In Those Dazzling Days of Elvis

by Josephine Rascoe Keenan

  “I was fixin’ to go, but if you’re gonna sit and talk to me for a while, I’ll get you an ice cream and have one myself.”

  “Just a coke,” I said.

  He returned with my drink and a banana split for himself.

  “How can you stay so skinny?” I said.

  “From working in those oil fields. I burn off everything I eat.” He took a huge bite. “Hey, I got put on the same crew as your old man the other day. He’s something else.”

  “Was he . . . okay?” I asked.

  It was common knowledge that Dad often couldn’t stay off the sauce long enough to put in a day’s work.

  Farrel’s eyes softened. “He wasn’t drunk, if that’s what you’re asking, but he talked about the beer he had in the Frigidaire waiting for him when he got home. He told me you spent last weekend with him.”

  I blinked. “Why would he tell you that? Does he know who you are?”

  Farrel wiped dripping chocolate off his chin.

  “I couldn’t hardly keep him from knowing my name, and I told him I go out with you.”

  What did Dad think about Farrel?

  “Him and my grandpa took me fishing,” I said.

  Farrel looked surprised. “That’s the spirit.”

  “What is?”

  “Dropping all that fancy talk when you’re not around your mama.”

  In a flash, I realized my mistake. “I mean, he and my grandpa.”

  We both laughed, but my laugh was fake. Slip-ups like that could blow my cover, big time.

  “Well, now that you’re an expert fisherman, how would you like to go out on the lake with me to set a trot line Saturday night?”

  “No, thanks. I hate fishing.”

  “Scared a snake might follow the flashlight beam and get in the boat?”

  “There’d already be a snake in the boat. You!”

  He gave me a sly smile.

  “Besides, Bubba John told me what you said,” I went on.

  “About what?”

  “Me, having plenty of blouses a fellow can get his hand down into without a struggle with buttons.”

  “What?” He put down his plastic spoon. “I didn’t say nothing like that to him! You gotta believe me, honey.”

  I did believe him, in spite of what I said next to bait him.

  “I can’t believe you’d take our relationship with such a grain of salt.”

  He reached across the table and laid his hand on mine. “I don’t, Julie. You know I don’t. I take it very serious.”

  For a long moment, we looked at each other without saying a word while my mind raced. Did he love Julie? Did he plan on trying to get me to do IT with him, thinking I was Julie? Once a boy got to first base, he expected to get there on every date. My mother had beat that into my brain, and I believed it ’cause she was on the ball when it came to the male sex.

  His face gave me no answers. Farrel was a cool one.

  “I’ll pick you up at seven thirty. It’ll take me that long to get home and get showered and doused up with Old Spice. That smell is what makes you hot for me, isn’t it?”

  What my sister saw in this guy was more than I would ever know. I moved my hand from underneath his.

  “I already have a date.”

  “With Bubba John? You broke it. I heard you yelling that all over the parking lot. I don’t want you going out with him.”

  “You have no claim on me.” I remembered something Julie had told me the night before she left, and I threw it at him. “You’ve never so much as sent me a valentine.”

  “I don’t do stuff like that. Has Bubba John Younger sent you one? All he wants is to get in your pants.”

  Right then and there, I decided to do what Julie should have done a long time ago with Farrel and maybe with all boys. Obey Frances Latimer’s dictate of “Treat ’em rough and tell ’em nothing.”

  “I thought that was all you wanted.” Again I borrowed from Julie’s secrets she’d confided to me those nights of my training to become her. “You had dropped me flat until I called you that time and said I would do IT. Frances, herself, told me you said taking me out felt like ‘robbing the cradle.’”

  His wary face said he was thinking fast.

  “I’ll show you on Saturday night what going out with you makes me feel like.”

  “Don’t you ever learn?”

  He glanced over at the Dreamsicle. “Keep your voice down. I can’t fight my basic instincts.”

  “You’d better.”

