told me about my mother drinking, and I wonder if she smoked, too. Never before this weekend would I have considered that a possibility. “Did my mother smoke?”
“Beverly? She gave me my first cigarette. Then she quit cold turkey and turned into a Goody Two-shoes.”
“But you weren’t?”
“Not at all. I wasn’t a bad kid, but I wasn’t a follower. My mother used to say I marched to the beat of my own drummer. I guess she was right.”
Knowing what little I know about Rae, I can see that. She exudes confidence, as if she doesn’t care what anyone else thinks or says. I lean more toward the opposite, having always been concerned with what Stu thought or, before that, my mother. Ivy, however, acts more like Rae. But I wonder if it’s all a pretense to cover up a deeper pain.
“How did you get to be that way? I mean, it’s so hard for me not to think about others. What they think or would say. I still worry about what Stu would say. Ridiculous, huh?”