  “Listen, Julie, I promise I won’t try nothing. You know I wouldn’t, not after . . . Frances.” His voice broke saying her name. “I still can’t get over it. ’Specially with Don talking me to death about it every time we go out for a beer together. And that’s practically every damn night. He’s still all tore up.”

  He certainly sounded sincere. Maybe he did care something about my sister. My opinion of him softened a little.

  “I’ll think about it.” I got up from the table with a tilt of my head toward the car. “I don’t want to hold them up.”

  “Wait. Are you still mad about me and Maylene going to the dance?”

  Julie should never have let on it had hurt her so much.

  “Of course not. Justin is a much better dancer than you.”

  He flinched. For a minute I thought I’d gone too far, but Frances’s motto proved true. Treating him rough made him want me more.

  “I wish I hadn’t done that, taken her to the dance.”

  I laughed. “Like I said, no sweat. I have to go. They’re waiting.”

  “Will you go out with me on Saturday?”

  “I might. Eat your ice cream. It’s melting.”

  He gave me a shrewd look. “You’re not yourself, Julie.”

  No kidding.

  Chapter 16

  PICK YOUR POISON

  I waited until Thursday to tell Elizabeth about the dates. She flipped her lid.

  “You can’t go out with Farrel Budrow!”

  “You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

  “While you’re living under my roof, I can and I will!”

  Standoff. I pressed my lips together, tight, to keep from talking. Neither Elizabeth nor I said a word for a full minute. Next one who speaks loses.

  I lost.

  “Elizabeth, I have to go. If I don’t, he might get suspicious, figure it out that I’m not Julie,” I said, trying to threaten her enough to give in. I wanted to go out with him—see what all the fuss was about. I had only spent about three hours total in Farrel’s company one night when he got in my car at the Dairyette and we rode around a while. Nothing happened, except a lot of talk about how Julie was chasing him. I wanted to find out exactly what this cat had going that would make my sister go so ape over him.

  My own mother had made it plain to Julie that her missing relationship with our dad had driven her to unsuitable substitutes for a parent’s love and support, like Farrel, a guy way too old for her. I wondered why I hadn’t gone in search of those substitutes. Maybe because of my stepdad, who, when he was around, showered me with affection and treated me like his own.

  “Carmen, you need to call me Mama.”

  “And you need to call me Julie.”

  “I know, but it’s hard.” She stifled a sob and reached for the box of tissues beside her easy chair. “My darling is so unhappy in that place. It’s all I can do to keep from going back out there and bringing her home.”

  I eased down on one of the red couches. “You got a letter from her?”

  “Yes. I’ll share it with you, but first, promise me you won’t go on a date with that boy. What will I do if you get pregnant too?”

  “I am not going to get pregnant by Farrel Budrow, or anyone. I’m not even going to let him feel me up.”

  Elizabeth shuddered. “Can’t you say ‘engage in a petting session’?”

  “Mama E, I’m not you. I have to talk like I talk, not like some frustrated grammar police. Hey, how about me calling
you that—Mama E?”

  She expelled a quick breath that reeked of frustration. “It might do. We have to practice saying ‘Mama something,’ or we’ll surely get caught when she arrives.”

  “You’re rattling my head. When who arrives?”

  “Old Aunt Hat.”

  I couldn’t take much more of this household. No wonder Julie turned to Farrel.

  “Who’s Old Aint Hat?”

  “My Great-Aunt Hattie Lawrence. I was a Lawrence before I married Julie’s, uh, your father. Aunt Hattie lived here then, just up the street a few houses. Her sneeze was so loud you could hear her a block away.” Elizabeth chuckled and gazed out the window into the backyard. “Look, the zinnia seeds I planted are up.”

  “Well, it is April.” I shifted with impatience. “So what about Old Aint Hat?”

  “She lives in New Orleans now, and she’s coming for a visit. She says because it’s been so long. But I know better.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s coming to make sure we’re living up to her rigid standards. To put it bluntly, she’s coming here to inspect.”

  “Oh, Lord. Inspect what?”

  “Julie, to see how she has turned out—to make sure that, under my tainted guidance as a divorcee, she has become a ‘fine young lady.’”

  “Whoa! That’s heavy stuff.”

  “And since you girls have changed places, you’re the Julie she’s going to have to inspect.”

  “Lord, give me strength.”

  “Look at it as a kind of test.”

  “What happens if I don’t pass?”

  “There can be no question of your not passing. You have to pass. If you as Julie live up to her rigid standards, she might leave me a little something in her will, instead of giving it all to charity, as she is wont to do.”

  “On second thought, with money at stake, I believe I can call you ‘Mama’ after all.”

  “That’ll be a help.”

  “I wouldn’t want to make you lose out on inheriting some bread. But how about I call you Mama E until she gets here? If I get in the habit of that, then that is what I’ll say if I have a slip and forget to call you just plain Mama. We can always say Julie has taken to calling you that.”

  Elizabeth finally smiled. “Right on.”

  “You’re getting hip, Mama E! Now, will you let me go out with Farrel?”

  She opened a note-sized envelope. “I’ll read you Julie’s letter first. Then we’ll discuss it.”

  April 2, 1957

  Dear Mama,

  Just a note to let you know I’m doing okay. It’s hard to believe it was only day before yesterday that you brought me here. I’d have written yesterday, but they kept me pretty busy.

  She paused, frowning. “Doing what, I wonder?”

  There are lots of girls here, so I don’t think I’ll be lonesome. It’s reassuring to know that I am not the only girl in the world to make a mistake.

  Elizabeth looked up at me, tears welling in her eyes. “Poor baby. Where was I? Oh, yes.”

  They let us go out if we want to, but only as far as we can walk, of course, so you can tell Carmen she was right. I have no use for my driver’s license.

  “What makes you think she’s so unhappy?” I asked.

  “Hold your horses. I’m not through yet.”

  We have to make up our own beds every day, but I expected that. We also have to clean the bathrooms, but that seems only fair. The food is good, but mostly vegetables and cornbread. The girls say that on Sundays we have something special, like chicken and dumplings or beef brisket. It’s not The Golden Pheasant, by any means. Ha.

  I hope everything is going well at home and Carmen is not having too much trouble turning into me. I hope you are well too, Mama. Write soon. I live for the day I can come home.

  Much love to you and Carmen,

  Julie

  P.S. They are already after me to sign the papers to give the baby up for adoption. I am taking my own sweet time reading them over, though. I remember the advice you got from the lawyers you work for: Read thoroughly anything you sign.

  Elizabeth wept into her already soggy tissue. I went over and tentatively patted her on the shoulder. She reached up and squeezed my hand.

  “I’m sorry.” She yanked several fresh tissues from the box beside her chair. “I’d give anything for a cigarette.”

  I would have given the same thing for one, but I forced myself to ignore both our cravings. I backed to the couch and sat again.

  “She’s not complaining,” I ventured.

  “She wouldn’t,” Elizabeth said, “but you have to read between the lines. Meat only one day a week. And then brisket or rooster.”

  I raised questioning eyebrows. “Rooster?”

  Elizabeth answered me like I was a total idiot, which I was when it came to cooking.

  “You don’t know that many a tough old rooster is used to make chicken and dumplings?”

  “Oh, guess I didn’t.”

  We sat in silence another full minute.

  “And she’s forced to clean the bathrooms. They should have help hired to do that.” Elizabeth shook her head. “What is she not saying? It’s clear that conditions there are, at the very least, not what she’s used to.”

  Fear of setting Elizabeth off made me duck my head when I asked, “It’s not supposed to be a resort, is it?”

  “Some places like that are. I didn’t have the money to send her to one of those.”

  “When does Aint Hattie get here?”

  “In early June.”

  “School’ll be out by then. Will I have to be here alone with her all day while you’re at work?”

  Elizabeth sat up straight and said with authority, “No, you’re going to summer school.”

  “Whaaat? No, I’m not!”

  “It’ll get you out of the house for half a day.”

  I jumped up and paced across the room.

  “Summer school lasts for six whole weeks. Is she coming for a visit or moving in?”

  Elizabeth laughed.

  “They’re not offering anything in summer school but American History. I’m taking that now.”

  “And making Ds. Your mother gave me your last report card before she left. You’ll repeat it. I don’t allow a child of mine to make Ds, especially in American History, the most important subject offered in school.”

  “I’m not a child of yours.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes seemed to dilate. “Oh my God. I must be losing my mind.”

  “I’m losing mine too,” I said. “I’ve got two boys beating on me for a date this coming Saturday.”

  “Who’s the other one?”

  “Bubba John Younger.”

  “You aren’t going out with him either.”

  “Why not?”

  “Any boy who has handled the panties of a school teacher is not fit company for a nice young lady.”

  “You heard about the undies on the flagpole, then?”

  “Yes, I heard.”

  “But he saved my ass.”

  “Don’t say it!” Elizabeth cried out too late. She composed herself. “You mustn’t use expressions like that. How did he save you?”

  “By forging the note supposedly from you that got me transferred out of French class and thereby saved both our you-know-whatses, because if I’d gone into that class not knowing a word of French, our little ruse, as you refer to it, would have been blown sky high, and Julie’s and your reputations smeared forever, not to mention mine and my mother’s and maybe even your ex-husband’s. There! Put that in your pipe and smoke it. And I am going out with one of them on Saturday. Bubba John or Farrel. Pick your poison.”

  Chapter 17

  HARD-HEADED WOMAN

  She picked Bubba John.

  “Having hung Glovina Armstrong’s panties on the flagpole pales in comparison to getting my daughter pregnant.”

  I didn’t voice my thought that her daughter had played a role in the pregnancy bit.
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  I picked them both. I’d go out with Bubba John first, before he got liquored up, make him bring me home early, then I’d call Farrel and tell him he could pick me up in twenty minutes. That would fit nicely into my scheme of treating Farrel rough and telling him nothing. Also, I wouldn’t piss either of them off by turning one down. Nor would I have to be with either of them so long I’d increase the chances of blowing the ruse.

  On Saturday night, I took two hours to get dressed. I was starting to like being in Julie’s room without her. It became mine then—all the pretty clothes, the perfume bottles on her dressing table, the earrings she hadn’t taken with her, and the silky underwear. Most of all I liked the pink walls and fuzzy white throw rug at the foot of her bed. It was my bed now, at least for a few months.

  After soaking in a hot tub, I stood naked in front of the mirror and beneath the ceiling fan, allowing its slow-whirling blades to dry me off. Mama E had the attic fan going, so it was cool, despite the 98 degree temperature outside, and it only early April.

  My body was firm like Julie’s, but my boobs were fuller and my hips slightly wider. We were the same height. I probably weighed a few more pounds—until she got pregnant, that is.

  My conscience needled me. She wouldn’t like it that I was going out with Farrel. Sometimes at night I lay in bed and imagined what I would say to him when we were alone together in his classy car. I would continue the deception and pray he bought it. I’d make him burn for me, let him lure me to the backseat thinking I was Julie. Then, since I was me and not her, slap his face off.

  I sorted through her underwear drawer and chose a pair of lacey white panties and a matching bra. They weren’t satin, but they weren’t cheap either.

  At the closet, I flipped through the sundresses, the skirts, the pretty blouses. The outfit I longed to wear was the midnight-blue dress with the tiny gold stars and the see-through coat. I took it out of the closet and held it up at the mirror to see how I’d look in it. It turned my eyes dark blue, like it had turned hers. I laid the coat on a chair, slipped the dress on over my head, and pulled it straight.